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I enjoy HN and have lots of respect for this community, but there's a strong contradiction in the way we discuss I.P. On one hand, we're a community of people

I enjoy HN and have lots of respect for this community, but there's a strong contradiction in the way we discuss I.P. On one hand, we're a community of people who found and contribute to software businesses. Most of these companies depend on selling intellectual property in the form of code and data. Yet, as makers or hackers, some of us despise the companies that attempt to profit from selling I.P. We expect that all components of software be free for us to tinker with and repurpose. "Well...wait a minute," one might say, "There doesn't have to be a dichotomy between totally closed and totally open." Exactly! That's precisely what Google is trying to achieve with its mapping initiative. The firm is investing heavily in community tools (not to mention SDKs for developers) that give us an opportunity to participate: posting, querying and modifying data. Being both entrepreneurs and makers, we should be a little more realistic about our relationship with IP. You can't always have your cake and eat it, too.

maxerickson 13y ago
There isn't really anything contradictory about being cautious of doing free work for a huge for profit corporation. If Google shared the data you would be getting different responses, but they only use the data to improve their products. (I can totally see submitting a change to get rid of an annoyance; I don't get warm fuzzies from 'helping Google make maps a better product'.)
clarry 13y ago
> Being both entrepreneurs and makers, we should be a little more realistic about our relationship with IP. You can't always have your cake and eat it, too. Why not? We can always demand more, and what is wrong with that? And if we set out to make and eat that cake, chances are we can do it. It is not unrealistic at all. So far crowdsourcing has worked really well for many projects, and I can only see it getting bigger as we as a community realize the potential of open data and our ability to collect & manage it in numbers that few companies can afford to challenge. The point made by GP is a perfectly valid one, and many of us have been screwed in some way or another by corporations that hold the keys. I do not see why playing along with such schemes has anything to do with being realistic.
javajosh 13y ago
>some of us despise the companies that attempt to profit from selling I.P. If I despised Google, or any company that profits from selling IP, I would have said so. If you can either contribute to an open dataset or a closed one, you contribute to the open one because the benefit no longer relies on the goodwill of any dataset owner. This principle underlies not only Open Street Maps, but OSS in general, and with a little finagling, things like Bitcoin. If the last few years have taught us anything, it's that we cannot rely on the basic decency of any institution. I'm not happy about it. I wish I could trust institutions to be decent. But time and again they act indecently, and weather the (short) media storm, and keep going, business as usual, and we must protect ourselves from that. To do otherwise is to ignore the lessons of the past.
wetafur 13y ago
The problem is that corporations are not just satisfied with making a profit but tend to progress towards squeezing the last penny out of users at all costs. For example, Google is rolling out tracking which stores Android phones visit, and if you turn location services off, a lot of things including Google Now stop working[1]. Why would I want to work for free on improving maps so they can track where people go for advertising purposes? It is the difference between contributing to Wikipedia versus Encyclopaedia Brittanica.Not to mention doing user hostile things like making ads look like search results[3] >That's precisely what Google is trying to achieve with its mapping initiative. The firm is investing heavily in community tools (not to mention SDKs for developers) that give us an opportunity to participate: posting, querying and modifying data. So is OpenStreetMap, Navteq(commercial again) [2] and other mapping companies. Atleast Navteq/Nokia allows you to download complete offlline maps for their Here maps on supported devices unlike Google which wants to force people to be online for tracking/advertising purposes. [1] http://digiday.com/platforms/google-tracking/ http://digiday.com/platforms/google-tracking/ [2] https://mapreporter.navteq.com/#dashboard https://mapreporter.navteq.com/#dashboard [3] http://blog.dynamoo.com/2013/10/google-ads-and-fff7ed-whats-wrong-with.html http://blog.dynamoo.com/2013/10/google-ads-and-fff7ed-whats-...
rakoo 13y ago
> We expect that all components of software be free for us to tinker with and repurpose. OSM, along with its cousins-in-spirit projects Wikipedia and Libre Software are not about hacking on software. They are about building a society. A society where no one has to depend on someone else. A society where everyone can learn and share with its co-citizens. The number one foundation for building this society is that data be: * accessible without needing explicit authorization, * modifiable without needing explicit authorization, * shareable with anyone without needing explicit authorization in short, what the Free Software definition [0] does for software, but generalized to knowledge (for Wikipedia) or geographical position (for OSM). By using and (worse !) contributing to Google Maps, you don't build this society. You trust Google to do it; but that's not the reason why Google exists, so you can't be sure about that. Plus, if you recall not-so-old history, you must remember how easy it is for Google to unplug applications even if they are used. Google is giving you great, shiny toys to play with. But you can only build the present with them. I'd rather trust the future in a Foundation than in a company whose goal is to make money. [0] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
- toomuchtodo 13y ago
  If you had to wrap projects together like Wikipedia, OSM, etc (open data sets that you could argue are the foundation of society), what would you call the collection?
  - pirateking 13y ago
    Modern Civilization.
- sirkneeland 13y ago
  I tend to steer clear of anyone with ambitions so utopian and all-encompassing as "building a society". Such missions have a strong tendency to end in failure, death, or both. How about a less grandiose goal like "making software better and more accessible"
  - 13y ago
morganherlocker 13y ago
I don't think people hate google for offering proprietary mapping, but nobody wants to be subjected to unnecessary leverage. For example, I wanted to use google in a commercial application, but only for backend services like geocoding and place search. I wanted to pay them for these services, but they refused the business because I did not want to display the data on a google map and use the google js api. That is the sort of thing a company with lots of leverage can do. I wanted to pay full price or more to use a feature (10s of thousands per year), but due to a monopoly on the data, they can turn me away. Sorry, but I already have to deal with one Comcast.
grey-area 13y ago
Yet, as makers or hackers, some of us despise the companies that attempt to profit from selling I.P. We expect that all components of software be free for us to tinker with and repurpose. Why should we trust Google with this data? Why should we supply google with this data when open alternatives exist? Will their incentives in using this data always be aligned with ours? You don't have to despise Google or want all things to be totally open to ask these questions. You don't have to be hostile to IP or companies selling IP to decide it is more in your interest to contribute to an open project. I'd rather contribute data to an open project and watch a thousand mapping projects bloom (including Google's) based on that data, than help a corporation like Google or Apple take over every corner of our digital lives. OSM has led to a lot of great mapping services based on their data, and no-one resents those. It'd be wonderful to see a similar open web search project based on open data too. Being both entrepreneurs and makers, we should be a little more realistic about our relationship with IP. You can't always have your cake and eat it, too. With large corporations, the cake is a lie.

