Hello, Le lundi 7 avril 2014 07:47:37, Nyall Dawson a écrit : > >> I agree that it would be a great thing to have the OpenLayers plugin > >> (or at least a similalar functionality) available by default in core > > > > It seems that we all agree on this could you write the list, so we'll ask > > Pirmin? All the best. > > I'm not 100% sure on this, but isn't the OpenLayers plugin a bit > legally murky? I'm pretty sure that it's either violating the Google > maps terms of service or if not, it's cutting it pretty close. I know > the Viking GPS program ran into issues back in 2008 with their > in-built support for google maps layers [1][2] and were forced to > remove this support. > > Having OpenLayers as a non-official plugin gives us some distance from > issues like this - if we make this a core feature then we are > effectively endorsing this functionality and may be opening ourselves > to potential legal issues.
I had the exact same concern. Without a clear note from Google indicating that this plugin is ok, I think the risk is pretty high of licence violation. Google maps is supposed to be accessed only "from a browser" and not from a desktop application behaving like a browser. It would be a pain for users if we add this plugin and then we have to remove it on Google's demand. A good solution though would be to remove google layers and only use OSM and mapbox layers, which begin to be on par in terms of quality. Or let the user a deliberate way to add google layers (indicating a URL or something like this), warning him about the licence. Vincent _______________________________________________ Qgis-developer mailing list [email protected] http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-developer
