A cease-and-desist for the Gaia project
We have in the past and continue to license very expensive data to make Google Earth and Google Maps products. The terms of the license that we signed include a promise by us to prevent anyone from accessing the data other than through Google software. Violations of this promise (such as Gaia source out in the world) not only cost us money and force the disruption by forced upgrade of 100M+ users as we change protocols, they actually put our entire operation at risk since the data providers lose trust that their data, which they sell directly, is out there for free and could put them out of business."
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A cease-and-desist for the Gaia project
Posted Nov 27, 2006 16:33 UTC (Mon) by rvfh (guest, #31018) [Link]
I think Google should contract this guy, as his project seems to expand the number of supported platforms for Google Earth. They might even be able to relicense (part of) the software (maybe just the cryptographic keys!) to something closed and let the rest open...
A cease-and-desist for the Gaia project
Posted Nov 27, 2006 16:43 UTC (Mon) by steve_goa (guest, #27461) [Link]
The original post clearly said that corporations stand to lose money if anyone other than Google is trusted with access to the data; it's not a question of open sourcing..
A cease-and-desist for the Gaia project
Posted Nov 27, 2006 18:18 UTC (Mon) by rvfh (guest, #31018) [Link]
To the data, yes, but the data is encrypted and obtained through a secret protocol. The rest of the app could be open source.
A cease-and-desist for the Gaia project
Posted Nov 27, 2006 20:24 UTC (Mon) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]
Not really. The "data providers" want to have control over viewability of the data. No user shell have the way to view the data without permission from them. Not download, but view.
They know it's not really possible - some small parts will always be accumulated in browser cache, etc. But as long as it's not easy to pull the big, cohesive set - they are content.
I fail to see how you can control it with app that is open source. Google Maps control data flow rate: if the user starts to download lots and lots of data from maps.google.com - it's time to disconnect. But 3D application like Google Earth can pull a lot of data in the process of normal work, so it's not so easy.
A cease-and-desist for the Gaia project
Posted Nov 27, 2006 22:14 UTC (Mon) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link]
Well what should be done is Google needs to work out a subscription plan for people that would like to use their API to pull down information.
There isn't realy a reason why a person couldn't pay google like 12 bucks a month or so to be able to use it in a open source application.
I know that it's not realy up to Google and that another company is leasing them the data, but still I wouldn't be suprised if they worked something out.
Personally I would love to have access to detailed and updated maps for things like GPSdrive and other such things.
It's similar stuff to doing streaming media, subscription to game servers, or news websites and other such things. It can work very well with open source and Free software if you want it to, if you allow it to.
If you think about it closed source software realy isn't any good at 'protecting' the data. If the Gaia people are a threat then other more closed companies could pull the information out of google earth just as easily if they felt like it.
A cease-and-desist for the Gaia project
Posted Nov 27, 2006 23:14 UTC (Mon) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]
There isn't realy a reason why a person couldn't pay google like 12 bucks a month or so to be able to use it in a open source application.
Surely you forgot few zeros in your estimate ? Typical price for downlodable data is measured in tens of thousands dollars per small dataset and up to many millions of dollars for whole earth dataset. And even then you are severely limited: you can not just give the data to your neighbour. RIAA and MPAA are puppies in comparision to geodata providers. So "12 bucks a month" is not an option. May be 1200000 bucks a month will be acceptable - but who'll pay this much ? Surely not the gaia fanboys...
If you think about it closed source software realy isn't any good at 'protecting' the data. If the Gaia people are a threat then other more closed companies could pull the information out of google earth just as easily if they felt like it.
What is your suggestion ? How to protect data better ? Gaia is not a threat - not really. Surely the Google will update all clients shortly (will they issue new GE3 client or will they just drop support for GE3 altogether is interesting question). The threat is supported open source client - this way you can slowly but surely download everything you need and protection against "fast and furious" download will not work...
We'll see what develops...
A cease-and-desist for the Gaia project
Posted Nov 28, 2006 6:11 UTC (Tue) by bryanr (guest, #25324) [Link]
It's expensive to launch a mapping satellite, but the marginal cost ofsupplying data that already exists to another user is essentially $0.
Sooner or later somebody should realize there is a lot of profit
to be made by breaking up the oligopoly and competing on price...
$12/mo from 100k users is $1200000/mo.
A cease-and-desist for the Gaia project
Posted Nov 28, 2006 9:37 UTC (Tue) by hein.zelle (guest, #33324) [Link]
> It's expensive to launch a mapping satellite, but the marginal cost of> supplying data that already exists to another user is essentially $0.
>
> Sooner or later somebody should realize there is a lot of profit
> to be made by breaking up the oligopoly and competing on price...
