ANNOUNCE: xfce4-weather-plugin 0.8.0 released

[Liviu Andronic]

On Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 9:37 PM, Harald Judt <h.judt at gmx.at> wrote:
> Am 30.07.2012 21:11, schrieb Liviu Andronic:
>> Anyways, I sent an "official" inquiry regarding the API and public
>> availability/redistribution of the data. I didn't yet get a reply, but
>> will keep you posted.
>
> Great. Then we know for sure.
>
In the end I got a reply:
"Most of DuckDuckGo's zero-click information and goodies are avaliable
for free via our API. To learn more about DuckDuckGo's API, check out
https://duckduckgo.com/api.html. [The 'zero-click info' is the
top-side box that comes up with exact matches for specific queries
(returns Oslo weather forecasts when searching for 'weather oslo',
returns 36 km/h when searching for 'convert 10 m/s to kph', etc.)]

However, due to licensing restrictions with World Weather Online (the
weather data's provider), weather information is not avaliable via the
DuckDuckGo API.

As an alternative, I would suggest using the free API provided by
World Weather Online -
http://www.worldweatheronline.com/free-weather.aspx."

This means that we cannot use the DDG weather info in our weather
plugin. But why couldn't we use the free 'World Weather Online' API?

Their 'Local Weather API' [1] seems to correspond to our needs. They
propose it to "Implement our weather forecast in your website, iPhone
/ smartphones or CMS by programming in a language of your choice like
C#, VB, C++, JAVA or PHP.". Moreover they specify that "it could be
used for personal as well as for commercial purpose." The developer is
expected to register for a  Weather API key.
[1] http://www.worldweatheronline.com/free-weather-feed.aspx

I'm no legal expert, but why couldn't we do just that? As long as it
conforms with their ToS, the developer would register for a free API
key, use it for the app and ship it with the sources. Then Xfce users
would get reliable weather info, for free, and without the need to
"steal" someone else's key. If DDG can use the service to access and
distribute weather info to its users, for free, why can't our plugin
do that? Or am I missing something?

Regards
Liviu