"It may seem restrictive, but it's a free service, and Google are subject to their suppliers' license terms which they have to pass on."
Of course, but I also don't see much point in Google being bothered by whats internally going on if the end result is the same. The "copying" statement in the license, especially with the example of the server and stitching, could well be referring to copies on the file-system, for example, and not manipulations of the image in the ram/video ram. I can certainly see why they wouldn't want people copying the files, but I struggled to see why they would care how its being displayed on the device. Thats why I don't see it as being as solid as you do...seems more ambiguous to me. "But that's also explicitly allowed (after all, if the device couldn't display a particular image, there wouldn't be a great deal of point in all this!)" Fair point :p In this case, Google has pretty much end-to-end controll over it, seeing as its their Android OS I'm using. But what about windows use of the API? Theres all manor of things NVIdia/ATA drivers could well be doing to the images of just about any window in windows. (Or Linux, for that matter, with the fancy wobbly-effects some distros have). I dont see how universally internally copying of image buffers can be not allowed. "Google's response to this sort of thing in the past has been "You may be able to do it, but it doesn't mean you are allowed to, nor does it mean it will continue to work."" I appreciate that. Its just a shame they haven't removed it, or commented on that, as it would make its usage (or lack of) more clear- cut "The bottom line is that you are allowed to use the API, and only the API." I am. Nothing of what I'm doing requires any hack, or modifying of their supplied code. I'm not longer using the static maps at all, incidentally, just the mapView system; http://code.google.com/android/add-ons/google-apis/ Which I assume falls under the same license as the Google Map API in general. On Jun 28, 6:21 pm, Andrew C Leach <[email protected]> wrote: > On 28 June 2010 17:07, darkflame <[email protected]> wrote: > > > maybe. > > But then, under that context, caching the images for performance > > reasons, which is allowed, would also be a derivative work. > > But that is explicitly allowed. > > > I guess it depends if they are seeing this from a code perspective, or > > an "end result' perspective. After all, wouldn't almost all uses of > > the API > > be "modifying" the supplied images? (I mean, even if you didn't use > > any custom markers getting really nitty-gritty, the device's > > themselves will be modifying and copying the image to display them) > > Wish they had more examples to make this more clear. > > But that's also explicitly allowed (after all, if the device couldn't > display a particular image, there wouldn't be a great deal of point in > all this!) > > > The other thing that makes me skeptical/hoping it is allowed, is that > > the code to copy a bitmap from the mapView hasn't been overridden to > > disable it. Guess that could have been overlooked though. > > Google's response to this sort of thing in the past has been "You may > be able to do it, but it doesn't mean you are allowed to, nor does it > mean it will continue to work." > > The bottom line is that you are allowed to use the API, and only the > API. For Static Maps, you must display the image in a browser (which > means you can't use them in a dedicated J2ME app, for example). If > your chosen platform can't cope with the API, or doesn't count as a > browser for Static Maps, then you can't use the tiles. > > It may seem restrictive, but it's a free service, and Google are > subject to their suppliers' licence terms which they have to pass on. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Google Maps API" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/google-maps-api?hl=en.
