[EXT] Forecastfox (fix version)

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Ark42
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Re: [EXT] Forecastfox (fix version)

Post by Ark42 »

patrickjdempsey wrote:And you are a lawyer specializing in technology and copyright? Sorry Charlie but you have no idea what you are talking about. Scraping URL's with Wireshark is not even remotely the same thing as a public-facing URL, and even if it was public they have the right to charge for access to their servers to get data that they compiled and interpreted. Not only that, but Samsung probably pays a pretty penny for that access and so that is Samsung's data we are talking about. This isn't TOR or some "warez" site where anything goes.


Are you a lawyer specializing in this, because I don't think you know what you're talking about here. I used WireShark to discover the URL that the widget on my phone uses, but the URL is not protected in any way. The entire premise that the web is built around requires that the onus is on the server to simply not serve the content if they don't want you to have it. There is no such thing as a public-facing vs private-facing URL in reality (other than an internal, intranet, that simply doesn't face the whole internet because it's served on a 10.x/192.168.x.x type address). You can't just declare that this URL is somehow different than http://www.google.com/ -- if the server returns a result for a request, the fact that it returned the request IS the authorization that you need to be authorized to *view and read* the content. Copyright law can still come into play with your ability to re-distribute content, but again, you can't label a URL as private and tell people to just not access it.

Again, I stand behind what I said as 100% true for the USA - facts are not copyrightable, and URLs are not private.

And anyway, I wasn't saying to use the samsung URL in ForecastFox live, I was saying it would be a good way to reference basic translations for common strings, and use those with a hard-coded internal string lookup table.

Also, the samsung URL is the "legacy API", which is the same format that ForecastFox uses still. I believe the Legacy API was free, and AccuWeather is only now trying to charge for their newer API in JSON format. Samsung is probably not paying anything to use it, in fact, as big as Samsung is, AccuWeather probably paid Samsung to include the widget on the home screen of every Galaxy S1-S6 and Galaxy Note phone by default, because it generates traffic to AccuWeather's website.
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patrickjdempsey
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Re: [EXT] Forecastfox (fix version)

Post by patrickjdempsey »

Seriously? This isn't even a Copyright issue... this is Accuweather's Intellectual Property, which they spent quite a lot of money to gather the data, perform analysis, generate predictions, format those predictions, translate them, host servers, and provide API access to them. And they are kind enough to provide a free access point to that data for free use (although I believe for-pay apps are restricted from using their free API which is pretty typical). The internet is not the Wild Wild West and even open sourced projects have restrictions and licensing that you have to follow.
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Ark42
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Re: [EXT] Forecastfox (fix version)

Post by Ark42 »

patrickjdempsey wrote:Seriously? This isn't even a Copyright issue... this is Accuweather's Intellectual Property, which they spent quite a lot of money to gather the data, perform analysis, generate predictions, format those predictions, translate them, host servers, and provide API access to them. And they are kind enough to provide a free access point to that data for free use (although I believe for-pay apps are restricted from using their free API which is pretty typical). The internet is not the Wild Wild West and even open sourced projects have restrictions and licensing that you have to follow.


It is a copyright issue. "Intellectual Property" is a non-specific broad concept that covers copyrights, patents, and trademarks. Since the things we're talking about here obviously aren't protected by patents or trademarks, the only legal protection is copyright. Again, copyright does not protect facts or access to URLs. Their specific weather predictions information, or their website layout and graphics may be protected by copyright. I'm not advocating violating any copyright here. What I'm saying is that simple text translations are not copyrightable. They are facts, and anybody is free to use them. If looking at the XML data for the samsung URL lets you see that "Nuages donnant lieu à de belles éclaircies" is a French translation for "Clouds giving way to some sun", then why not use that fact since the forecastfox3 URL is broken when you request French. Put that text into an internal map and use that in the widget when French is requested as the display language. Using anything that interfaces with Google Translate may get you https://translate.google.com/?sa=N&hl=e ... some%20sun -> "Nuages cède la place à un peu de soleil" which might not be as good as a translation. Also, doing that requires either using a Google API in realtime, which might present the same legal problems (if any) that you're thinking using the samsung one does. But copying that string to an internal lookup map isn't as good as using the samsung string, because Google Translate results are not generally as well translated.
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patrickjdempsey
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Re: [EXT] Forecastfox (fix version)

Post by patrickjdempsey »

Encyclopedia Britannica would heartily disagree with your whole "facts aren't copyrightable" argument. And pulling data from a license-restricted API is certainly illegal, regardless of whether the connection is protected or not. Just because it's *easy* to steal something doesn't make it legal.
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RrBd
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[Ext] Forecastfox 2.2.4f does not show corrct Temperature

Post by RrBd »

Great tool, thank you!