I'm not sure it will ever be that easy. The organizations that pay for the very expensive satellites also control the data distribution, and thus have quite a bit to say about the pricing. You really don't want to know how much a single quickbird high resolution image of your region costs, and you definitely don't want to know how many there are on google earth.
The situation is getting better slowly as more high resolution data becomes available freely, for research purposes and others. The expensive data problem is not going to disappear anytime soon though, I fear.
It's not completely fair to state that distributing the data is nearly free, either: you're talking about a lot of terabytes of data there. I'm sure the cost of storage and distribution is negligible compared to the licensing costs, but it's not 0.
A cease-and-desist for the Gaia project
Posted Nov 27, 2006 16:54 UTC (Mon) by arcticwolf (guest, #8341) [Link]
I think the headline's misleading here - that's not even a cease-and-desist letter in the sense the word's usually used. It's a serious but friendly request from Google's engineering; certainly there's no doubt that if it had been ignored, the next letter would've come from the legal department instead, but it's not as if they handled things that way right from the start.
I think it's cool that Google's willing to ask before making a demand - the former's just nicer, even when you'd the legal right to make demands right away. And I also think it's cool that they actually explain their reasons instead of just saying "you violated our TOS, and that's all that matters".
But yeah, I also agree that they should think about hiring this guy so that the things he mentioned users appreciate - "flat" mode, running the program on platforms not yet supported by Google Earth, etc. - can be incoporated into the official client. :)
A cease-and-desist for the Gaia project
Posted Nov 27, 2006 16:54 UTC (Mon) by ofeeley (guest, #36105) [Link]
" We are like an iPod for Earth images. If people couldget the music out to play on other platforms then the music
companies would not allow Apple access to the music in the
first place. This is the situation"
-- Michael T. Jones, Chief Technologist, Google Earth
Funny. You /can/ get the music out to play on other platforms ;)
Maybe he means that Google Earth is like a Zune. It might work for playing someone else's data (not your data) at this particular moment but depending on market conditions and changes to secret protocols it may not work in the future on the platform you'd like to play it on.
A cease-and-desist for the Gaia project
Posted Nov 27, 2006 17:41 UTC (Mon) by grouch (guest, #27289) [Link]
Perhaps you missed this part:If so, we really need to have you take down that code and refocus your work toward building an open earth viewer that uses open earth images (such as from NASA) or licensed earth images from willing providers rather than having the basis of your project being the improper use of our images. If you understand the gravity of the situation and agree to respect or position in this, please let me know quickly (hours rather than days) and on an equally responsive time scale please modify your project pages to remove anything suggesting or teaching the improper access to our data servers.
Michael T. Jones suggests a way to have a free viewer which does not require the $500M fee Google paid.
A cease-and-desist for the Gaia project
Posted Nov 28, 2006 14:00 UTC (Tue) by ofeeley (guest, #36105) [Link]
No, I didn't miss it, it's irrelevant however. I'd agree that the Google Earth executive is correct in many ways when he compares their product to a DRM-music player, specifically an iPod/iTMS
The similarities are:
1. It looks pretty, it does a good job
2. The data is out of your control, you essentially are "lent" it
3. It's not properly supported on GNU/Linux
The differences are:
1. With the cessation of Gaia there is no equivalent of the PlayFair project
2. There is even less control over the data which is stored remotely
From playing with it a while ago it seems not as slick as I'd like and so not worthy of being compared to Apple's glossy products, and when that's combined by the inability to get the data out (actually I guess that's not true any more now that FairUse4WM is out) it's more of a Zune than an iPod.
Obviously the most immediately productive thing is to work on making a better Free replacement and the Gaia developer calls for help in getting access to that data. Maybe if Google wanted to be truly non-evil they could help him out with any contacts they have in government circles.
A cease-and-desist for the Gaia project
Posted Nov 29, 2006 7:07 UTC (Wed) by emj (guest, #14307) [Link]
There is a lot of free data out there and it's alot easier to access than reverse engineering Google data. Look at NASAs Whirlwind, or Openstreetmap.org.Free data doesn't just produce it self, mapping takes time; 300 hours / 100,000 people in urban areas . I think it would be better if Gaia tried to promote the free data out there instead of just shutting down. We really could use a good opensource Google Earth like client.
There will come a time when we can do our own orthographic aerialphotos, but until that time it's going to be very expensive to get 20cm resolution images of any area.
A cease-and-desist for the Gaia project
Posted Nov 29, 2006 13:12 UTC (Wed) by ofeeley (guest, #36105) [Link]
I'm largely in agreement with you, but as the comment by briangmaddox below suggests "we" may have already funded the acquisition of data that we don't now have access to unless we either license it for unattainable sums.
