[ gpsdrive ] gpsfetchmap

[Joerg Ostertag]

Am Mittwoch, 26. September 2007 03:42:10 schrieb Hamish:
> > Andreas Putzo:
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > i noticed that the header of gpsfetchmap.pl changed from the last
> > >
> > > release. It now states:
> > > | #!/usr/bin/perl
> > > | # gpsfetchmap
> > > | #
> > > | # You are allowed to modify the source code in any way you want
> > > | # except you cannot modify this copyright details
> > > | # or remove the polite feature.
> > > | #
> > > | # NO WARRANTY.
> > >
> > > This looks to me like some kind of a license statement. Beside that it
> > > is quite incomplete (is redistribution granted?) it unfortunately has
> > > a clause in it i would consider not to be free.
> > > Not changing the copright should be fine but why is it not allowed to
> > > remove the polite feature?
> > > IMHO this restriction does not make sense anyway because i can easily
> > > use the command line switch --polite=0 if i choose to be impolite (not
> > > that i ever would :).
> > > I don't know when exactly this has been introduced but maybe it can be
> > > changed back? Why not put this script under the GPL like the rest of
> > > gpsdrive?
>
> Joerg Ostertag wrote:
> > This restriction was introduced to reduce the chance of getting in
> > trouble with any of the map providers. But in then long term we hopefully
> > won't need to support any restricted map-provider with gpsfetchmap any
> > more.
>
> That will surely fail the Debian Free Software Guidelines test. (cc'ing
> DebianGIS for a more authoritative answer) 

If we find a good other solution we can change this part of the license. But 
maybe it would be a better solution to split up gpsfetchmap.pl and have the 
url-calculation for the restricted map-services in a seperate module. This 
module will have the more restricted licence terms and will not be shipped 
with the debian Package. As already said, I think in the long term we won't 
need these downloads anyhow.

> I would guess the "you may not 
> remove the polite feature" license term in practice wouldn't help any with
> regard to upsetting map server owners with bulk downloads; they are already
> mad by the time they see that, if they see that. It would be better to just
> ensure that the default is set to polite mode, maybe even hardcode it to
> require the user to do an obvious minor edit in the script to disable it.

Sounds reasonable. So as for a first action, let's hardcode some kind of lower 
limt. And hope that 90% of the users will either respect this or will not 
have the ability to change it.

-

Joerg