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ebird android source code (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter THE_FERN
- Start date
Yes I mean that. I find it strange that publicly-funded bodies like Cornell can keep things closed source but I guess the revolution hasn't reached all parts. In principle, it's possible to reverse-engineer...
jmepler
It's just a flesh wound.
Cornell Lab of Ornithology is not publicly-funded. It is supported by 75,000 members.
There is no charge for the eBird or Merlin Bird ID apps, despite the fact that they have spent a tremendous amount of time and money developing it. Why would you possibly think that you should have access to the source code? What purpose would there be in reverse engineering something that is already available free of charge?
Hi,
I came across this Open Source system a while back, because I wasn't happy with the state of affairs either:
http://openbiomaps.org/documents/en/introduction.html
From their main (Hungarian) page, I'd guess this seems to be an active project with good participation, just from looking at the dates and names of the events mentioned there (as I don't read Hungarian).
Not really what you asked for, but I think this OpenSource effort deserves honourable mention in this context anyway ;-)
Regards,
Henning
I came across this Open Source system a while back, because I wasn't happy with the state of affairs either:
http://openbiomaps.org/documents/en/introduction.html
From their main (Hungarian) page, I'd guess this seems to be an active project with good participation, just from looking at the dates and names of the events mentioned there (as I don't read Hungarian).
Not really what you asked for, but I think this OpenSource effort deserves honourable mention in this context anyway ;-)
Regards,
Henning
I agree, I'm not saying the original poster has any malicious motives, but I'm guessing the source code could be used to compromise the integrity of the data on a larger scale if it got into the wrong hands?
And I guess this could be the case for many crowdsourced / "public owned" initiatives. You pay for the end product, not the intellectual property behind it.
Having said that, there is access to the interface protocols of ebird, as there are several apps and tools which interface with ebird.
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I like some aspects of the current gen of ebird app: now can be used off line I've actually started using it (where I bird there's often no signal). But there are quite a few things is want to change for my own purposes. Having the source code a) ensures I can make sure any modifications remain compatible with the core ebird functionality, b) speeds up development.
Not going to rehearse the general reasons for open source here, but suffice to say the arguments about data security in the last post are somewhat naive. Be assured that I'm clever enough that I wouldn't be posting to a public forum like this if my motives were malicious...
Not going to rehearse the general reasons for open source here, but suffice to say the arguments about data security in the last post are somewhat naive. Be assured that I'm clever enough that I wouldn't be posting to a public forum like this if my motives were malicious...
Some of the changes you would like to see might be on their radar but others not. You can use the give feedback option in the app itself to reach the people in charge as far as I know.
Niels