The most practical and productive things to do are probably to work on the existing Free projects, but also to work politically to make sure that "we" get access to data produced with "our" money. Google is probably showing us satellite data collected in part with our taxes funnelled through some politician's pork-barrel project. Recognising and acting on the political front is probably essential to be able to have a Free equivalent of Google Earth as it's unlikely that we're putting our own satellites up any time soon.
Tracking users
Posted Nov 27, 2006 17:37 UTC (Mon) by dd9jn (✭ supporter ✭, #4459) [Link]
The interesting thing with this letter is that it seems that Google is tracking users of Google Earth only by the session-id you need to pass with all requests. gaia uses a recorded session-id and thus I assume Google won't be able to track individual users anymore. That is why they talk about updating their client (and server) software.
When I played with the software last week, I was about to write a proxy so that all requests to GE would be done by a shared server to make it harder to track users of Gaia. Obviously not needed anymore. In case the source is now hard to find, I have put a copy into the contrib directory of the GnuPG ftp servers.
BTW, I heard FreeGIS has similar software and there are other sources for free satellite data, albeit not available with the Google bandwidth.
Mindless user, is earth3d.org not enough?
Posted Nov 27, 2006 17:41 UTC (Mon) by gvy (guest, #11981) [Link]
> In case the source is now hard to find, I have put a copy> into the contrib directory of the GnuPG ftp servers.
Werner, I have trouble calling you a sane person.
The google guy is perfectly correct in his reasoning -- the problem's not with the project, or google, but with data licensors.
For the rest of us, there's earth3d client -- of course, unless you're a w4r3z kid who expressly likes to promote software violating rights, even if corporate ones: http://www.earth3d.org.
Mindless user, is earth3d.org not enough?
Posted Nov 27, 2006 19:18 UTC (Mon) by dd9jn (✭ supporter ✭, #4459) [Link]
To all what I can see, the software has rightfully been published as Free Software and only later be removed from the server. It is up to the server admin to remove files. However, he granted me the right to distribute the software and that is what I did. This has nothing, really nothing to do with warez. If Google wants me and other to remove the software from our servers, they need to approach us.
It is also interesting to see that censoring by Google works already on a social and user level and not only on the technical one.
Mindless user, is earth3d.org not enough?
Posted Nov 27, 2006 19:53 UTC (Mon) by arcticwolf (guest, #8341) [Link]
I hate to say it, but you're acting like a jerk.
Google isn't censoring anything; they asked the author to take down the software in a nice manner, and he complied. This is not a case of "nice software ya got there, be a shame if anything happen to it" or anything like that.
What you're doing is, in essence, giving them the finger. Do you think that this is going to go over well? They'll just change the way the data is accessed now, so Gaia won't work anymore; and next time, the letter might actually come from the legal department instead of engineering, and it might be less friendly, too.
Or is that what you're trying to do? Provoke them until they become your enemy because they're not agreeing with you 100% and - gasp - daring to produce non-Open Source software? If that's the case, I've got to admit you seem to have a strange definition of freedom. (To me, continuing freedom is important, and that's why I'd always use the GPL for my projects instead of something more liberal like the BSD license, but while I don't want my own code to end up in something proprietary, I think that free software will win in the end, anyway - it's better in just about every way, not just technically, but also in terms of the community attached to it, so proprietary software will ultimately die out, anyway. There's no need to f*ck with people who write non-free software on purpose.)
So please stop invoking the spectre of censorship - this is about as useful a contribution as screaming "won't somebody please think of the children" or "if you do that, the terrorists will already have won".
I have a ton of respect for the FSF and all the work the GNU project's accomplishmed, but I'd have even more respect if you didn't resort to stupid stunts like this and disrupt things (ultimately forcing an update on every Google Earth user, for example) without any actual reason. It'd be much nicer if you did something productive (like continuing your work on GnuPG - great tool, BTW) again instead of resorting to this.
Mindless user, is earth3d.org not enough?
Posted Nov 27, 2006 21:20 UTC (Mon) by ncm (subscriber, #165) [Link]
No. As Werner said, if Google wants him to take it down, they can ask him personally. In the meantime, the software is Free, and, as Werner said, is useful as a basis for talking to other imagery sources. Google made this last point too. For Google's purposes, taking down the primary distribution point suffices meet "due diligence", for now. There's no need for animosity here, it's all business.
Mindless user, is earth3d.org not enough?
Posted Nov 27, 2006 21:47 UTC (Mon) by dd9jn (✭ supporter ✭, #4459) [Link]
That is a misunderstanding: Censorship and Google is at least to me directly connected to their China business. Or: Why care about truth and NoEvil if there are a billion people eagerly waiting to give away their money.