maxerickson 13y ago

There isn't really anything contradictory about being cautious of doing free work for a huge for profit corporation. If Google shared the data you would be getting different responses, but they only use the data to improve their products. (I can totally see submitting a change to get rid of an annoyance; I don't get warm fuzzies from 'helping Google make maps a better product'.)

clarry 13y ago

> Being both entrepreneurs and makers, we should be a little more realistic about our relationship with IP. You can't always have your cake and eat it, too. Why not? We can always demand more, and what is wrong with that? And if we set out to make and eat that cake, chances are we can do it. It is not unrealistic at all. So far crowdsourcing has worked really well for many projects, and I can only see it getting bigger as we as a community realize the potential of open data and our ability to collect & manage it in numbers that few companies can afford to challenge. The point made by GP is a perfectly valid one, and many of us have been screwed in some way or another by corporations that hold the keys. I do not see why playing along with such schemes has anything to do with being realistic.

javajosh 13y ago

>some of us despise the companies that attempt to profit from selling I.P. If I despised Google, or any company that profits from selling IP, I would have said so. If you can either contribute to an open dataset or a closed one, you contribute to the open one because the benefit no longer relies on the goodwill of any dataset owner. This principle underlies not only Open Street Maps, but OSS in general, and with a little finagling, things like Bitcoin. If the last few years have taught us anything, it's that we cannot rely on the basic decency of any institution. I'm not happy about it. I wish I could trust institutions to be decent. But time and again they act indecently, and weather the (short) media storm, and keep going, business as usual, and we must protect ourselves from that. To do otherwise is to ignore the lessons of the past.

