Vote for Google to liberate their aerial imagery - *please help*

[Richard Fairhurst]

Google has a really enlightened guy called the "Data Liberation  
Front". His role is to make it easy for people to get their data out  
of Google - rather than it being locked in.

Usually, people are locked in by the lack of an export feature, or an  
obscure file format. In mapping, people are locked in by licences.

In Google Maps' case, you can create your own work by tracing over  
aerial imagery. But you can't use this work elsewhere, because of the  
licences and terms of use. (The phrase "derived work" usually crops up  
around now.)

Google could fix this by saying that tracing from their imagery is ok  
- just like Yahoo have done. As some of you will know, I've looked  
into the legalities of this and don't believe there's anything in law  
stopping them from doing so. It's entirely their decision.

- - - - - - -

So:

* Please "vote up" this suggestion for Google's Data Liberation Front:

   http://moderator.appspot.com/#8/e=43649

* Please encourage your friends to do so, too!
   Blog, use Twitter, post to national mailing lists, etc. etc.

cheers
Richard


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[Richard Fairhurst]

I wrote:
> * Please "vote up" this suggestion for Google's Data Liberation Front:
>   *NOT*   http://moderator.appspot.com/#8/e=43649

But when you do so (ahem), please use the correct link, because their permalinks, well, aren't.

    http://url.ie/2ero

will work.

Cheers!

Richard

[Paul Johnson-20]

On Fri, 2009-09-11 at 14:49 +0100, Richard Fairhurst wrote:
> Google has a really enlightened guy called the "Data Liberation  
> Front". His role is to make it easy for people to get their data out  
> of Google - rather than it being locked in.

Notice that signing online petitions to encourage change is roughly as
effective as urinating windward to stay dry.  Consider starting a paper
letter campaign so it costs them time and money dealing with it instead.
You know what most people think when they're the target of an online
petition?  "LOL! *baleeted*"



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I signed it.
I will also sign a gpg signed petition.
you can print that out in my name, kill some trees first, and deliver
it to them.
mike

On Sat, Sep 12, 2009 at 3:13 PM, Paul Johnson <baloo@...> wrote:

> On Fri, 2009-09-11 at 14:49 +0100, Richard Fairhurst wrote:
>> Google has a really enlightened guy called the "Data Liberation
>> Front". His role is to make it easy for people to get their data out
>> of Google - rather than it being locked in.
>
> Notice that signing online petitions to encourage change is roughly as
> effective as urinating windward to stay dry.  Consider starting a paper
> letter campaign so it costs them time and money dealing with it instead.
> You know what most people think when they're the target of an online
> petition?  "LOL! *baleeted*"
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> legal-talk mailing list
> legal-talk@...
> http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
>
>

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[Matt Amos-3]

On 9/12/09, Paul Johnson <baloo@...> wrote:

> On Fri, 2009-09-11 at 14:49 +0100, Richard Fairhurst wrote:
>> Google has a really enlightened guy called the "Data Liberation
>> Front". His role is to make it easy for people to get their data out
>> of Google - rather than it being locked in.
>
> Notice that signing online petitions to encourage change is roughly as
> effective as urinating windward to stay dry.  Consider starting a paper
> letter campaign so it costs them time and money dealing with it instead.
> You know what most people think when they're the target of an online
> petition?  "LOL! *baleeted*"

seems to work at least as well as writing to my MP. the responses have
always been of two general forms:

1) thank you for your input. what you have said agrees with what my
party whips say. i hope i can count on your support at the next
election.

2) thank you for your input. what you have said disagrees with what my
party whips say, and here are their reasons why you're wrong:...

cheers,

matt

PS: go, voting! go, democracy! don't be evil!

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[Francis Davey-2]

2009/9/13 Matt Amos <zerebubuth@...>

seems to work at least as well as writing to my MP. the responses have
always been of two general forms:

1) thank you for your input. what you have said agrees with what my
party whips say. i hope i can count on your support at the next
election.

2) thank you for your input. what you have said disagrees with what my
party whips say, and here are their reasons why you're wrong:...

My MP (Dianne Abbott) tends to respond in roughly the same way except with the views of the party whips broadly reversed (I'm often criticising her party's policies and she usually agrees) but I do get some "how interesting" responses when I've obviously drawn her attention to something she wasn't aware of but she's sympathetic to (happens in housing quite a bit) and one *very* defensive letter about MP's expenses.

I still think its useful. MPs do get swayed, things do chance. When we were campaigning against the original Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill the fact that so many MPs got emails and letters from our supporters alerted a lot of them to the strength of feeling that existed and gave the Bill much more profile, ultimately leading to a major government climb down. On the way we got fobbed off a lot by lots of people, but change did happen.
 

--
Francis Davey

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[Paul Johnson-20]

Matt Amos wrote:

> On 9/12/09, Paul Johnson <baloo@...> wrote:
>> On Fri, 2009-09-11 at 14:49 +0100, Richard Fairhurst wrote:
>>> Google has a really enlightened guy called the "Data Liberation
>>> Front". His role is to make it easy for people to get their data out
>>> of Google - rather than it being locked in.
>>
>> Notice that signing online petitions to encourage change is roughly as
>> effective as urinating windward to stay dry.  Consider starting a paper
>> letter campaign so it costs them time and money dealing with it instead.
>> You know what most people think when they're the target of an online
>> petition?  "LOL! *baleeted*"
>
> seems to work at least as well as writing to my MP. the responses have
> always been of two general forms:

Writing to your MP is a tad less ignorable, especially if you send it
physically rather than electronically, bonus points if you ship it "To
be delivered ONLY to addressee" and "Return receipt required."  Your
congressman's postman will probably hate you forever for making them
track down a congressman directly to deliver mail, but better that then
thinking some random internet petition does more than waste server
resources and electrons that could be better spent in almost any other
way.



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