Pirate Weather: A free, open, and documented forecast API

Post by Humphrey » Wed, Jan 11, 2023, 6:07 AM UTC

davidjohnstone wrote: post #113

ace2358 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s truly maddening as an Aussie. How many apps just ignore the BoM? I expected the Apple one not to, but it does. It’s frustrating when friends visit me and check the weather on their phone and the data for the Google and Apple apps is so bad. I use Willy weather that uses bom. I don’t love it though. Any recommendations? I personally can’t stand the actual BoM app as an iPhone user but I appreciate that they tried…

I'm more of a desktop user, but I wasn't happy with what was out there so I made my own (but only for Melbourne): https://davidjohnstone.net/weather/melbourne . I'm tempted to turn it into a proper Australia-wide product. The BoM's data licensing fees (in the order of $5k/year) are a bit of a barrier.

Post by argc » Wed, Jan 11, 2023, 6:25 AM UTC

alexander0042 wrote: post #53

jacurtis wrote: post #31

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I agree, PirateWeather seems like a misbrand here. When I read it, i thought it was stealing weather data or something. On the web, the term "pirate" generally doesn't mean good things. This name almost implies that it is illegal or something. I'm imagining designing a software product around this and presenting it to a C-Level, explaining that we use "PirateWeather" and I think I'm going to get grilled with lots of…

I'm the dev for this, so can shed some light on this! Weather Underground was a pretty out there choice- I guess the kind of people who like putting together weather APIs aren't great at naming things. I considered "Bright Ground", and still have the domain name for it, so maybe it'd be worth spinning up another API endpoint/ branding that uses that and has a more commercial focus, keeping Pirate Weather as the free…

Post by dt3ft » Wed, Jan 11, 2023, 6:59 AM UTC

alexander0042 wrote: post #49

NoboruWataya wrote: post #3

> Why "PirateWeather"? I've always thought that the HRRR model was pronounced the same way as the classic pirate "ARRR". Also, there is one company out there that thinks APIs can be copyrighted, which might apply here. This answers the first question I had upon seeing the name, which was, is it free, open, documented and legal ? Based on the above the answer seems to be "probably". Very commendable effort, and I hope…

I'm the dev behind this, so always great to hear things like this! I really struggled to try to come up with a name. My first thought was "Bright Ground" (opposite of Dark Sky), but that seemed a little too on the nose. Luckily, the legal aspect of this (I'm in the clear!) was pretty well settled after the final Oracle v. Google case, but at the time was a big enough deal that it seemed relevant, and the HRRR model w…

Post by toyg » Wed, Jan 11, 2023, 7:14 AM UTC

dt3ft wrote: post #155

alexander0042 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm the dev behind this, so always great to hear things like this! I really struggled to try to come up with a name. My first thought was "Bright Ground" (opposite of Dark Sky), but that seemed a little too on the nose. Luckily, the legal aspect of this (I'm in the clear!) was pretty well settled after the final Oracle v. Google case, but at the time was a big enough deal that it seemed relevant, and the HRRR model w…

I’m out of the loop. Why would this not be legal? Are you using Oracle technology?

Post by jorvi » Wed, Jan 11, 2023, 7:33 AM UTC

shagie wrote: post #26

nerdponx wrote: post #9

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I assume there's no recourse for iOS users?

If you are using the current version of iOS, the new weather app rocks in terms of functionality (IMHO better than the previous version of Dark Sky). If you are on an old version of iOS and mourn the loss of DarkSky app, I personally like MyRadar - it has some very nice features and I used in tandem with DarkSky in the past. If you are after writing an iOS app, you already have an Apple developer account allowing for…