By censoring I do not mean this gaia stuff; that is business as usual: they fear that it will harm their business - making revenues from better personalized search results. But it is also about privacy: Such an incredible amount of well ordered data at the fingertips of one organisation makes me feel uneasy.
Mindless user, is earth3d.org not enough?
Posted Nov 27, 2006 22:39 UTC (Mon) by s_cargo (guest, #10473) [Link]
1. You make software (gnupg) available, but place a condition on it, namely that people touching the software abide by the GPL in whatever they do with the software.
2. The owners of the imagery data make the data available, but place a condition on it, namely that Google control the access to it.
You expect #1 to be adhered to, but facilitate circumvention of #2. You expect others to respect the conditions you place on your work but you don't respect the conditions others place on their work. There is no moral high ground in your position, only selfishness.
Two wrongs don't make a right
Posted Nov 27, 2006 23:21 UTC (Mon) by man_ls (guest, #15091) [Link]
That comparison is not a valid ethical argument. It can easily be subverted to say whatever you want it to:- You make software available under the GPL and expect others to respect the conditions,
- Some guys lend money at 10% weekly interest and expect others to respect the conditions.
#2 should be evaluated independently from your own actions, and #1 too by the way. In our case, the conditions that imagery data providers place on Google, and Google upon its users, may be too onerous to follow. Or it might be beneficial to make the data available free of absurd restrictions. This problem is independent of what Werner may do with his program (which by the way is an excellent piece of work).
Are Google maps onerous?
Posted Nov 28, 2006 2:02 UTC (Tue) by xoddam (subscriber, #2322) [Link]
> In our case, the conditions that imagery data providers place> on Google, and Google upon its users, may be too onerous to
> follow. Or it might be beneficial to make the data available
> free of absurd restrictions.
What's this 'may be'? Either the conditions are too onerous for
you or they're not. They're not too onerous for me, as I'm
absolutely delighted that at long last there's a usable online
map that includes my own country. It took a lot of negotiating
for Google to obtain street map data for Australia and until
they did the local providers did a pretty dreadful job of
serving up what they had to the public. For lack of adequate
investment, rather than lack of local ability.
It would be *nice* to have free reimplementations of these maps
but frankly I don't see it happening any time soon. I'm all in
favour of Wikipedia, but a global streetmap developed by similar
methods would take much longer to become useful and inaccuracies
would be more problematic.
The Google interface is useful and widely accessible enough that
it would be a real loss of public amenity for it to be withdrawn
because of persistent violations of the licence agreements.
Are Google maps onerous?
Posted Nov 28, 2006 7:59 UTC (Tue) by man_ls (guest, #15091) [Link]
What's this 'may be'?The result of an ethical evaluation which was not the point of the comment, but which is a nice addition anyway. :D
Either the conditions are too onerous for you or they're not.Google Maps are not onerous in the least, I like it a lot and it is reasonably cross-platform. OTOH Google Earth is a proprietary program and requires binary drivers for my graphics card, so in fact it is too onerous. I might use a free software equivalent, but it seems that Google cannot afford to have its data in the loose. Therefore the conditions on Google Earth are too onerous for me.
Are Google maps onerous?
Posted Nov 28, 2006 11:01 UTC (Tue) by lacostej (guest, #2760) [Link]
> it seems that Google cannot afford to have its data in the loose
It's NOT Google's data.
Are Google maps onerous?
Posted Nov 28, 2006 17:13 UTC (Tue) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]
Did Google pay for it? It's effectively Google's data as long as they abide by the license terms.
Is that your copy of WinXP running on your laptop? Technically no, but we speak as if it were. Same with Google. (this is yet another reason to run Linux: no strange EULAs)
*sigh*
Posted Nov 28, 2006 21:08 UTC (Tue) by gvy (guest, #11981) [Link]
> OTOH Google Earth is a proprietary program and requires binary> drivers for my graphics card, so in fact it is too onerous.
Hideous. So just don't use it, no? I have no problem with e.g. Photoshop, as well as Photoshop (even if pros would dismiss GIMP); I have no Final Cut as well (Kino suits my home needs).
Tell me please, is there anyone torturing you to use Google Earth, or AutoCAD, or Windows?
> Therefore the conditions on Google Earth are too onerous for me.
I'm sorry to sound banal -- but just don't use it and that's it, no?
Onerous conditions
Posted Nov 28, 2006 23:12 UTC (Tue) by man_ls (guest, #15091) [Link]
Tell me please, is there anyone torturing you to use Google Earth, or AutoCAD, or Windows?Funny you should mention it, right now there's a bad-looking guy here threatening to drive red irons through my knees if I don't install the nVidia drivers *ASAP*.
