4 ms·

Lucky for them that they’re not a public service in Germany, otherwise they would get sued for unfair competition (and lose): https://www.deskmodder.de/blog/202

Lucky for them that they’re not a public service in Germany, otherwise they would get sued for unfair competition (and lose): https://www.deskmodder.de/blog/2020/03/12/kostenlose-warnwetter-app-vom-dwd-per-gerichtsurteil-darf-nicht-mehr-angeboten-werden-nur-gegen-entgeld/ https://www.deskmodder.de/blog/2020/03/12/kostenlose-warnwet...

zuzun 4y ago
They still publish all their data free of charge and are required to do so by law. For weather forecast, they dump all parameters of their recent model runs. So I guess I'm saying that you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially...
- dloss 4y ago
  Like Meteocool? https://github.com/v4lli/meteocool https://github.com/v4lli/meteocool Developed by a former colleague of mine. Open source and my favorite for 2h forecasts about upcoming rain in Germany.
- leonry 4y ago
  The app „Tiny Weather Forecast Germany“ (https://codeberg.org/Starfish/TinyWeatherForecastGermany https://codeberg.org/Starfish/TinyWeatherForecastGermany) seems to exactly make use of that. There are probably others, but it is the only one I found on F-Droid.
leobg 4y ago
For context, from the court ruling (BGH, DeepL translation): Originally, it was envisaged that all services provided by the DWD to the general public for public dissemination via modern means of communication, such as mobile devices via an app, as specified in Section 4 (1) DWDG should be free of charge (Explanatory Memorandum to the Government Draft of a First Law Amending the Law on the German Meteorological Service, BT-Drucks. 18/11533, S. 22). The Bundesrat has commented on this and raised competition law concerns about the tax-funded DWD making meteorological and climatological services available to the end consumer free of charge, because such a free charge constitutes an impediment to established private-sector providers and erects barriers to market entry for new providers or new offerings (explanatory memorandum to the government draft of a first law amending the law on the German Meteorological Service, BT-Drucks. 18/11533, S. 25). The version of Section 6 (2a) DWDG that has become law is based on the resolution recommendation and report of the Bundestag Committee on Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BT-Drucks. 18/12836, p. 2), according to which not all services provided by the DWD to the general public pursuant to Section 4 (1) DWDG should be free of charge, but only those pursuant to Section 4 (1) Nos. 3 and 7 DWDG.
- harha 4y ago
  Quite interesting reasoning given in how many places the state intervenes and how high taxes are. Though then again not that surprising that they manage to publicly fund something and then ruin it, leaving the taxpayer in the worst condition. I believe there’s even no official source of laws online in Germany decades after the internet has made it cheap and easy to provide access to information.
  - Cu3PO42 4y ago
    No disagreement on the weird reasoning from me, but I don't think the part about the laws is true. gesetze-im-internet.de is, according to their Impress, run by the ministry of justice.
    - teh64 4y ago
      They law part is not true, according to the website they provide almost all of the German laws. The site is also linked from the ministry of justice itself, so it is definitely legit: https://www.bmj.de/DE/Service/GesetzeInternet/GesetzeInternet_node.html https://www.bmj.de/DE/Service/GesetzeInternet/GesetzeInterne... They even have an RSS feed when laws are updated: https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/aktuDienst.html https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/aktuDienst.html (Funnily enough, they also say IE 6 does not support the RSS feed)
      - harha 4y ago
        It’s legit but not complete, it’s not the official form (amtliche Fassung) and only the current laws, not the historic view. In Austria for instance RIS is much more complete: https://www.ris.bka.gv.at/ https://www.ris.bka.gv.at/ Edit: not directly related but a fun fact: in Switzerland you can get a copy of the constitutional laws for free at any bookstore and it’s supposed to be understandable for normal citizens and not only for lawyers.
        teh64 4y ago
        Interesting, did not now about the amtliche Fassung. But the full archive with the amtliche Fassung is also published online for free, starting from 1949: https://www.bgbl.de/xaver/bgbl/start.xav https://www.bgbl.de/xaver/bgbl/start.xav They also mention it on the gesetze-im-internet website: https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/hinweise.html https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/hinweise.html It seems that the Austrian way is much better though.
omnibrain 4y ago
This is comparing apples to pears, as the saying goes. Only the free app was deemed anticompetitive. All the data is available: Geoservers: https://maps.dwd.de/geoserver/web/ https://maps.dwd.de/geoserver/web/ (weather and warnings) https://cdc.dwd.de/geoserver/web/ https://cdc.dwd.de/geoserver/web/ (climate infomarmation) https://www.dwd.de/DE/leistungen/geodienste/geodienste.html https://www.dwd.de/DE/leistungen/geodienste/geodienste.html (Overview) You are also free to embed all the information from the website (maps, etc.) and there is also the raw data server: https://opendata.dwd.de/ https://opendata.dwd.de/

zuzun 4y ago

They still publish all their data free of charge and are required to do so by law. For weather forecast, they dump all parameters of their recent model runs. So I guess I'm saying that you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially...

