Please make things right with c:geo

[+ryanr69]

Pertaining to the following:

 

http://post.carnero.cc/cgeo

 

I would like to see Groundspeak extend the 'olive branch' to make things right with this author.

 

These are the kind of people that expose the real fun of geocaching and despite the collisions with the T's and C's of the groudspeak TOS, he raises the game to the next level with his contribution.

 

Having only played the game for a little over a year, I have become completely addicted. It has not only given me something else to do than sit at a computer, but it has made me healthier from all the hiking I have done.

 

Squeezing out individual developers that offer FREE products to augment your services is a BAD thing... If the issue here is his product vs. yours... make your product BETTER.

 

After reading a lot of the forums and the wish list... I wonder if anyone at Groundspeak has the same passion to play the game as the subscribers do.

 

Please make things right, and take the time to READ what he says.. This is a great time to take a reality check and perhaps initiate correction.

 

The issues at hand are:

1. The web page and its accessibility with 'current technology'

2. A potentially nerf'd Developer API vs. a version 2 one Groundspeak would use... This will become a legal issue i bet.

3. The ability to code changes to the web page and apps that keep ground with 3rd party. (c:geo vs. geocaching apps for droid / web page vs. a 3rd party hosted one).

 

This is not a bash, I want to see things improve also and c:geo is a great tool in addition to everything else out there.

 

The post for reference:

 

Almost two years ago I bought an Android-powered phone. Back then, Android Market was like a small child. Cute, but incompetent. There were no geocaching apps to be found. I missed Windows Mobile's GCzII. So I've decided to write my own application to be able to go geocaching until there was some better application available. Also, Groundspeak was promising an official one. And they kept on promising for over a year.

 

English part will continue below. Cesky ctenar snad odpusti radoby-anglicky kus textu. Stale neni v mych silach napsat anglicky clanek tak, aby byl skutecne anglicky - coz napravil Case svou korekci. Jelikoz uzivatele c:geo jsou z 95% cizinci, spise prectou neco jako anglictinu nez cestinu.

 

During the c:geo development, I had to keep my eye on Groundspeak. They didn't like c:geo. Ive read their TOS many times and I saw some parts there with the potential to eventually kill c:geo. But the only thing I'd get from Groundspeak was "don't use our icons". Until two months ago they've never said c:geo is illegal from their point of view. They just tried to scare c:geo users away from using it, but they've never said to me anything close to "please, stop". I really don't like their attitude - they'd like nothing better than to make every living and breathing thing on Earth pay for their low-quality services and applications. Remember all those outages caused by the upgrades of some invisible text on their web? And it will be even worse now since they've decided to not allow pretty much anything to non-paying users. Yet they are still unable to introduce any useful improvements. It was pretty much the norm back in 1990, but today it's really outdated. Remember Facebook, Twitter, Google services, Flickr and any other service currently popular? For the most part, they bring very reasonable things to users for free and some of them add many cool bonus features if you're willing to pay a few bucks a year. They also have pretty good APIs from the very beginning. Groundspeak is spreading FUD for free and giving you unstable, ugly looking service for 30 bucks per year and then they're asking more money for their almost four-star application. They still don't have public API. And some rumors I've heard said that their public API will be "version 1", while their own applications will use "version 2". That means Groundspeak is probably trying to hold all the other apps back. Since they are not able to create a good application, they have to restrict everyone else from doing so. All those things don't sound reasonable to me. In short: I'm pissed off by Groundspeak's attitude. Also, one small addition: Because of my new job I don't have as much free time as I did before, so to spend it fighting with Groundspeak is really not that much fun.

 

I've decided to leave geocaching (the game) behind and find something else to do for fun instead. I won't support such company anymore. And that also means it's the end of the active developement of c:geo. It will stay on Market, unless/until it stops working due to changes on geocaching.com. Sources will be available on github as they are right now.

 

Big thank you to all of the users of c:geo for all the sympathy given and expressed by 20,000 ratings (average 4.7 of 5). Thank you for your support, donations, kind words and so on. I hope c:geo did a good job and did guide you to many caches. Hope you had fun with it. And now, please excuse me... I'm grabbing my camera and heading to nature, this time without the intent to look for more caches

[+Keelmann And Cici]

Although I like C:geo, based on that post from the developer, Groundspeak has pretty much every right in the world to kill it. Sadly, I shall let it go.

[+Panther&Pine]

Maybe c:geo should have tried to comply with the TOS.

 

I give this 7-10 minutes before it gets locked.

[4wheelin_fool]

The site has had numerous issues with people violating the TOS with site scrapers, but now his feelings are hurt after thumbing his nose at GS?

 

Free for his users, but others have to deal with the problems associated, such as the site running slow. I would think an apology from C:Geo would be in order first.

Edited June 27, 2011 by 4wheelin_fool

[Pup Patrol]

Just how many threads does this topic need?

 

Doesn't anybody scroll down the list of current threads? Geez.

 

IBTL

[+JBnW]

GS needs to extend more olive branches??

 

IBTL

[+BruceS]

Closing duplicate thread.