Just joking, nobody's torturing me. In fact I run Mac OS X and Windows on a daily basis. But when I get to choose I don't use proprietary software if I can avoid it. Not for any deep idealistic reasons (although I like to think otherwise), but because in my experience proprietary software works quite worse and doesn't usually suit my needs. Meanwhile I'm almost always happy with my free software.
I'm sorry to sound banal -- but just don't use it and that's it, no?No, that's not it. I don't use it and then I say it aloud on internet forums. Whatever happened to the pleasures of proselytism?
*sigh*
Posted Nov 28, 2006 23:14 UTC (Tue) by xoddam (subscriber, #2322) [Link]
man_ls was answering my question by giving his reasons for not using Google Earth.
Two wrongs don't make a right
Posted Nov 29, 2006 23:51 UTC (Wed) by s_cargo (guest, #10473) [Link]
2. Some guys lend money at 10% weekly interest and expect others to respect the conditions.There is nothing unlawful about Google's deal with the data providers. It's legal, but you don't like it, so you choose to disregard it.
You expect #1 to be adhered to, but facilitate circumvention of #2 -- and well you should. The second condition is called usury and is unlawful in most places.
Or it might be beneficial to make the data available free of absurd restrictions.Does the FSF go around taking proprietary software and posting it for all to see? No. It writes free versions. If you don't like the "absurd restrictions" on the data Google licenses, launch your own satellite and you're free to give away the imagery.
Two wrongs don't make a right
Posted Nov 30, 2006 7:58 UTC (Thu) by man_ls (guest, #15091) [Link]
I was trying to explain an ethical argument. Sadly, "lawful" and "ethical" are orthogonal concepts. You can substitute #2 with any of a number of unethical laws:2. A company writes a protection measure in software: [CSS, protected PDF...], and expects others to respect the lawful conditions.and it is still unethical behavior; facilitating circumvention of those measures (DeCSS, Sklyarov's PDF cracker, OIN, Dandi March) can be considered ethical, whether lawful or unlawful.2. A company files a business method patent: [insert your favorite absurd patent], and expects others to respect the lawful conditions.
2. A company sells salt to the Hindu people, and expects these people to pay the salt tax.
Does the FSF go around taking proprietary software and posting it for all to see? No.My point was that violation of the conditions might have beneficial consequences for everyone. But it seems that want to stick to the letter of my comment: well, Werner did not post any proprietary software for all to see; he published his own free version. Did he break the terms and conditions? In any case that is his problem, I don't know why we should have to care about that.
If you don't like the "absurd restrictions" on the data Google licenses, launch your own satellite and you're free to give away the imagery.This makes no sense at all. You might as well say: 'if you don't like the "absurd protections" on a DVD, go shoot your own movies and you are free to publish them in Ogg Vorbis'. That is not the point.
Two wrongs don't make a right
Posted Nov 30, 2006 10:33 UTC (Thu) by dd9jn (✭ supporter ✭, #4459) [Link]
I think some posters here lost the point. I have never signed or even read an agreement or license for the use of the Google services. It is a free resource on the web not protected by any means. This is like all other web sites. I do not need to investigate how the web site owner acquired the data; by providing this data I may display that data because this is what the data is made for. I agree that I can't distribute copies of that data because the copyright laws don't allow this.
Given that I use only Free Software and don't run a Windows box (except for testing purposes), I have even not used Google Earth at all. I was really glad to see that someone took the time to write a free implementation of Google Earth, so that the Free Software world can use it.
As long as Google provides the data as a free services, I may use that service as long as I obey the netiquette.
Mindless user, is earth3d.org not enough?
Posted Nov 28, 2006 17:21 UTC (Tue) by proski (subscriber, #104) [Link]
You make software (gnupg) available, but place a condition on it, namely that people touching the software abide by the GPL in whatever they do with the software.Bad example. GnuPG has no EULA. Its license (GPL) doesn't limit the end users.
Besides, if you base your arguments on what you think others expect, you are better off providing quotes.
privacy
Posted Nov 27, 2006 22:49 UTC (Mon) by gvy (guest, #11981) [Link]
> But it is also about privacy: Such an incredible amount of well ordered> data at the fingertips of one organisation makes me feel uneasy.
Me too, but then I publish what I decide to. And there are way more grave things that most of us choose to ignore anyways.
First spammer was a lawyer. Technically correct, too.
Posted Nov 27, 2006 22:44 UTC (Mon) by gvy (guest, #11981) [Link]
> has rightfully been publishedI guess there might be some tension with violating ToU to write software. Well I can kindly ask the author to join local (Russian-spoken) legal@ to discuss it after one of experts lurking there returns from an IP conference but guess he's already taken his stance.