But I see a problem:
for my Town "Braunschweig, Germany" Status Bar of my SeaMonkey 2.32.1 Build 20150204202218 on German WIN7 64bit shows wrong Temperature values, as you can see in my screenshot with comments http://www.bielefeldundbuss.de/bilder/Privat/TemperaturesettingsNotRespected.pdf
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LoudNoise
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Re: [EXT] Forecastfox (fix version)

Post by LoudNoise »

Merged to the support thread.
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pag77
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Re: [Ext] Forecastfox 2.2.4f does not show corrct Temperatur

Post by pag77 »

RrBd wrote:Great tool, thank you!

But I see a problem:
for my Town "Braunschweig, Germany" Status Bar of my SeaMonkey 2.32.1 Build 20150204202218 on German WIN7 64bit shows wrong Temperature values, as you can see in my screenshot with comments http://www.bielefeldundbuss.de/bilder/Privat/TemperaturesettingsNotRespected.pdf

readings are displayed on the site according to the settings on the site
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havanamike
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Re: [EXT] Forecastfox (fix version)

Post by havanamike »

Seeing an issue with the Options screen when Fatwallet Express 5.0.0.11 is installed and enabled. The Options screen will display with all the choices displayed, but nothing is selected nor do the locations show up on the page.

Disabling the FWE extension and restarting FF clears up the issue.

I have already contacted the Fatwallet folks.
pag77
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Re: [EXT] Forecastfox (fix version)

Post by pag77 »

> I have already contacted the Fatwallet folks.

thank you!
unbeleevabull
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Joined: August 4th, 2014, 10:02 pm

Re: [EXT] Forecastfox (fix version)

Post by unbeleevabull »

Is google.com access required to set location? If so, I prefer not to use it. But I did not see a link for that in the chrome page source

If not, what else might prevent setting the location?

NoScript is set to allow all on the chrome url. I do have other content restriction extensions but do not know of any other extensions that would be affecting this as chrome urls are usually not affected.
rich987
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Re: [EXT] Forecastfox (fix version)

Post by rich987 »

I am not certain what I need to do. I have installed this add-on (2.2.4f) and cannot get it to show up. When I try to make any input here: chrome://forecastfox/content/options/options.html
it has no effect and does not react. Perhaps I need to make other changes - Firefox 36.0.1 Could any other add-ons keep Forecastfox from working?
Any suggestions will be appreciated, Thanks!
jkalla
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Re: [EXT] Forecastfox (fix version)

Post by jkalla »

rich987 wrote:I am not certain what I need to do. I have installed this add-on (2.2.4f) and cannot get it to show up. When I try to make any input here: chrome://forecastfox/content/options/options.html
it has no effect and does not react. Perhaps I need to make other changes - Firefox 36.0.1 Could any other add-ons keep Forecastfox from working?
Any suggestions will be appreciated, Thanks!



I am having the same problem. Maybe a stupid Firefox update has rendered this inoperable..? Mozilla is quickly taking away any reason I have to use Firefox...
rich987
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Joined: September 23rd, 2005, 1:16 pm

Re: [EXT] Forecastfox (fix version)

Post by rich987 »

I don not know if it is Firefox or not. I have a Windows XP desktop that Forecastfox works fine on - and it has the latest Firefox version, 36.0.4 - however, my Windows 7 64 bit laptop will not run any version of Forecastfox. This began several months ago and the "fix" version has no effect.
pag77
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Joined: December 26th, 2013, 10:46 pm

Re: [EXT] Forecastfox (fix version)

Post by pag77 »

What are addon-lists in your Firefox?
rich987
Posts: 28
Joined: September 23rd, 2005, 1:16 pm

Re: [EXT] Forecastfox (fix version)

Post by rich987 »

I disabled all of the add-ons I have and then activate Forecastfox and it still does not work on my Windows 7 laptop. Additionally, I have the same add-ons enabled on my XP desktop with the same Firefox browser version and it works fine.

I think it may have something to do with this page not responding to any input:
chrome://forecastfox/content/options/options.html
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