[OpenLayers-Users] Google license

[Andrew Wilson]

On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 9:02 AM, Christopher
Schmidt<crschmidt at metacarta.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 10, 2009 at 06:54:28PM -0600, Richard Greenwood wrote:
>> I am confused with regard to the legal aspects of using Google maps in
>> OL. Is this the license, or terms of service, that governs use of
>> Google map layers in within OpenLayers:
>> http://www.google.com/accounts/TOS or is there a different one?
>>
>> Under http://www.google.com/accounts/TOS It says:
>> "5.3 You agree not to access (or attempt to access) any of the
>> Services by any means other than through the interface that is
>> provided by Google..."
>> So is Google referring to their server interface here, not their
>> client JavaScript interface? And thus it is okay to use OL instead of
>> the Google map API?
>>
>> Basically my questions is: From a legal perspective, is there any
>> difference between consuming and displaying Google map layers in
>> OpenLayers as opposed to doing the same in Google maps API?
>
> In short: No.
>
> Slightly longer answer: The statement in the ToS above is referring to
> the Google Maps API, but OpenLayers does not violate it. We use the
> Google Maps API javascript for positioning, etc. In this sense,
> OpenLayers is playing no different of a role than, say, jQuery or any
> other Javascript library that you might use in your application: It's
> simply allowing you to wrap up some "other Javascript" code around
> the Google Maps API, which is perfectly allowed.
>
> Using the Google Maps API, and using OpenLayers, present tiles in the
> same way.


Sorry to keep this going, but I think it is an important issue - and
very recently is something that has caused consternation for me when
weighing an OL-with-Google-layers implementation. The Google
Maps/Earth API ToS is more explicit than the general Google ToS, and
IANAL but I read it the same way that Chris does - that OL acts as a
javascript library that wraps the Maps API when it uses a Google
layer.

But one particular bit of the Earth/Maps ToS that confounds me is section 10.2:

http://code.google.com/apis/maps/terms.html :
"10. License Restrictions. ....Except as explicitly permitted in
Section 7 or the Maps APIs Documentation, you must not (nor may you
permit anyone else to):
...
10.2 copy, translate, modify, create a derivative work of, or publicly
display any Content or any part thereof (for example, the following
are prohibited: (a) creating server-side modification of map tiles;
and (b) stitching multiple static map images together to display a map
that is larger than permitted in the Maps APIs Documentation);"


I haven't had a chance to really dig into into the OL.Layer.Google
code, but I was under the impression that it uses the static maps API
to stitch titles together (I think I'm just making that assumption
because it loads the static maps API when I use it). If that is the
case, the example in Section 10.2 seems eerily explicit. Should OL
implementations that use Google layers limit themselves to a certain
size? Or does that mean something else?