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Mapbox-gl-js is no longer under the 3-Clause BSD license

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Re: Mapbox-gl-js is no longer under the 3-Clause BSD license

#111

Post by Doctor_Fegg »

tmcw wrote: post #104
themakermark wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be interested to hear why. I have no problem with companies choosing not to open source in the first place, it is just the idea of taking an open source project with an active community around it and closing it up that is a tough pill to swallow.

I won't get into all the context, but I think we should consider whether a community without contributors is a community. GL JS never had major active contributors outside of the company, and there are no self-funded webgl experts with lots of time who are ready to maintain a fork. OSS, we hoped, was about enabling people and unlocking people's ability to collaborate. It turns out that in 2020, it's mostly helping co…

It's certainly true that GL JS and Native never really got third-party contributors, and that the complexity of the task is a major reason; like you say, there aren't many GL hobby devs. Another reason is that they're simply great libraries and there hasn't been that much reason for anyone to contribute - I can only ever recall encountering one significant issue and it wasn't a showstopper.

But there's more to it. When the roadmap of an open-source project is tightly controlled by a sponsor, that can make third-party contributions hard or impossible. I know OSRM much better than MBGL so I'll cite an example from that - the distance matrix issue. This is massive for many users, plays right to OSRM's strengths, but Mapbox wouldn't accept patches to provide it for _years_. IIRC it only got in when Mapbox's attention shifted to Valhalla.

I'm not blaming the Mapbox devs at all for that; it wasn't important for Mapbox's business, and any extra code inevitably brings a maintenance burden. But it partly explains why third-party contributors are reluctant to contribute when the roadmap's out of their control.

Back on MBGL, there was/is a community, but the community formed around MVT rather than MBGL specifically - again, possibly because MBGL is just so good. https://github.com/mapbox/awesome-vector-tiles sums up the enormous community energy in the space (I think that might be your document originally, apologies if not). It's kind of a shame that MBGL being so far ahead of everything else has probably crimped development on alternative renderers.

Re: Mapbox-gl-js is no longer under the 3-Clause BSD license

#112

Post by pheelicks »

resoluteteeth wrote: post #103
pheelicks wrote: post #26

What a shame. I guess they got sick of people taking their code and ripping out their API subscriptions. For anyone interested in an open source mapping library (that also has 3D support) that can handle raster data (including the Mapbox tiles), I launched a project 2 weeks ago that is the culmination of 7 years effort: https://github.com/felixpalmer/procedural-gl-js/ . I must say (while acknowledging my huge bias) t…

> For anyone interested in an open source mapping library (that also has 3D support) that can handle raster data (including the Mapbox tiles), I launched a project 2 weeks ago that is the culmination of 7 years effort: https://github.com/felixpalmer/procedural-gl-js/ . This is really impressive. Just one question about the distance fog, though: as you say it does give the scene scale when you're close to ground, but…

You're not the first person to point this out and the answer is: yes it does need tweaking. I'll add it to the list!

Re: Mapbox-gl-js is no longer under the 3-Clause BSD license

#113

Post by tuukkah »

tmcw wrote: post #104
themakermark wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be interested to hear why. I have no problem with companies choosing not to open source in the first place, it is just the idea of taking an open source project with an active community around it and closing it up that is a tough pill to swallow.

I won't get into all the context, but I think we should consider whether a community without contributors is a community. GL JS never had major active contributors outside of the company, and there are no self-funded webgl experts with lots of time who are ready to maintain a fork. OSS, we hoped, was about enabling people and unlocking people's ability to collaborate. It turns out that in 2020, it's mostly helping co…

I'm really sorry to hear it didn't work out the way Mapbox would have needed. However, pull requests to the core are not the only way to contribute to an open source project: think of all the map data you needed (by OSM contributors), all the bug reports you received, all the code people built that supported your paid product ecosystem (the map APIs).

Regarding code contributions, the community contributed e.g. the TypeScript and React bindings, or am I mistaken?

https://github.com/DefinitelyTyped/DefinitelyTyped/blob/mast...

https://github.com/urbica/react-map-gl

https://github.com/visgl/react-map-gl

Re: Mapbox-gl-js is no longer under the 3-Clause BSD license

#114

Post by josephcsible »

anamexis wrote: post #108
josephcsible wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopefully the fork will be GPL, so Mapbox won't be able to steal all of the work the new developers do and release it in their new proprietary product.

Why not? Mapbox has been allowing us to steal the work of their developers and release it in our proprietary products up until this point.

Because if they can take all of the improvements from the fork, but the fork can't take any of their improvements, the fork will wither and die.

