Mapbox-gl-js is no longer under the 3-Clause BSD license • Hacker News Board

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

#141

Post by pacofvf » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 10:57 PM UTC

> Upon written notice to you, we may (or may appoint appoint a nationally recognized certified public accountant or independent auditor to) audit your use of the Services and Mapbox Software to ensure it is in compliance with these Terms. Any audit will be conducted during regular business hours, no more than once per 12-month period and upon at least 30 days’ prior written notice (except where we have reasonable belief that a violation of these Terms has occurred or is occurring), and will not unreasonably interfere with your business activities. You will provide us with reasonable access to the relevant records and facilities.

LOL no.

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

#142

Post by stevage » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 11:02 PM UTC

tuukkah wrote: post #13

cprecioso wrote: post #8

Link to the new LICENSE terms https://github.com/mapbox/mapbox-gl-js/blob/v2.0.0/LICENSE.t... IANAL, but it seems you can only use the library if you have an active account, and you can still modify the code except billing and analytics. The it links to the TOS ( https://www.mapbox.com/legal/tos ).

Plus when you deploy something, you have to pay a significant amount for using the library.

After the 50k free map loads per month.

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

#143

Post by stevage » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 11:04 PM UTC

pmeira wrote: post #25

brink wrote: post #3

Well that sucks. Is this to try to clamp down on users circumventing subscriptions, or something else?

I guess they don't like that people can generate their own vector tiles more easily nowadays, or services like Maptiler [0] (see [1] for some more context) that provide tiles at lower costs. [0]: https://www.maptiler.com/mapbox-alternative/ [1]: https://www.maptiler.com/news/2020/05/the-future-of-openmapt...

There really aren't many competing tile services. Maptiler isn't necessarily cheaper - it depends on the exact volume, and it has changed back and forth over the last couple of years as each party changes their pricing structure.

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

#144

Post by stevage » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 11:05 PM UTC

Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #124

josephcsible wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the BSD license is a permissive/pushover license, which let you relicense other people's work as proprietary. The reason that copyleft licenses like the GPL are better is exactly that they don't allow this sort of behavior.

99% of the code in Mapbox GL was written by Mapbox employees on company time. The GPL would have made no difference.

Except in practice, removing that 1% (or getting permission from its contributors) could be extremely complicated.

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

#145

Post by Waterluvian » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 11:13 PM UTC

modeless wrote: post #63

Waterluvian wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Openlayers has some prototype webgl support that's a bit promising. I enjoyed working with it (but hate working with buggy webgl in general). Leaflet is also great. If you're doing any sort of front end GIS I recommend openlayers above all else including mapbox. But I suspect 99% of users just need basic maps. Leaflet is great for that.

I work on WebGL in Chrome and WebKit and am interested to hear what problems you've experienced with WebGL.

I'm probably being very unfair given I'm new to it.

I've perpetually run into memory leaks and Max gpu issues whenever I try to use WebGL stuff in Openlayers depending on which browser I use.

Something will work fine in Chrome but max out my laptop's discrete card in Firefox until my laptop thermal throttles.

If you want a concrete example of this I would be happy to put together a reproducible example for you.

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

#146

Post by tuukkah » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 11:21 PM UTC

stevage wrote: post #142

tuukkah wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plus when you deploy something, you have to pay a significant amount for using the library.

After the 50k free map loads per month.

1667 free page loads per day is significantly more restricted than the earlier infinite free loads (of non-Mapbox content). Also, they can change the pricing at any time and some uses might suddenly become unfeasible essentially pulling the rug from under your feet (same as happened with Google Maps pricing earlier).

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

#147

Post by severak_cz » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 11:22 PM UTC

xfour wrote: post #20

Anyone have any experience with this? Seems to be MIT Licensed... https://github.com/robertleeplummerjr/Leaflet.glify/blob/mas...

see this - https://github.com/mapbox/mapbox-gl-leaflet

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

#148

Post by modeless » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 11:26 PM UTC

Waterluvian wrote: post #145

modeless wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work on WebGL in Chrome and WebKit and am interested to hear what problems you've experienced with WebGL.

I'm probably being very unfair given I'm new to it. I've perpetually run into memory leaks and Max gpu issues whenever I try to use WebGL stuff in Openlayers depending on which browser I use. Something will work fine in Chrome but max out my laptop's discrete card in Firefox until my laptop thermal throttles. If you want a concrete example of this I would be happy to put together a reproducible example for you.

That would be great. There are a practically infinite number of things we could improve, and without feedback we won't end up working on the ones that matter to people.

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

#149

Post by anonfornoreason » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 11:26 PM UTC

karussell wrote: post #85

mourner wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say extremely unlikely — it wouldn't make sense both technically (stable, mature, small, razor-focused libraries that are already open source) and business-wise. As far as I know as someone who worked here for 7+ years (take this as personal opinion), Mapbox wants to keep investing heavily in open source and open data sustainably and indefinitely, and this GL JS change is an unevitable prerequisite for that. This…

It is not only GL JS. If Mapbox wants to keep investing heavily in open source why is it that 3 bigger mapbox libraries have a commercial license after it was open source a while ago? (mapbox navigation android & mapbox GL Native)

Thanks Peter for calling this out. It's unfortunate that many businesses made the decision to work with mapbox-native and mapbox-gl-js based off the premise they could self-host and save money. It definitely feels like a bad bait and switch, and right after it gained market dominance too. Bad taste in my mouth for Mapbox products now, though clearly this is just whining because they will be successful with this change. They just get to feel like bad people for doing it, or at least I hope they do.

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

#150

Post by ajinkyapatil » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 11:29 PM UTC

eyesee wrote: post #49

karussell wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What other alternatives exist? I know now: * openlayers, but vector tiles have no web GL support there * Procedural GL JS * tangram * deck.gl (from Uber) * harp.gl (from HERE Maps)

https://cesium.com/cesiumjs/

+1 for CesiumJS, they have been doing 3D since ages... Also webpage mentions its Open Source from 2012 until Forever (Apache 2.0). I guess its time to switch.