dloss 4y ago
Like Meteocool? https://github.com/v4lli/meteocool https://github.com/v4lli/meteocool Developed by a former colleague of mine. Open source and my favorite for 2h forecasts about upcoming rain in Germany.
leonry 4y ago
The app „Tiny Weather Forecast Germany“ (https://codeberg.org/Starfish/TinyWeatherForecastGermany https://codeberg.org/Starfish/TinyWeatherForecastGermany) seems to exactly make use of that. There are probably others, but it is the only one I found on F-Droid.

leobg 4y ago

For context, from the court ruling (BGH, DeepL translation): Originally, it was envisaged that all services provided by the DWD to the general public for public dissemination via modern means of communication, such as mobile devices via an app, as specified in Section 4 (1) DWDG should be free of charge (Explanatory Memorandum to the Government Draft of a First Law Amending the Law on the German Meteorological Service, BT-Drucks. 18/11533, S. 22). The Bundesrat has commented on this and raised competition law concerns about the tax-funded DWD making meteorological and climatological services available to the end consumer free of charge, because such a free charge constitutes an impediment to established private-sector providers and erects barriers to market entry for new providers or new offerings (explanatory memorandum to the government draft of a first law amending the law on the German Meteorological Service, BT-Drucks. 18/11533, S. 25). The version of Section 6 (2a) DWDG that has become law is based on the resolution recommendation and report of the Bundestag Committee on Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BT-Drucks. 18/12836, p. 2), according to which not all services provided by the DWD to the general public pursuant to Section 4 (1) DWDG should be free of charge, but only those pursuant to Section 4 (1) Nos. 3 and 7 DWDG.

harha 4y ago
Quite interesting reasoning given in how many places the state intervenes and how high taxes are. Though then again not that surprising that they manage to publicly fund something and then ruin it, leaving the taxpayer in the worst condition. I believe there’s even no official source of laws online in Germany decades after the internet has made it cheap and easy to provide access to information.
- Cu3PO42 4y ago
  No disagreement on the weird reasoning from me, but I don't think the part about the laws is true. gesetze-im-internet.de is, according to their Impress, run by the ministry of justice.
  - teh64 4y ago
    They law part is not true, according to the website they provide almost all of the German laws. The site is also linked from the ministry of justice itself, so it is definitely legit: https://www.bmj.de/DE/Service/GesetzeInternet/GesetzeInternet_node.html https://www.bmj.de/DE/Service/GesetzeInternet/GesetzeInterne... They even have an RSS feed when laws are updated: https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/aktuDienst.html https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/aktuDienst.html (Funnily enough, they also say IE 6 does not support the RSS feed)
    - harha 4y ago
      It’s legit but not complete, it’s not the official form (amtliche Fassung) and only the current laws, not the historic view. In Austria for instance RIS is much more complete: https://www.ris.bka.gv.at/ https://www.ris.bka.gv.at/ Edit: not directly related but a fun fact: in Switzerland you can get a copy of the constitutional laws for free at any bookstore and it’s supposed to be understandable for normal citizens and not only for lawyers.
      - teh64 4y ago
        Interesting, did not now about the amtliche Fassung. But the full archive with the amtliche Fassung is also published online for free, starting from 1949: https://www.bgbl.de/xaver/bgbl/start.xav https://www.bgbl.de/xaver/bgbl/start.xav They also mention it on the gesetze-im-internet website: https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/hinweise.html https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/hinweise.html It seems that the Austrian way is much better though.

omnibrain 4y ago

This is comparing apples to pears, as the saying goes. Only the free app was deemed anticompetitive. All the data is available: Geoservers: https://maps.dwd.de/geoserver/web/ https://maps.dwd.de/geoserver/web/ (weather and warnings) https://cdc.dwd.de/geoserver/web/ https://cdc.dwd.de/geoserver/web/ (climate infomarmation) https://www.dwd.de/DE/leistungen/geodienste/geodienste.html https://www.dwd.de/DE/leistungen/geodienste/geodienste.html (Overview) You are also free to embed all the information from the website (maps, etc.) and there is also the raw data server: https://opendata.dwd.de/ https://opendata.dwd.de/