Thursday, May 24. 2007

Wrapping My Brain Around the Relationship between Data and API Licenses

One of the things that always bothered me about all the mapping APIs from Microsoft, Google, Yahoo is whole issue of the data. How could those companies license all this fancy (expensive) data and then let well, almost anyone, use it for free? When I saw mashups where developers put their data on top of the Google interface using the API, that seemed ok to me. These apps used the Google API and presented the data (and yours) using Google tools. See for example one of my favorites, Google Maps Pedometer.

But, when I started to see apps where the DigitalGlobe imagery or Tele Atlas data appeared in another app's interface (like perhaps Intergraph's GeoMedia) I got confused. That's just not right, it can't be legal! And, when I dug up some posts from Michael Jones about why Google forced the shutdown of a project called Gaia to build an open source client for Google Earth, I learned more. He explained in the post that the licensing of the data required it be used through the Google software. "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." And, that, while it sounds restrictive is amazingly open, especially when it comes to Google Maps, which has an open API, which is "Google software."

I finally got my brain around this idea two nights ago when John Frank, Founder and Chief Technology Officer of MetaCarta, was showing his dining companions OpenLayers, the company's open source mapping environment. (More on the MetaCarta Public Sector User Group Meeting will appear in Directions Magazine.) I had in my head that somehow OpenLayers was "doing something wrong" since it could pull in data sets from Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, MultiMap into its own interface (go play with that!). With quite a bit of patience Frank explained that OpenLayer is doing everything correctly. It has an API key for each of the API providers (if needed) and follows all the rules of the license. So, how is this different from the Gaia team noted above that got shut down? That group was accessing the data directly from Google servers and not, as stipulated in the license, via Google software. (Google Earth has no API like Google Maps does.) Frank even showed me the code where OpenLayers dutifully uses its API key to pull in tiles from Google Maps. Google, he noted, even contacted the MetaCarta team to ask if there was any thing needed to further their implementation!

So, in short, so long as you follow the rules (and not just the fact that technically you use the API to pull in the data, there are other restrictions on use) you can "tap into" all that free data in their portals and put it in your application. Let's take this further. So now, and as David Sonnen reminded me, likely temporarily, the data providers hold just half the keys to the geospatial kingdom with regard to data. They hold the half for those who want their own copy of the data. The API providers hold the other half, the one for those who want to follow their rules and jump on and share their license to the data.

I do want to share a few goodies from Frank's "three minutes and 28 second" (or so he said) presentation to the User Group Meeting yesterday. (Update: Watch the video here. - Thanks John!)

He did an OpenLayers demo, with the app noted above. While the layers drew up Frank noted that WMS is often faster that the drawing speeds of the commercial providers. I quizzed him on this later and he clarified that it's WMS-C, a proposed version of WMS with tile caching, that’s faster. "Regular" WMS isn’t that fast, typically.

Frank then introduced FeatureServer, a Python script that runs on Apache servers. It allows the user to draw vectors and upload the resulting features to the server to be shared among other users, or, to be written back out KML, GEORSS, geoJSON (a geo-enabled version of "JavaScript Object Notation", "a lightweight computer data interchange format", per Wikepedia) and others. And, yes it does support OGC’s Web Feature Service. You can find other developer goodies at MetaCarta Web Services page.

Comments

Display comments as (Linear | Threaded)

I was just playing with GlobeGlider http://gg3.globeglider.net/gg/index.jsp?uid=v_PHpvP2BkEYF8bJwpiVo_&sk=gg
when I caught your discussion of licensing.

I recall reverse engineering Gmaps when it was first introduced and thinking how wonderful all this imagery data is but too bad I can't legally use it outside the Google client. This api approach lets people have the best of all worlds, free views and integration with minimal branding costs. I still wonder how Google and MS will evolve the ad model for their apis?

GeoGLider is an example of pulling from many geo apis and leveraging GeoRSS/GeoTagging. Since GE and VE are not html browser webapps they can't be integrated into this kind of aggregation site.

GE might someday render html/xml and integrate the html map world, while MS XBAP may become a browser standard and allow VE integration with 3D. It is a rapidly moving situation.

#1 randy george (Link) on 2007-05-24 10:43 (Reply)

I'm repeatedly left rather flummoxed by the confusions that seem to be grained from the data.

It's really rather simple. Google make deal with imagery providers and/or producers. Google make deal with you, the developer not to do anything other than display data through their API software. Google make deal with you, the developer and user not to download or redistribute said imagery in any forms outside the deal.

It's called 'licensing restrictions'. VE has the same concept - and so does everyone else and their mom in this industry. Well, except perhaps NASA Worldwind, but that appears to have changed now that I-Cubed's dataset is in there as well.

There's a variety of WMS concepts that are also subscription-based and hold to license restrictions. It's really not that different of a model all the way around.

#2 Daniel (Link) on 2007-05-24 13:38 (Reply)

I was under the notion that the GE license agreement stipulates that you can only use the api for public web sites. This means you would be in violation of the GE license agreement by creating an OpenLayers intranet application to serve up GE data (via its api). Am I wrong on this?

#3 Shane (Link) on 2007-05-24 21:21 (Reply)

Yep... as I understand it, and I've researched it for a hobby project, if you use Google Maps in any format, it has to be in a manner that is public and doesn't generate revenue directly from the maps. If you want to build an intranet ap or a paid subscription-based personal widget mapping service, you need to ask about Enterprise licensing.

That license doesn't necessarily stop companies/organizations from building intranet or even mobile applications for work-related applications. I've heard of a few that should have been built for a cost, but weren't. The trick is that some of those aps probably have relatively small hit rates even if they're highly useful... thereby flying under the radar.

#3.1 Chris Andrews on 2007-05-27 23:01 (Reply)

The 3:28 video is here: http://developers.metacarta.com/gallery/item/cool-map-tools

WMS-C can be generated by TileCache, which is freely available from www.TileCache.org.

#4 jrf (Link) on 2007-05-24 22:04 (Reply)

I can suddenly hear the sound of attorneys shuffling papers and writing notes.

#4.1 Daniel (Link) on 2007-05-25 07:57 (Reply)

It's likely that the URL:

http://developers.metacarta.com/gallery/item/64/cool-maps-from-metacarta.wmv

will work better than the one that John posted earlier on some platforms. I'm working on converting this to a flash video instead, so we don't have to depend on the way various video players work.

#4.2 Christopher Schmidt on 2007-05-27 02:59 (Reply)

http://labs.metacarta.com/presentations/cool-map-tools.html

Flash-based player, with 7.2MB video of cool-map-tools demonstration. (Includes 'full screen' option.)

#4.2.1 Christopher Schmidt on 2007-05-27 14:21 (Reply)

Add Comment

Name
Email
Homepage
In reply to	[ Top level ]#1: randy george on 2007-05-24 10:43 #2: Daniel on 2007-05-24 13:38 #3: Shane on 2007-05-24 21:21   #3.1: Chris Andrews on 2007-05-27 23:01 #4: jrf on 2007-05-24 22:04   #4.1: Daniel on 2007-05-25 07:57   #4.2: Christopher Schmidt on 2007-05-27 02:59     #4.2.1: Christopher Schmidt on 2007-05-27 14:21
Comment	Enclosing asterisks marks text as bold (*word*), underscore are made via _word_. Standard emoticons like :-) and ;-) are converted to images. E-Mail addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for E-Mail notifications To prevent automated Bots from commentspamming, please enter the string you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly. Enter the string from the spam-prevention image above:
	Remember Information?   Subscribe to this entry