Re: Maps' Mapbox free coupon is soon to expire

[Marcus Lundblad <ml update uu se>]

lör 2017-11-11 klockan 16:03 -0500 skrev Richard Stallman:
>   > 1) The coupon is for requests to some MapBox tileservers.
>
> Alas that answer leaves me knowing almost nothing about the matter.
> (I don't know the term "tileserver".)  I am wondering about these
> questions:
>
> * Who makes these requests?

These requests are made by user of the GNOME Maps client (desktop map
application provided by GNOME: https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Maps)

> * What software do they run to make these requests, and is that
> software free?

Yes, GNOME Maps is licensed under the GPL version 2 (or later).
> * What do these requests request?

The requests made are for bitmap tiles representing map images at a
certain location (longitude and latitude, and level of zoom). This link
describes the protocol (TMS) for retrieving tiles: http://wiki.openstre
etmap.org/wiki/TMS

> * Do these requests obtain data from the tileserver?  If so,
> what kind of data?  I can guess it might be map data, but I think
> it is important to ask rather than guess.

Yes, this is map data, to be precise a bitmap rendering of the raw
data.
> * Are the maps free?

Yes, the base material (raw data) for producing these map tiles come
from the OpenStreetMap database.

> * Is this a job we could use openstreetmap for?
>
> * Does our software work with openstreetmap for this?

Using openstreetmap.org tile server directly for this kind of usage
discouraged by the OSM foundation: https://operations.osmfoundation.org
/policies/tiles/

This is the reason we have used other third-party tile servers.

I hope this answers your questions!

//Marcus