Hi Joe, thanks for getting this rolling.
Here is the story per muniriders.net:
As stated above, I started a SMS message service which pulls NextBus
data from their XML feed and makes it easily available via a text
message query. I used www.textmarks.com as a way for users to send an
SMS to my service. I had created e-mail address based SMS services in
the past and found them to be problematic.
Using Text Marks was the crux of my debate with NextBus. Alex
contacted me and gave me an expected spiel about my copyright
violations. From there he contacted TextMarks. TextMarks includes
advertising in their messages, so my "stolen" copyrighted NextBus data
was within the profit scope of TextMarks, which has legal
ramifications blah blah. TextMarks was going to remove my account
because of this.
At this point I talked with Alex and reached an agreement where I
licensed my code for the SMS service as GPL, and it is now running on
a NextBus server.
From the standpoint of a user, this worked out well because the
service continues to function. From my viewpoint as a developer, this
is a disappointment because I can no longer develop this service.
Please see my website for details on how the SMS service works. You
just give it an intersection (or any address) and it returns arrival
times for nearby bus lines:
http://muniriders.net/txt/
So that's the story. As a side note, the SMS service was created
because iPhones are great, but (almost) everyone can use SMS.
On Sep 27, 3:54 pm, Joe Hughes <joe.hughes.c...@gmail.com> wrote:
> NextBus's real-time arrival information is incredibly useful in San
> Francisco (and several other places), but NextBus has often given out
> mixed messages about whether others can use this real-time
> information. They've left several apps alone, but they've
> occasionally threatened others. I thought it would be handy to
> compare notes on our experiences.
> First of all, here some ways that you can get NextBus information, all
> of them at best semi-legit:
> 1) The XML output that's used by the NextBus Google Maps mashup. This
> has been unofficially documented by a few bloggers:http://blog.case.edu/gps10/2006/01/30/debugging_nextbushttp://www.joe...
> It's worth mentioning that the output contains the string "All data
> copyright NextBus 2008. Allowed use is for noncommercial purposes
> only.", seemingly giving tacit permission for some uses.
> 2) Aaron Antrim's XML feed that he built for the Bay Crossings
> informational displays, previously discussed on this list:http://groups.google.com/group/transit-developers/browse_frm/thread/f...
> 3) Scraping the desktop or mobile website HTML.
> Here are the sites/apps that I know use NextBus information in some
> form:
> * Routesy (iPhone/iPod app)
> Site:http://www.routesy.com/
> iTunes link:http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=284...
> This was created by Steven Peterson, who sold it for a few dollars at
> the start of the app store. According to his Twitter posts, he
> recently received a legal threat from NextBus, and changed the price
> to free in response:http://twitter.com/squeakytoy/statuses/918522737http://twitter.com/sq...
> * MuniRiders.net
> This is an SMS interface to NextBus Muni data built by Robert Dampho.
> According to the website, "Data for the bus map is gathered fromwww.nextmuni.comand the TXT service is now hosted bywww.nextbus.com
> following an agreement made after a dispute over data licensing."
> * Message Muni
> Another SMS interface, put together by John Vollmer. Slides here:http://jvollmer.org/messagemuni/
> * MuniTime.com, MoMuni.com
> These are a couple of iPhone-optimized web-based UIs for the NextBus
> data, apparently still in operation.
> * iNextMunihttp://retrovirus.com/inextmuni
> This was a little hack that I put together for personal use when I
> first got my iPhone. I just scraped the NextBus mobile web UI and
> gave the info an iUI iPhone style sheet.
> I'm sure I missed some, so please chime in if you know of others.
> Now, I should mention that there are actually two separate NextBus
> companies, "NextBus, Inc." (http://www.nextbus.com) and "NextBus
> Information Systems, LLC" (http://nextbusinformationsystems.com/).
> It's confusing, because they tend to use the same name and logo.
> However, it's my impression that the latter is usually the one sending
> takedowns, since their purpose in life seems to be to monetize this
> information. The former company is the one that puts the hardware on
> the buses and keeps things running. Mike Smith, the engineering
> director of NextBus, Inc., gave a presentation at the first
> TransitCampBayArea where he encouraged developers to lobby for the
> NextBus arrival information:http://headwayblog.com/2008/03/03/transit-camp-bay-area-report/
> So, what are your experiences dealing with NextBus? Have you built an
> app that uses their data, and if so, what source do you use? Have you
> gotten hassled about it?
> Joe
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