> However, he granted me the right to distribute the software
> and that is what I did.
Hereby, I grant you the right to think before acting in arrogant manner, even if standing to the license. You can even execute that, yup.
> It is also interesting to see that censoring by Google works already
> on a social and user level and not only on the technical one.
Meme. It is even more interesting how some people obsessed by false sense of freedom are already mistaking their personal freedom, others (like mine), and the simple fact that human's life is made of compromises (in the sense of coming to common ground, not in the sense of having to patch gnupg yet again).
> If Google wants me and other to remove the software from our servers,
> they need to approach us.
I guess they will just have to approach us 100M+ users with a new version to continue using GE when we need that.
[e.g. when my sister with her husband went to have a look at Lebanon, I've had only earth3d to look "there" (it's actually quite nice with being able to fetch ~1Gb .zip to speed up local browsing with 250m Landsat, and switching to online 100m layer when "there", but GE would help a lot). I was just thankful to e3d author, and after GE beta landed at localhost, I was just thankful to Google. At least nobody forced that down my throat, eh?]
So to recap: I hope that when you choose between formal licenses and rights and your relations to people, even remote and online like me, you do remember that the first spammer held to formal "licenses and rights", just the way you tell you do, and proposing others to follow. Think of it, there are laws less volatile than crap like licenses out there.
--
Michael Shigorin,
kinda GNU GPL supporter
in Ukraine
Mindless user, is earth3d.org not enough?
Posted Nov 28, 2006 4:27 UTC (Tue) by Arker (guest, #14205) [Link]
I'm shocked at the flack you're taking for this.
Google's got a much better reputation than most companies, and they've earned it, but that doesn't justify this absurd fanboy reaction of taking their side even when they're wrong, and it doesn't mean we should suddenly forget about defending our liberty whenever it would be more convenient for google if we would do so.
Good job. And to the folks that are attacking you for it... folks, grow up.
Mindless user, is earth3d.org not enough?
Posted Nov 28, 2006 9:27 UTC (Tue) by sitaram (guest, #5959) [Link]
> It is also interesting to see that censoring by Google works already on a > social and user level and not only on the technical one.
I thought that was the nicest "cease and desist" I have ever seen or heard of. Straight talk from one techie to another, no lawyers involved. The tone of the request was absolutely classy, and very very credible.
So if you imply that the letter of the license allows you to do what you are doing, well there may be a company in Utah willing to hire you :-)
Open source is, for many of us, also about playing nice. Even without being forced to by some license.
A cease-and-desist for the Gaia project
Posted Nov 27, 2006 17:37 UTC (Mon) by tatel (guest, #41918) [Link]
If you want to do something other than look at your home from the space, Google Earth is not even free as in beer. Time to download GRASS. Time to download imagery and maps from other sites: e.g http://seamless.usgs.gov/ (well I'm not very sure that imagery is free as in freedom) and others.
However, to manage GRASS is not as easy as Google Earth is, so I hope that Gaia will no vanish.
BTW, here in Europe there is a project directive that would make available free imagery (mostly paid by taxpayers) copyrigthed. See http://okfn.org/geo/ or http://publicgeodata.org/WhatIsInspire
A cease-and-desist for the Gaia project
Posted Nov 27, 2006 18:28 UTC (Mon) by briangmaddox (guest, #39279) [Link]
Geospatial data is a big problem here in the US. The government ismandated to get a lot of geospatial data from private companies (we're not
big on social welfare here, but we're all over corporate welfare). What's
funny is that even the spy agencies are mandated to use some commercial
data. There are instances where the government can't distribute the data
we paid for because of the license agreement with the private company,
even though in many cases taxpayer money funded most of the collection and
processing. And the government can get in trouble by giving away data
that was fully taxpayer funded (sensor platform->end product) because some
of the private companies scream "unfair competition".
An interesting example was the release of USGS SDTS elevation data. It
was done by "partnering" with a private company. Well, to get it for
free, you had to download it through an extremely slow pipe unless you
paid the company for faster access. Yes, politics were involved here.
The Gaia thing is just the first time the general public has seen problems
with the stranglehold on imagery. Commercial geospatial companies in the
US are far more ruthless than any of the *AA's. There's a lot of data the
US government could give away, but politics will always stop.
A cease-and-desist for the Gaia project
Posted Nov 27, 2006 21:42 UTC (Mon) by Zack (guest, #37335) [Link]
As the original author made clear there was no pressure of any kind and he did remove his software voluntarily, I don't think this is a problem at this time.
But the situation reminds me of Bitkeeper.
