ANNOUNCE: xfce4-weather-plugin 0.8.0 released

[Harald Judt]

Hi,

Am 06.08.2012 14:06, schrieb 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."

Unfortunately, that's what I expected.

> 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

I think I've answered that already here 
http://mail.xfce.org/pipermail/xfce/2012-July/031036.html, but for 
completeness' sake I'll do it again:

http://www.worldweatheronline.com/free-weather-feed.aspx?menu=usage:
"Do not make your API Key public or let others use in their applications 
or websites. You may use it on different applications but not let others 
use your own API key."

xfce4-weather-plugin is an open-source application, how should I hide 
the API key? It's not even possible for a distribution to do that. The 
only solution to this would be for every Xfce user to obtain an API key 
and enter that somewhere. I can't see why this would be illegal, but do 
you really think that would be a good solution?

Harald

-- 
`Experience is the best teacher.'