Why you should not pirate Google’s geo APIs
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Why you should not pirate Google’s geo APIs
1–10 of 117 posts
Re: Why you should not pirate Google’s geo APIs
#2Here's another reason that I wish was more prevalently discussed: it's not okay to violate Terms of Service anyway. Don't accept the terms? Don't use the service. We'd all have a field day if "big brother" violated the terms of an open-source license, but the freedom we enjoy in the community comes with a responsibility to honor our agreements.
Re: Why you should not pirate Google’s geo APIs
#3Here's another reason that I wish was more prevalently discussed: it's not okay to violate Terms of Service anyway. Don't accept the terms? Don't use the service. We'd all have a field day if "big brother" violated the terms of an open-source license, but the freedom we enjoy in the community comes with a responsibility to honor our agreements.
I just wish people would stop being so self-entitled period.
Re: Why you should not pirate Google’s geo APIs
#4Everyone should try OpenStreetMap based APIs, e.g. MapQuest Open.
Re: Why you should not pirate Google’s geo APIs
#5Here's another reason that I wish was more prevalently discussed: it's not okay to violate Terms of Service anyway. Don't accept the terms? Don't use the service. We'd all have a field day if "big brother" violated the terms of an open-source license, but the freedom we enjoy in the community comes with a responsibility to honor our agreements.
I just wish people would stop being so self-entitled period.
Agreed. The tone of the article is correct, in my opinion, because this really does hurt the community. I think we'd have an easier time fighting things like SOPA, DRM, etc. if actual piracy wasn't such a big problem.
Re: Why you should not pirate Google’s geo APIs
#6Here's another reason that I wish was more prevalently discussed: it's not okay to violate Terms of Service anyway. Don't accept the terms? Don't use the service. We'd all have a field day if "big brother" violated the terms of an open-source license, but the freedom we enjoy in the community comes with a responsibility to honor our agreements.
Violating the terms of a license is very different to violating the Terms of service you "sign" with a button click.
Re: Why you should not pirate Google’s geo APIs
#7His site http://www.datasciencetoolkit.org/ certainly looks interesting! One of the most impressive kinds of arguments - "I think you should stop doing x and here are the resources y I've created/curated to make it easier for you to do so."
Re: Why you should not pirate Google’s geo APIs
#8Here's another reason that I wish was more prevalently discussed: it's not okay to violate Terms of Service anyway. Don't accept the terms? Don't use the service. We'd all have a field day if "big brother" violated the terms of an open-source license, but the freedom we enjoy in the community comes with a responsibility to honor our agreements.
This really could use more exposure. People who believe that because they only had to click "Accept" they may claim ignorance or stupidity/absurdity of the terms the accepted ought to be corrected. It's simply silly to think you may violate the terms of any agreement made, especially when that agreement is necessary to your use of the service (hence "terms" of service).
While it is clear that hacker culture embraces putting things from numerous sources together, in this case the Google Maps elevation API with crime data, it's one thing to make a cool presentation and another to make a cool presentation derived from someone else's work against their explicit wishes, expressed in the terms.
The use of software implies (by necessity or otherwise) that you wish to make/create/analyze/do-X with the software, and by using it you've accepted the fact that you will do-X, but within the terms.
It's a funny world we live in ;)
Re: Why you should not pirate Google’s geo APIs
#9Here's another reason that I wish was more prevalently discussed: it's not okay to violate Terms of Service anyway. Don't accept the terms? Don't use the service. We'd all have a field day if "big brother" violated the terms of an open-source license, but the freedom we enjoy in the community comes with a responsibility to honor our agreements.
Violating the terms of a license is very different to violating the Terms of service you "sign" with a button click.
Actually I'd argue that you're more obligated to abide by something you explicitly checked "I have read and accepted..." than something that was listed somewhere in a file you downloaded with some other stuff. You probably just happen to like the terms of the GPL or ASL more than you like the terms of Google's API. I do too - but at what point are we just losing all integrity because we're too lazy to read a long document we have no intention of actually agreeing with?
Re: Why you should not pirate Google’s geo APIs
#10Everyone should try OpenStreetMap based APIs, e.g. MapQuest Open.
I tried one part of the API recently - I'm building an app that's partially intended to give local cycling directions.
Now I'm between a rock and a hard place. One the one hand some parts of the MapQuest Open API are extremely bad, on the other hand Google has an all-or-nothing license for their geo data, and their native iOS maps component sucks.
MapQuest's cycling directions in Manhattan is worse than having no directions at all. They have a specific cycling flag you can set, but results will blatantly ignore bike lanes and send you down extremely wide avenues with no bike lanes and heavy traffic. IMO using MapQuest's cycling directions, at least in NYC, is an extreme hazard, and I can't in good conscience integrate it into my app.