Google map API transforms the Web (ZDNet) [LWN.net]

ZDNet looks at new applications for the recently released Google Maps API. "We are getting a great demonstration right now of open source power, as applications using the Google Maps API begin to appear. Mapquest, owned by AOL, has been around for many years, but it's a proprietary offering. Yahoo Maps has been around for years, but it has been late to this party. It's Google, using the open source process, that has blown the field apart. The code has only been out a few weeks but already we're seeing several really great applications."

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Google map API transforms the Web (ZDNet)

Posted Jul 13, 2005 15:32 UTC (Wed) by tgb (guest, #745) [Link]

I really fail to see how this API can be described as "Open Source". Even given how the term has been diluted over the years, it's quite a leap to say that an API which you:

have to download from Google each time, receiving any and all modifications made by Google, or stop using the API,
have to pass a registered key to use the service,
can only be used for certain non-commercial purposes, defined entirely by Google,
potentially have to display ads from google in the future (according to the T&C's)
and which can be revoked for any reason at any time,

can be described anything near any of the different descriptions I've heard for the term Open Source over the years.

Another reason for those people still using the term "Open Source" to switch to a better description, IMHO.

Google map API transforms the Web (ZDNet)

Posted Jul 14, 2005 8:44 UTC (Thu) by hingo (subscriber, #14792) [Link]

I was just about to say the same thing. Thinking how much sponsorship Google has poured into OSS this summer, one would think they'd try not to get a backlash from this kind of goofing.

On the other hand, it's better we get used to this happening more often now that Open Source is becoming trendy. Of course, we should expect more from Google, but other than that there will be more and more people wanting to be Open Source, even if they don't have a clue what it's really about. When working at the university I proofread an article from a research team, where the team was described as working in an Open Source manner, because people were free to borrow each others ideas. I explained to them that that has nothing to do with Open Source (you weren't allowed to copy the text of the article for instance) but is rather normal academic tradition. In their next article, the same sentence was back. It appears the professor had decided that they are working in an Open Source manner... (whatever that means ;-)

Google map API transforms the Web (ZDNet)

Posted Jul 14, 2005 9:06 UTC (Thu) by tgb (guest, #745) [Link]

To be fair to Google, they're not the ones goofing here - it's ZDNet who are wrongly describing this as OSS. Google don't refer to the API as OSS (or indeed Free Software!) anywhere I've seen.