What if Bitmover had stated way back when,
"We have in the past and continue to license very expensive copyrighted algorithms and data-formats to make Bitkeeper and the Bitkeeper metadata. The terms of the license that we signed include a promise by us to prevent anyone from accessing the data other than through our official bk client. Violations of this promise not only cost us money and force the disruption by forced upgrade of users as we change protocols, they actually put our entire operation at risk since the data providers lose trust that their data, which they sell directly, is out there for free and could put them out of business."
It was held by more than a few that the "reverse engineering" of the protocol of bitkeeper to build a free software client was not an unethical thing to do.
Bitkeeper did, as far as I know, write all their own stuff and did not license third party proprietary materials to use on the repository side.
But should they have done so, would that have been an acceptable reason for asking other people to stop development of an open-source client ?
If bitmover had produced an unrelated spin-off to hold some of their "intellectual property" so they could artificially give a "But we *have* to do it. It's out of our hands" reason, would the reaction to their licensing policies have been different ?
How does the situation differ in this instance ?
it does
Posted Nov 27, 2006 22:52 UTC (Mon) by gvy (guest, #11981) [Link]
> How does the situation differ in this instance ?"What if".
it does
Posted Nov 27, 2006 23:12 UTC (Mon) by Zack (guest, #37335) [Link]
>> How does the situation differ in this instance ?>"What if".
What you are saying is that it is alright to cease and desist reverse engineering efforts if the company controlling the secret protocol can point to a third party with which they have a license agreement (or covenant) that forbids such efforts but that it is wrong if the controlling company holds all relevant "intellectual property" itself ?
A cease-and-desist for the Gaia project
Posted Nov 27, 2006 23:16 UTC (Mon) by riddochc (guest, #43) [Link]
First: Your example uses "algorithms and data formats," but Google's issue with Gaia is the data itself. They don't have permission to give you the data.
Second: The data stored by Bitkeeper was the source code of the kernel (or other projects that used it). Indisputably, that data is the property of the respective developers, not Bitmover. Bitmover couldn't claim to own the data; that would violate the copyright of the developers. They did, however, own and control the mechanisms of accessing it once it was stored in a bitkeeper repository. That was their prerogative, though I certainly wish they hadn't.
This is a common misunderstanding - confusing data with techniques. Data is copyrightable, techniques are patentable. That Bitmover kept their techniques as trade secrets rather than obtaining and enforcing patents speaks quite a bit to their effort to appease as many users as possible.
That said, I'm very happy to be using (and contributing to) Git. I still have some personal projects that started in BK repos, and I simply lost some history (*sigh*) because I didn't migrate fast enough when the axe fell.
I believe I'm not alone in the opinion that software patents are highly unethical, but copyrights should be respected. The patent system is just broken, whereas copyrights just last too long. Most of us have learned to avoid systems that hold our data for ransom. But that's because it's our data. When it's someone else's data - geographic, music, video, whatever, I feel it's generally important to respect the copyright holders' wishes, to the extent that it doesn't infringe on my own rights to fair use and so on.
Does fair use include making alternative interfaces for viewing that data? Yes, on principle, for the same reason that I think Open Office should be fully able to read and write Microsoft Office files indistinguishably from Office (though perhaps without the bugs).
The thing is, we don't have access to the data -- Google makes it clear that we simply have a view of the data with Google Earth. So it's not an issue of fair use. Compare this with Samba. In Samba's case, it's not someone else's copyrighted data that you were never given permission to use in the first place that is transferred over the network. Samba is a tool of techniques rather than data - possibly infringing on Microsoft's patents, but I certainly hope not. Google Earth doesn't really sit in the same role as Samba. It provides a means of access and viewing of data. The manner of that viewing is limited to what Google Earth provides.
The technique of gaining alternative means of access to the data Google effectively proxies to Google Earth from its proprietary providers clearly causes Google problems. It's a bit more like the situation with digital music: we all want to be able to play on whatever devices we like, in whatever format we like, make reasonable fair use and perhaps the only slightly unreasonable use of sharing it with our friends. (They gain more than they lose from the copyright violation, from other people learning about and buying the music they wouldn't have known about otherwise. Long tail, and all that. I'd turn a blind eye, if I were them.) The data source wants to control our means of experiencing the data. I believe this is counterproductive for everybody involved, but it'll take some convincing to change minds.
A random crusade to "free the data" will only make matters worse, motivating them to further limit access to their data. Respect their copyrights for now. Put pressure where it counts. How many of us have decided both that it's unethical to violate RIAA's copyrights by copying music and that it's unethical to support RIAA's business model by buying music from them?
If you feel this geographic data should be freely available, you need to convince its owners of it. Google's not the problem here. The holder of a copyright has the last word on how the copyrighted material is used, and all copyright holders need to be educated on the importance of public access and the greater value of Free information.
