[mythtv] Ticket #3303: Mythweb Weather throws error when MSNBC unavailable

[Billy Macdonald]

On 7/5/07, Bill <level42 at sympatico.ca> wrote:
> >> Can't accept this. Pretty sure that TWC logo use conflicts with GPL
> >> anti-copyright, and mythweb/mythtv don't have the rights to use
> >> weather.com xmloap services.
> I would suggest that the mythtv dev team contact weather.com to see if the
> weather.com services can be used for mythtv.  Mediaportal uses weather.com
> and has a partner id hard coded.  If the mythtv dev team can get a partner
> id and key from weather.com for everyone use, that would be ideal.
> Otherwise, the partner id and key could be a setting that every user must
> enter.  I've applied and got my own id and key, its not too much trouble.
> However, the terms of use for weather.com require their weather icons to be
> used and the weather.com logo to be displayed.  I understand your concern on
> GPL.   However, the weather maps shown in mythweb weather and mythweather
> already shown the weather.com logo.  The difference is that the logo is
> downloaded with the image compared to my patch which must include the logo
> with mythweb to comply with the weather.com terms.  Maybe there is a clever
> way to download the logo everytime the weather is displayed instead of
> including it in mythweb.
>
> >>Plus, the patches are full of ugly 8-space tab characters.
> That can be fixed. Must admit I've stopped using tabs, cause not all my
> computers agree how to interpret them, making ugly formating, this seems to
> be the case for you.
>
> >>MythWeb will be updated as soon as MythWeather itself is.
> Waiting for Mythweather won't solve the problem, right now there is no
> solution for international mythtv users.  Mythweather-revamp has scripts to
> grab weather from NWS in the US, unfortunately this does not help for
> international Mythtv users such as myself.  Weather.com seems to be the only
> option for international users.  A script has been attached to Ticket 3337
> which adds weather.com as a source for mythweather-revamp.  As I said I
> suggest the mythtv dev team contact weather.com to see if mythtv can use
> their services.
> The only other option would be a script to scrape the html code from msnbc,
> as is done in the weather code for gbpvr.  The disadvantage is that if the
> web page format changes, then the code will be broken. This is not the case
> for weather.com.  If weather.com is not a viable solution (ie. GPL), then I
> can make a patch for msnbc html scrape, but wouldn't be able to do this for
> a month or so.
>


I went to sign up at weather.com and their license agreement was
fairly clear about the service being for web applications or desktop
applications with links to weather.com.  Their intent is to trade the
weather data for links to their site.  I'm not sure if that is
feasible in mythtv.  Maybe MythTV could require MythBrowser and could
link to weather.com.  As for GPL concerns, the logos & icons don't
necessarily have to be included with the distribution, they could be
downloaded when going through the mythweather setup.

For US users, just using NOAA would be the most straightforward from a
ToS standpoint, but that leaves intl users in the dark.  And having a
different source for different countries government weather services,
if they exist, would be quite a maintenance nightmare.

Billy