[OSGeo-Discuss] NOT"geographic web" on Google Earth + poached OSGEO logo

Allan Doyle adoyle at eogeo.org
Sat Dec 9 16:36:40 EST 2006


Whoops. Hit 'send' too soon!

On Dec 9, 2006, at 15:53, Allan Doyle wrote:

> I guess had I opened Google Earth before I had read this, my  
> reaction would have been one of surprise at how fairly lame and  
> useless it is to toss up a bunch of seemingly undifferentiated  
> points and call them a geographic web.
>
> Then I might have picked up on the Panoramio logo issue and would  
> have thought it to be at best an unfortunate choice. I have been  
> through some logo designs myself and know how hard it is to not  
> bump into someone else's ideas yet keep some kind of an evocative  
> theme.
>
> I think Google Earth's stance is pretty clear. They care first and  
> foremost about getting their product out there and tend to show  
> they have a very introverted or at least self-centered corporate  
> culture. There may well be legions of GE marketing types who know  
> nothing about either open standards or open source. I see this as a  
> result of GE's genesis in the "black" world of

well, you got the picture anyway...

>
> The sad fact is that 99% of GE users will look at this and think  
> it's revolutionary. But we know better. It's Red Dot Fever (thanks  
> to Schuyler for that term!)
>
> Vote with your mouse. Turn the layer off.
>
> 	Allan
>
>
> On Dec 9, 2006, at 15:08, Mike Liebhold wrote:
>
>> I clicked on google earth today, to follow my daughter & husband's  
>> journey from brazil into argentina, and found an unexpected new  
>> default view.
>>
>> I don't know which is more offensive:
>>
>> 1, That google would add a new default selected layer called  
>> "geographic web" that is - no way -  a "geographic web"
>>
>> or
>>
>> 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  OSGEO logo. see panoramio.com
>>
>> 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.
>>
>> 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.
>>
>> check it out.
>>
>> - Mike Liebhold
>
> -- 
> Allan Doyle
> +1.781.433.2695
> adoyle at eogeo.org
>
>
>

-- 
Allan Doyle
+1.781.433.2695
adoyle at eogeo.org







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