A cease-and-desist for the Gaia project
Posted Nov 28, 2006 0:18 UTC (Tue) by Zack (guest, #37335) [Link]
>First: Your example uses "algorithms and data formats," but Google's issue with Gaia is the data itself. They don't have permission to give you the data.
I'm not convinced that *what* exactly the magic trinket that forbids reverse engineering is all that important to the matter, as long as it can be used as an indirect stick.
>The data stored by Bitkeeper was the source code of the kernel (or other projects that used it).
The data itself was freely retrievable at all times in my recollection, but the meta-data wasn't.
>A random crusade to "free the data" will only make matters worse, motivating them to further limit access to their data. Respect their copyrights for now.
I'm not that concerned with the data, and I respect all copyright. But is this not a carte blanche to undo all reverse engineering efforts ? Could not a proprietary video card vendor use this method to cease and desist the Nouveau project ?
As you stated, copyright and software idea patents are different things, but in hindering reverse engineering by this method they serve the same purpose.
>How many of us have decided both that it's unethical to violate RIAA's copyrights by copying music and that it's unethical to support RIAA's business model by buying music from them?
At least one. Perhaps that is related to why the whole affair strikes me as odd.
I read the rest of your comment a few times as well, and it clarified some things for me. Thank you for that.
Perhaps the battlenet affair would have made a better example for my point.
Obviously the sky is not falling and everything will hopefully peter out soon enough, but there's this general sentiment of, "it can't be all that bad, because google's not evil" that is unsettling.
Google is partly a proprietary software vendor. It is not wrong to question their behaviour even though they are a large patron of open source.
A cease-and-desist for the Gaia project
Posted Nov 28, 2006 1:00 UTC (Tue) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]
Could not a proprietary video card vendor use this method to cease and desist the Nouveau project ?
Novell sold you a piece of plastic, copper and silicone. It's yours. You can do with it as you please. Google never sold you anything.
Perhaps the battlenet affair would have made a better example for my point.
Not really. If you'll write the server for the Google Earth - it'll be the same affair.
Actually the Google Earth is pretty darn good test for DRM: Google Earth implements kind of DRM management (weak DRM, but still DRM). Where most people don't see the need to DRM-protect song or even movie most sane people agree that they don't need the full data set of satellite dataset but without DRM few out of 100 millions of users will download said dataset - and after that Google Earth will be history. What can be done about this ?
solution, kinda
Posted Nov 28, 2006 21:08 UTC (Tue) by gvy (guest, #11981) [Link]
> What can be done about this?Chinese sat data? *grin*
A cease-and-desist for the Gaia project
Posted Nov 28, 2006 20:04 UTC (Tue) by riddochc (guest, #43) [Link]
is this not a carte blanche to undo all reverse engineering efforts ? Could not a proprietary video card vendor use this method to cease and desist the Nouveau project?Nvidia has, on occasion, said that they'd be a lot more open to making their drivers Free if it weren't for various third-party proprietary stuff they've licensed and use in their closed-source drivers. Whether we believe them or not, it's passing the buck, true. They've got agreements with whatever third-parties already, and I suspect they only need to pick up the phone to make new arrangements. It's certainly a convenient excuse.
Except when it's not just an excuse. As others have posted, the owners of geospatial data (naming names: Navteq) will not budge an inch, and are more serious about being proprietary than even the RIAA. Their data is valuable, and they know it, and they make sure everyone else knows it, too.
I'm not saying we shouldn't be wary of Google. They control the horizontal and the vertical of searching the web, and despite their general claims of being not evil, I'm wary.
But we all know how this is going to go, if Gaia proceeds in spite of the warning: Google and Gaia get into an arms race over wire protocols and encryption, until Navteq calls up Google and tells them that unless they can control the data better, they'll take their business elsewhere. Google gets out lawyers and gives a stronger cease-and-desist, Gaia ignores it, and a week later the next version of Google Earth isn't standalone software but requires a web browser. Not quite the same user experience, eh?
I'm not excusing anything Google's done wrong, but I really don't see what's wrong with what Google's done so far, as far as Gaia is concerned. Navteq, on the other hand, could stand to be lectured by Stallman for a while.
A cease-and-desist for the Gaia project
Posted Nov 27, 2006 23:25 UTC (Mon) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]
How does the situation differ in this instance ?
Bitkeeper client controlled access to your own data. Google Earth client controls access to the licensed data.
But the biggest difference is in companies stance: while Bitmover used reverse engeenering to totally close free (as in beer) access to the Bitkeeper Google is asking guy to remove sources and does not ever talk about withdrawl of the free Google Earth client.
But yes, fundamentally the difference is small.