Comments on: Google Maps draws fine in France for being free

By: rbeck

rbeck — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 04:37:01 +0000

The service in their restaurants is lousy, too.

By: rbeck

rbeck — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 04:35:36 +0000

Well, this is phucking stupid. Figures, it’s France. Google maps are free to ANYONE with a computer. DUH!

By: Steviebeef

Steviebeef — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 14:40:06 +0000

France the other Socialist Capital. Food sucks too.

By: Brain_Tech

Brain_Tech — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 22:12:08 +0000

Well it’s their choice on whether or not to charge for it.

By: Carl Belken

Carl Belken — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 17:25:32 +0000

A few years ago the Google Street View car came through my little town and caught my home at it’s worst. I am disabled and things had been neglected for several years. Did I get mad at Google? NO I did not. It was my fault that it had gotten that way. The thing that I do get mad about is when governments do things that restrict anybodies right to take a picture from a public place. It seems to me that there are people that want laws preventing Google from doing this and there are politicians who are more than willing to comply. All I can say to that is that they had better be careful what they ask for because laws have to be applied equally. That means that the folks who complain may just get fined too if they take a pic in public and accidentally get their neighbors property in the pic.

Is my property still a mess? Yes it is but it’s not as bad. I used the Street view pics to fuel my stubborn determination to get it cleaned up. My wife and I during the course of one summer went out and slowly cleaned it up. I’d work for 10 minutes and rest for 30. On the days that I thought the pain was too much I’d just go to Street View and look at the pics of how our place used to look. I lost 80 pounds that summer and my wife lost 18.

By: HeyStu

HeyStu — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 09:22:19 +0000

I made some Christmas cards and gave them out to people for free. Am I going to get fined by card shops?

By: BCwrangler

BCwrangler — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 23:49:54 +0000

So now mapmakers could anyone who put out free maps?

By: Ian Bell

Ian Bell — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 21:23:16 +0000

I agree with you. And I think Real Player sucked, I never used it either. Just saying that the general populous would use WMP over Real Player since its the default player, just like IE is for web browsers.

By: Jasmine Van Schaick

Jasmine Van Schaick — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 19:27:13 +0000

Assuming they are going after Mapquest, Bing and Yahoo next?

By: bclark

bclark — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 19:24:47 +0000

Why are they in the wrong for providing something that users want. An operating system with no software is kind of useless, it’s like having a car but no road to drive it on. It’s their prerogative to bundle whatever they want and charge whatever they want for it just like its my prerogative to not use it or not pay for it if i think it doesn’t meet my needs. If a paid alternative has more merit than a bundled free option then there will be demand for it provided the free option is not ‘actively’ preventing the paid alternative from being available (note i didn’t use the word viable). It’s up to the commercial company to make their product viable, it’s not the government’s responsibility. I personally never used Windows Media Player but i didn’t use Real Player either (sorry Dan) because I didn’t like using the software. I used winamp and then Foobar2000 because I felt they better met my needs. I never had any desire to see Microsoft punished for bundling Windows Media Player nor did I pity Real Networks. While I find myself to be a fairly progressive thinking person, I personally believe there is far too much protected entitlement when it comes to competition in the market. This is the reason why I believe software patents should be abolished – if you want market share then quit fussing with the courts and just make a better product and market it better.

By: Ian Bell

Ian Bell — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 19:23:12 +0000

That's part of it. But a ton of Real Networks revenue came from being pre-installed on systems back in the day.

By: Rusty Shackleford

Rusty Shackleford — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 19:21:30 +0000

I would have to argue that putting out a complete s**t product that bordered on malware lead to RealNetworks’ (virtual) demise, but hey, that’s just me.

By: Ian Bell

Ian Bell — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 19:13:52 +0000

I hear ya, but how is this different than Microsoft offering features like Paint, their own anti-virus/malware, video player etc into Windows which effectively put Real Networks and others out of business. I see Frances view....

By: jesterking

jesterking — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 19:10:11 +0000

Fined for giving something they own away? wow… How ass backwards is France? Clearly, this is protectionism.

By: bclark

bclark — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 19:03:32 +0000

I agree about the MS IE fiasco. I've never been a huge MS fan and they have clearly been anti-competitive, but attacking them over bundling the browser was completely contrived and the wrong way to go about it. They should've been called out for bullying CTO vendors rather than offering people software they were gonna download anyway. It's all a red herring to satisfy populist outrage without actually solving the problems.

By: Rusty Shackleford

Rusty Shackleford — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 18:57:43 +0000

Agree completely. How does anything function in France when there are laws like this that restrict companies from competing to offer the best product for the least cost? To be fair though, it’s hard not to draw parallels to monopoly laws in the US that got Microsoft in hot water for bundling Internet Explorer (FOR FREE) with Windows.

By: bclark

bclark — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 18:35:12 +0000

This is a clear shot across the bow against the free/open source software community as it sets a terrible precedence if it is illegal for free software to displace commercial software. Does this seem obvious to anyone else? This goes to show that true capitalism is dead. Winners are picked through cronyism any more rather than merit. And everyone wants you to think Europe is so progressive. Pfft.