Too cool … NASA app lets you zoom in on moon in 3D

by on October 27, 2005

Gary Price continues his run of finding us cool stuff in the search world. Here he links to NASA’s new WorldWind version that lets you zoom around the moon in 3D. Yes, this is a .NET app. Freaking cool.

  • onovotny
    Something seems strange though: they have a GPL-like license agreement for the software.

    http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/worldwind-nosa-1....

    It claims that the source is copyright of the US Goverment. Well, under copyright law, the US Federal Government is unable to have copyright over anything.

    They cannot tell me what I can or can't do with the source because it's not copyrightable.

    Section 3 appears to be entirely unenforcable as there's no license agreement. No license would be needed for a non-copyrighted work.

    So for all of you who want to use their code, check with a lawyer first, but the license can by all likelihood be ignored.
  • Tell me why my tax dollars are funding a product that excludes 25 million users and taxpayers, and uses a completely non-portable technology like DirectX, then attempts to put the burden on the OSS community to do their work for them.

    Especially since DirectX was primarily chosen for developer convenience. C# is less of an issue, that can run on other platforms if need be.

    So NASA does as little work as possible, spends public money on infrastructure for tech that millions of people can't use, and wants someone else to do their work for them for free...

    Man, that's not even an offer to kiss you first.
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