From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Jambunathan K Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Google modules integration Date: Mon, 13 Sep 2010 21:52:52 +0530 Message-ID: <81vd69ehpf.fsf@gmail.com> References: <878w3a1x9s.fsf@keller.adm.naquadah.org> <81occ6zdnh.fsf@gmail.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1284395011 15691 80.91.229.12 (13 Sep 2010 16:23:31 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 13 Sep 2010 16:23:31 +0000 (UTC) Cc: lennart.borgman@gmail.com, emacs-devel@gnu.org, monnier@iro.umontreal.ca, carsten.dominik@gmail.com, julien@danjou.info To: rms@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon Sep 13 18:23:29 2010 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1OvBoW-0004Ec-Nd for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 13 Sep 2010 18:23:29 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:35572 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1OvBoW-0006yQ-40 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 13 Sep 2010 12:23:28 -0400 Original-Received: from [140.186.70.92] (port=54723 helo=eggs.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1OvBoP-0006x3-4K for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 13 Sep 2010 12:23:22 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1OvBoN-00067q-CZ for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 13 Sep 2010 12:23:20 -0400 Original-Received: from mail-pw0-f41.google.com ([209.85.160.41]:42399) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1OvBoN-00067P-3s; Mon, 13 Sep 2010 12:23:19 -0400 Original-Received: by pwj6 with SMTP id 6so4307931pwj.0 for ; Mon, 13 Sep 2010 09:23:17 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:received:received:from:to:cc:subject:references :date:in-reply-to:message-id:user-agent:mime-version:content-type; bh=GRODntaebzp/BAqYpAQGnX4I/zmdFPxPxsN85YqvC+g=; b=cRbMKyKA1WsgyOII9k40+1RzDLqpZu+Egu4yMXhqoTQSfSD/WO7PAcsEXegtcYEe3v tiHjWj7fSy3af0igYUqBhA3EKRaRMBTFkDgN+GkRY2V2oSE4eaP/Bczhqi+cBElvcstF TqFCIEwbfWELXwR20DnL+ZZcueD2wCaJhNgbM= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=from:to:cc:subject:references:date:in-reply-to:message-id :user-agent:mime-version:content-type; b=EMKA2tCV37TOvsnhhAtNv0phzKZejRyxhi1huVstuDahs0PrENGdZfecinRMe5XI5j KSTPVnvHa6eeNJ1O5OgaCTrzHsGwZtaAIoyRtN09o8OEDxb0wdG/BkJyemZEywNHUXiP eHEJsulnWcLvOwOLdWe6kEUM9hdjf1Ohm2AZ0= Original-Received: by 10.142.255.8 with SMTP id c8mr19658wfi.109.1284394997144; Mon, 13 Sep 2010 09:23:17 -0700 (PDT) Original-Received: from JAMBU-NETBOOK ([115.184.97.9]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id q34sm8924440wfc.19.2010.09.13.09.23.08 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=RC4-MD5); Mon, 13 Sep 2010 09:23:16 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: (Richard Stallman's message of "Mon, 13 Sep 2010 03:18:56 -0400") User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/23.1.91 (windows-nt) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6 (newer, 2) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:130066 Archived-At: Richard Stallman writes: Glen> Me neither, but here are the maps API terms and conditions: Glen> Glen> http://code.google.com/apis/maps/terms.html Glen> Google Maps/Google Earth APIs Terms of Service Glen> Glen> Various things of interest, eg Glen> Glen> 10.8 [you must not] use the Static Maps API other than in an Glen> implementation in a web browser Glen> Glen> You can browse the web from Emacs, but it's not really a web Glen> browser, is it? I dunno... Hypothetically speaking, I think Google or any data provider might want to impose certain restrictions on the end-user[1] of the data and tailor such restrictions based on the agent that the end-user employs for consumption. The reason could be that different agents have different appetite for data and a data provider might feel threatened if there is a super-human agent that could steal the data in matter of minutes. So in essence there are multiple entities here - 1. an end-user (me) 2. a user-agent (browser, emacs, wget, xmlrpc client etc) 3. data provider (google) 4. a solution provider (an entity that built the agent (Julien). He is a specialized end-user of data who consumes the data not for personal consumption but for building and stabilizing the product. 5. an entity that sells/distributes the agent (GNU?) The question now: 1. Does the data provider know the agent (or the class of agent) that is consuming the data. ie., Can Google tell that I am using emacs and not firefox. The most naive way for a provider to tell the agent is to look at the User Agent cookie (if any) posted by the client agent. 2. What is Google's notion of agent categories? Firefox or Chromium could be classfied as a human-powered browser and Emacs could be classfied as a super-human evil bot. 3. Does Google try to track, meter or cap the data provided to the agent by expecting the agent to return a pre-configured cookie distributed from their servers. This could be done by having different cookies for solution developer and solution user. Glen> If you are writing code to use someone's APIs to access their Glen> database, it does not seem an unreasonable expectation that Glen> you should first check what terms those APIs and the data are Glen> made available under. Glen> Glen> I don't understand the question very well. Glen> Why should we have any expectations about that question? Glen> And why does it matter whether we do or not? Let me try to interpret what possibly could be meant here ... It is easier explained and understood in terms of a scenario. A commercial Organization O is building a product P using API A provided by another Organization G. O has some employees that are testers whose role is to test the product and report bugs. It is common practice that G gives O an one-off license (API-usage license or End User-license or specialized license) on liberal terms. Naturally so, because in some sense O and G are partnering organizations. Key thing to note here is that testers of the API are required to have taken prior consent and token from API vendor even for testing and there are managerial controls to make sure that this happens. In specific case of GNU software, the distinction between users and testers practically blurs. Furthermore Emacs is not coming from a Commercial enterprise and it's ownership is really with the community with FSF or a few entities taking a 'very predominant share' in it. So the question is are we really testing the module that Julien built ( if yes, do we do it on behalf of Emacs or in individual capacities) or are we merely using it (in which case really there is no issue). I believe the modules under discussion are not overly complex and some of the considerations above could be largely ignored. What if the "API" is complex and "Emacs" is actually some other 'complex product' that is coming from the GNU's stables. Let me not be misunderstood. I am not making an argument in favor of inclusion of Google modules. In fact I would like to see it not included within official packages. My intention here truly is to understand the underlying subtleties of the above consideration. Thanks for being with me. Would appreciate if someone enlightens me even off this list. Jambunathan K.