Speed Camera Database to Turn Professional Scandal

davejh · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jan 01, 2006 Posts: 32

I personally think you are absolutely out of order charging any money for a database that is compiled by your members. Will you allow those that do contribute free access to the database or will you pay those that do contribute to the database a share of the revenue? I presume the answer is no on both counts.

If you are concerned about the cost of maintaining the database with respect to bandwidth, why don’t you host the files on source forge and make the whole thing automated through php (an easy task). By using the great resources available free on source forge you would eliminate the need to charge a single penny.

http://www.pocketgpsworld.com is a great site but don’t spoil it.

MikeB · Posted: Sun Jan 01, 2006 3:06 pm Post subject:

Dave,

Check out our discussion thread http://www.pocketgpsworld.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=33061 where we have assimulated the feedback from the forum and presented a solution that we feel is fair to all people who contribute to the project.
_________________
Mike Barrett

davejh · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jan 01, 2006 Posts: 32

why do you delete my posts?

By deleting the posts I have made in response to your decision to charge for the safety camera database you are simply confirming your contempt for your users.

You have certainly opened a can of worms here that you are not going to be able to close. Even if you reversed your decision to charge it would be too late. You have revealed your true colors to us all. The end is near for pocketgpsworld.com as we know it.

smstextaddict · Posted: Mon Jan 02, 2006 12:34 pm Post subject:

*yawn* heres 10p call someone who cares.

fwor · Occasional Visitor Joined: Dec 01, 2005 Posts: 39

fwor · Occasional Visitor Joined: Dec 01, 2005 Posts: 39

Hey - what's going on? My last reply was more in reply to davejh's post about making the camera data available free under GPL (General Public Licence/License) than in reply to the *yawn* post.

davejh's post just disappeared. Is there some heavy-handed censorship going on? How long before my posts start disappearing???

For the record, I have no affiliation with or knowledge of davejh other than reading his recent posts - I'm just another ordinary pocketgps 'member'.

TazUk · Posted: Mon Jan 02, 2006 7:37 pm Post subject:

From reading the post MikeB has linked to it appears they have listened to the members and adopted a lot of those ideas into their new proposal. I don't think there's a fairer way they could have done it, but I'm sure others with disagree :P

fwor · Occasional Visitor Joined: Dec 01, 2005 Posts: 39

Taz - I appreciate that you've a lot more experience than me here (and I also appreciate the fact that you have helped me with advice in the past!).

But my point is that one of the pocketgps 'members' (Davejh) was discussing alternative methods, using GPL, which could run in parallel with what Pocketgpsworld is proposing. It seems his posts are being censored, not because he is saying anything fundamentally wrong, but because what he says may not fit conveniently with Pocketgpsworld's commercial objectives.

As I said in my last post, I have no connection with davejh. It just seems to me that this form of censorship is wrong.

TazUk · Posted: Mon Jan 02, 2006 8:31 pm Post subject:

Obviously I'm against censorship and if posts have been deleted then there's no way of going back and seeing what their contents where Confused

I'm not sure whether Sourceforge could be used in that way but the bandwidth issue is only part of the problem. The bigger issue I think is the time required to collate and check the information given. Up until now this has been done by the the admins in their spare time 8O The only logical solution would be to employ someone to do this, which of course would require paying them to. The fly in the ointment is the fact that the members here are the ones contributing the information that goes into this database. The new proposal seems to deal with this issue as fairly as possible.

I haven't been a member here long, but during my short stay I've found the site very helpful. I hope this will continue into the future and we will all have a peaceful 2006 :D

davejh · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jan 01, 2006 Posts: 32

neil01 · Posted: Mon Jan 02, 2006 8:53 pm Post subject:

fwor · Occasional Visitor Joined: Dec 01, 2005 Posts: 39

I hope you'll find that the moderators will realise that suppressing people who express different ideas than they have doesn't look good on a supposedly 'open' forum.

I suspect that there is some validity to the view that the 'open source' community will not be an ideal home for something which will require a lot of seemingly unglamorous and repetitive administrative work (checking input data and updating the database). But I don't see why you should be prevented from trying to see if it can be made to work.

Hopefully the moderators will allow you to continue to discuss the issues and propose alternatives - which can work in parallel with what they have already decided - without resorting to further censorship.

Ako · Posted: Mon Jan 02, 2006 10:33 pm Post subject:

Neil01 wrote:

D-N · Occasional Visitor Joined: Dec 24, 2005 Posts: 11

I just had a look and today there are 25358 registered users of the forum. plus possibly twice as many unregistered users of the database

Who could turn down the chance to earn £300,000 to £400,000 a year profit from the database??? Not me. I dont blame you for charging if you can get away with it.

fair play to any one who can set it up. Shame the people who provided the data can't be rewarded though

Friends reunited (just as simple an idea) has made tens of millions

Ako · Posted: Mon Jan 02, 2006 11:15 pm Post subject:

D-N wrote:

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