[talk-ph] Google making moves ...

[sorabsuperstar at web.de]

> I can kind of see why Google is targeting Philippines and other developing countries[...]: because there is no good online map available. 

Of course that is the reason. But think twice about that:
They did not yet invest in the Philippines, most probably because they decided that didnt pay off.
Now they are just letting others do the work of maping "second class countries" for them 
....and this for FREE.....
.... and this ONLY for THEM, since ... well of course the rights in your work remain with you. But whatever you create from there will be a derivative work with google as Co-Copyrighter. So you can only decide (e.g. republish the same data in OSM) together with google (and google won't  allow you anything)
At the same time Google can only decide about the work together with you, unless.....well unless you agree that google may do with your part whatever THEY want... 
...and in fact exactly THIS is what you have to do before joining there.

And what is google doing then with this nice intellectual property they wangled out of the people? Well they are very possessive with it! I guess most of you know that google made the creators of mobileGmaps (a very popular, non-commercial, multi-source, mutli-platform, freeware mapviewer for mobile phones) sign a cease and desist letter to not link to google-maps anymore. (In comparison, the 'so so evil' Microsoft still allows, or at least tolerates, that mobileGmaps displays data from Virtual Earth.)

However the ingenuous newbee, who is willing to map his neighborhood, wont read and think about the legal terms. He or she will just contribute to some map. And - ignorant of the legal rip off he is traping in - most probably he will rather decide for google mapmaker, since it's easier to trace their more highres footage.
Somehow that is kinda "poaching" ppl from OSM. At least potential contributors. But apparently even actual active OSM maper: Ed Garcia tried to map there. Thanks god, their arrogant moderator turned him off, so he's exclusively back with us :)

Of course it's not illegal or something what google is doing.
But their company's motto "Don't be evil" one more time proves to be face down in the mud these days.
I mean if google stood only for 10 sentimos behind the ideals they claim to stand behind (like free information culture etc) then they'd either use an open license for this, or - better - offered a cooperation with OSM sharing data (which in effect would both be the same anyway)

Yuk, google, you stink!

Cheers
 Soeren
 




> 
> I'm not sure that they're poaching contributors from a Creative Commons project. Do you have any information  on this? However I'd be interested to see where they got their data from. Of course they're a rich corporation and can afford to pay for it. But it seems odd that the coverage of their data is very similar to OSM -- mainly Metro Manila and not much beyond that. It seems to correspond roughly with their coverage of high res photography. 
> 
> Jim
> 
> sorabsuperstar at web.de wrote, On Thursday, December 04, 2008 02:14 PM:
> > I did now know about that project of google yet.
> > ...and I am pretty confused and annoyed about google...AGAIN!
> > I mean what shall this be good for? Certainly not for the greater good: 
> > Poaching contributors from a creative commons project, in order to fill in their own shortcommings in maping developing countries ....and commercializing their contributions then for free. 
> > Because this is exactly what they a shooting for. Only this! Check google mapmaker in well maped areas like Europe or North America. There is NOTHING! Its only in countries like Philippines and Vietnam.
> > They saw that open communities do a good job in maping the white patches on the world map, and now they are trying to "steal" it.
> > If they'd put this all under an open license lice CC or GPL, it would be fine.
> > But this way ...
> > 
> 
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