wetafur 13y ago

The problem is that corporations are not just satisfied with making a profit but tend to progress towards squeezing the last penny out of users at all costs. For example, Google is rolling out tracking which stores Android phones visit, and if you turn location services off, a lot of things including Google Now stop working[1]. Why would I want to work for free on improving maps so they can track where people go for advertising purposes? It is the difference between contributing to Wikipedia versus Encyclopaedia Brittanica.Not to mention doing user hostile things like making ads look like search results[3] >That's precisely what Google is trying to achieve with its mapping initiative. The firm is investing heavily in community tools (not to mention SDKs for developers) that give us an opportunity to participate: posting, querying and modifying data. So is OpenStreetMap, Navteq(commercial again) [2] and other mapping companies. Atleast Navteq/Nokia allows you to download complete offlline maps for their Here maps on supported devices unlike Google which wants to force people to be online for tracking/advertising purposes. [1] http://digiday.com/platforms/google-tracking/ http://digiday.com/platforms/google-tracking/ [2] https://mapreporter.navteq.com/#dashboard https://mapreporter.navteq.com/#dashboard [3] http://blog.dynamoo.com/2013/10/google-ads-and-fff7ed-whats-wrong-with.html http://blog.dynamoo.com/2013/10/google-ads-and-fff7ed-whats-...

rakoo 13y ago

> We expect that all components of software be free for us to tinker with and repurpose. OSM, along with its cousins-in-spirit projects Wikipedia and Libre Software are not about hacking on software. They are about building a society. A society where no one has to depend on someone else. A society where everyone can learn and share with its co-citizens. The number one foundation for building this society is that data be: * accessible without needing explicit authorization, * modifiable without needing explicit authorization, * shareable with anyone without needing explicit authorization in short, what the Free Software definition [0] does for software, but generalized to knowledge (for Wikipedia) or geographical position (for OSM). By using and (worse !) contributing to Google Maps, you don't build this society. You trust Google to do it; but that's not the reason why Google exists, so you can't be sure about that. Plus, if you recall not-so-old history, you must remember how easy it is for Google to unplug applications even if they are used. Google is giving you great, shiny toys to play with. But you can only build the present with them. I'd rather trust the future in a Foundation than in a company whose goal is to make money. [0] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

toomuchtodo 13y ago
If you had to wrap projects together like Wikipedia, OSM, etc (open data sets that you could argue are the foundation of society), what would you call the collection?
- pirateking 13y ago
  Modern Civilization.
sirkneeland 13y ago
I tend to steer clear of anyone with ambitions so utopian and all-encompassing as "building a society". Such missions have a strong tendency to end in failure, death, or both. How about a less grandiose goal like "making software better and more accessible"
- 13y ago

morganherlocker 13y ago

I don't think people hate google for offering proprietary mapping, but nobody wants to be subjected to unnecessary leverage. For example, I wanted to use google in a commercial application, but only for backend services like geocoding and place search. I wanted to pay them for these services, but they refused the business because I did not want to display the data on a google map and use the google js api. That is the sort of thing a company with lots of leverage can do. I wanted to pay full price or more to use a feature (10s of thousands per year), but due to a monopoly on the data, they can turn me away. Sorry, but I already have to deal with one Comcast.

grey-area 13y ago

Yet, as makers or hackers, some of us despise the companies that attempt to profit from selling I.P. We expect that all components of software be free for us to tinker with and repurpose. Why should we trust Google with this data? Why should we supply google with this data when open alternatives exist? Will their incentives in using this data always be aligned with ours? You don't have to despise Google or want all things to be totally open to ask these questions. You don't have to be hostile to IP or companies selling IP to decide it is more in your interest to contribute to an open project. I'd rather contribute data to an open project and watch a thousand mapping projects bloom (including Google's) based on that data, than help a corporation like Google or Apple take over every corner of our digital lives. OSM has led to a lot of great mapping services based on their data, and no-one resents those. It'd be wonderful to see a similar open web search project based on open data too. Being both entrepreneurs and makers, we should be a little more realistic about our relationship with IP. You can't always have your cake and eat it, too. With large corporations, the cake is a lie.