Re: Mapbox-gl-js is no longer under the 3-Clause BSD license

#115

Post by bigbubba »

RivieraKid wrote: post #96
jmnicolas wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have nothing against people wanting to make money but don't put a free product then yank it out under my feet once I'm comfortable using it (I'm not affected in this case since i don't use mapbox, but the CentOS treachery is still hurting). At least 50% of my work projects happen because the resources I'm using are free. If it isn't free, the project either doesn't happen, or I spend a few months coding what is mis…

> but don't put a free product then yank it out under my feet once I'm comfortable using it Why? This strategy often maximizes shareholder value. Provide a free product in the growth phase and once you shake off competitors and build a moat (aka a monopoly), you start taking profits. Charging money during the growth phase will slow down the growth.

Because it's a dick move to waste people's time, and it's also a dick move to expect 'but I'm maximizing shareholder value!' to make people feel better about their time being wasted.

Re: Mapbox-gl-js is no longer under the 3-Clause BSD license

#116

Post by lukeqsee »

oliwarner wrote: post #97
gorbypark wrote: post #19

Well, that sucks. I've been a happy Mapbox GL JS user for years, hosting my own tiles and not using their service at all. I even had a few (very small) pull requests accepted into the project. Hopefully the OSS community can maintain a fork of the 1.x codebase. -edit- The FAQ says developers can still use self hosted tiles, but also says that usage is now billed per map load, and "a map load occurs whenever a Map obj…

Can't you just use the old version? Only the new code is under this new license.

Of course! And that's what everyone will keep doing for a while. However, without a maintained version, it will eventually wither from neglect.

Re: Mapbox-gl-js is no longer under the 3-Clause BSD license

#117

Post by dstaley »

tuukkah wrote: post #90
dstaley wrote: post #72

Could we change the title to more clearly reflect that this is a license change from a permissive to a restrictive licence? Maybe "Mapbox GL JS v2 no longer uses a permissive license"? I initially thought by the title that Mapbox had removed the library from GitHub completely.

What is this talk about "permissive" licenses? It was open source, it's not open source any more. The Open Source Definition: https://opensource.org/osd EDIT: The title has now changed but it was "Mapbox GL JS is no longer open source", which is the point: they didn't change from an open source license to another.

To be honest I just wanted to see a more descriptive title specifically to avoid the tired, unproductive discussion of "what is open source".

Re: Mapbox-gl-js is no longer under the 3-Clause BSD license

#118

Post by pedalpete »

pheelicks wrote: post #26

What a shame. I guess they got sick of people taking their code and ripping out their API subscriptions. For anyone interested in an open source mapping library (that also has 3D support) that can handle raster data (including the Mapbox tiles), I launched a project 2 weeks ago that is the culmination of 7 years effort: https://github.com/felixpalmer/procedural-gl-js/ . I must say (while acknowledging my huge bias) t…

Looks like you're making good progress on windows, less spikes in terrain than I saw last time (I think it was the same project).

We also created a 3D renderer for sports tracking app Ayvri. Our standard player is Cesium, but if you click on the view beta link, you'll see our custom renderer. Still improvements to be made in tile loading.

https://ayvri.com/scene/v5plro09jr/cki6prg1a00013b6baegp6ub6

Re: Mapbox-gl-js is no longer under the 3-Clause BSD license

#119

Post by mousebirdc »

We make a competitor to MapboxGL for mobile called WhirlyGlobe-Maply (https://mousebird.github.io/WhirlyGlobe/). It supports vector tiles & Mapbox style sheets, works on Android and iOS, even supporting Metal on iOS. Indirect mode in Metal, actually, which is no mean feat.

WhirlyGlobe/Maply has been around a long time. It actually predates MapboxGL and it's used in popular apps like Dark Sky, as well as a ton of aviation apps and a not a few GIS apps.

Engineers like to write their own, so we're going to hear from a ton of random projects here. And hey, more power to 'em.

But you're looking for a fast, open source mobile map toolkit that's going to be around next week? It us.

Re: Mapbox-gl-js is no longer under the 3-Clause BSD license

#120

Post by mousebirdc »

tuukkah wrote: post #9

Even with just 3666 daily loads, you will pay them 10 USD/day for using the code on your site! "Beginning with v2.0.0, a billable map load occurs whenever a Map object is initialized." Under 50,001 monthly loads is free but after that it costs $5.00 per 1,000 loads: https://www.mapbox.com/pricing/

Can someone confirm this? Do you need an actual Mapbox token to even run an offline map from data you've downloaded off of, say, Maptiler?
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