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Thanks for using my code, Google
- redorb 18y agokinda feel bad for the fellow, although to his admittance his only innovation was some flash code. I wish him well in his 'for profit' venture
- cousin_it 18y agoHey, I'm that fellow. Why feel bad? It's a win.
- redorb 18y agoSeems like you worked hard on a problem - but got beat to getting paid for it.
- cousin_it 18y agoActually it was much easier than it looks - less than 5 hours per week, for 5 months. A thousand lines of code for the interface, another couple hundred on the server side. PHP, JavaScript, Flash. Cheap shared hosting account. Logo made with Web 2.0 Logo Generator.
- ph0rque 18y agoThe way the post is worded sounds sarcastic... maybe that's why the sentiment expressed above.
- sadiq 18y agoJust out of interest, have you thought much on how you'd go about doing automatic matching? Would it be feasible to use one of the SIFT implementations out there?
- cousin_it 18y agoYes, thought a lot, and coded a little. Main problem: sparse bundle adjustment is slow and non-incremental. From what I hear, the same problem is delaying the release of MS Photosynth. Maybe the answer is running SBA on small numbers of user-supplied points rather than SIFT output. Maybe I'm just clueless.
- wave 18y agoWhen I read about Panoramio (Google product) on TC today, I thought about how similar it is with your product. I don't know how long Google has been working on Panoramio, but I think you have a good product. Instead of closing the project down, did you try to get funding and take your service to next level?
- cousin_it 18y agoI never wanted to earn money with this thing, it was conceived and started as a non-profit. My number one goal was to see Sagrada Familia again, as it should be seen. The other goal was to change people's minds, change the web, open a new possibility. Win on both counts.
- whacked_new 18y agoThat's quite a spirit right there; great respect for that, and upmods won't quite do justice. I salute you sir.
- ComputerGuru 18y agoThe interface on the Google service is identical as best as I can figure - does "Do no evil" include saying thank you to the authors of open source code?
- cousin_it 18y agoI see a lot of differences; maybe they even recoded it from scratch. But it uses some interesting tricks I invented, and doesn't use the easy features that I didn't include. They definitely have at least seen the source code.
- echair 18y agomaybe they even recoded it from scratch Even when Google buys a startup they usually rewrite everything.
- xirium 18y agoI also wonder if "do no evil" includes not peeking at the fellow's gmail account.
- kajecounterhack 18y agoWow this is amazing. What many would do to have google use our code haha... Congrats man.
- cousin_it 18y agoPeople are pointing out this is likely a rewrite. Fun, anyway.
- pistoriusp 18y agoI'm not a flash guy so I'm not sure about this, but isn't it possible to decompile flash?
- cousin_it 18y agoNo need, I released the source as GPL. It was legal for them to just take it.
- rms 18y agoWell, if you want a job at Google working on Photosynth for Google Earth, you could try asking them...
- pistoriusp 18y agoYeah, I meant as a way to confirm that they are really using it?
- cousin_it 18y agoAh I see, sorry I didn't understand you. Too lazy to decompile the Flash code, but the JavaScript is unfamiliar to me and seems to indicate a rewrite.
- BrandonM 18y agoHmm... very interesting. Flash is sent to the browser as a binary then, right? The GPL says that any derived works which are distributed as binaries must have the source code (including the changes) made available publicly. Out of curiosity and to maintain the openness of open source software, it might not be a bad idea to mention to Google that the app looks to use GPL software and request to see the source. Of course, if they rewrote it, this is a bit more complicated (a line-by-line rewrite, or an interface-based rewrite?), but it might be worth a shot.
- volida 18y agowell its obvious they copied. It doesnt matter if it is a re write. They owe somebody a thank note. So much for the do no evil bullshit.
- jpeterson 18y agoThe most amazing part of this post is that people are still using jottit.