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<font face="Eurostile">I recieved a very prompt response from both
Google Earth and OSGEO excusing the Logo similarity as purely
coincidental.<br>
<br>
</font><font face="Eurostile">In my original note, I hesitated
mentioning the logo issue at
all, as
distracting from the main issues re: a "geographic web"</font><font
face="Eurostile"> ( and it is a convneient distraction for google.
so far almost all of the repsonses have dealt only with the logo and
not the more substantive issues. ) but I
was quite startled when I first saw a very familiar logo all over
google earth. </font><font face="Eurostile">I do realize the motif is
somewhat common,</font><font face="Eurostile">The charitable thing to
say is that the choice and
simlarity are accidental, but if you think about it, very
embarrassing for not google or panoramio not noticing OSGEO's prior
use of a very similar mark.<br>
<br>
Given the coincidental simultaneous appearance of the </font><font
face="Eurostile">faux</font><font face="Eurostile"> "geographic
web" on google earth, using these compass star icons all over the map,
it was too tempting to be a bit more cynical. <br>
<br>
In any case I suggest we put the compass star behind us and consider
how we can all work together to build a true 'geographic web' e.g.<br>
<br>
</font><i><font face="Eurostile"><font
face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">If google earth actually
supported standards, starting with html and
georss, wfs/wms/gml I guess they could claim a "geographic web". </font></font></i><br>
<font face="Eurostile"><br>
Mike<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
</font><font face="Eurostile"><br>
<br>
<br>
</font><br>
Mike Liebhold wrote:<br>
<blockquote cite="mid457B17C6.7010908@well.com" type="cite">
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<font face="Eurostile"><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">I
clicked on google earth today, to follow my daughter & husband's
journey from brazil into argentina, and found an unexpected new default
view.<br>
<br>
I don't know which is more offensive:<br>
<br>
1, That google would add a new default selected layer called
"geographic web" that is - no way - a "geographic web"<br>
<br>
or <br>
<br>
2. that that the prominent logo on many proprietary kml placemark pages
from these "geographic web" points is so derivitive/poached from the
widely recognized <a href="http://osgeo.org">OSGEO</a> logo. see <a
href="http://panoramio.com/">panoramio.com</a><br>
<br>
And it's kind of counter-intuitive to see some non-editable wikipedia
pages have mysteriously been imported into google's own non-standard
kml format.<br>
<br>
If google earth actually supported standards, starting with html and
georss, wfs/wms/gml I guess they could claim a "geographic web". Until
then it looks like a clearly blantant appropriation for private
advantage of the term "geographic web" that explicitly means open
standard hypermedia, to most rational people.<br>
<br>
check it out.<br>
<br>
- Mike Liebhold</font><br>
</font>
</blockquote>
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