FGAIS: Difference between revisions

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FGAIS (view source)

Revision as of 02:13, 28 October 2012

1,900 bytes removed ,  28 October 2012
→‎Issues
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* http://shipfinder.co/
* http://shipfinder.co/
* http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/
* http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/
== Issues ==
I have a slight concern about using data from the websites without permission. Have you spoken to anyone at the source websites about using their JSON feeds in this way?
Like Stuart said, that's a simple change - but the question is if we WANT to do that (scraping the API at the client-side, i.e. fgfs): Stuart mentioned his concerns regarding "scraping" the JSON API here. The API provider may surely be affected by dozens of fgfs clients scraping his API like that simulatenously, especially given the amount of traffic. On the other hand, scraping the API by just a single process (i.e. fgms) and distributing the data via the MP protocol, would not be as invasive.
So, I'd make sure to keep such considerations in mind - web APIs like JSON are usually metered based on requests per second/minute. The API provider may be fine about us doing that once per second, but probably not dozens of times per second, from multiple contents/countries - which would equal a DDoS attack in a worst case scenario. However, we would obviosuly want to make sure that the API provider is not in any way affected by us using his data feeds like this.
I know, I've been told more than once that my postings sound like "lecturing" people at times - but, I'd still suggest to keep basic software design rules in mind here - otherwise, we may be spending time developing this feature, only to get the API use privileges restricted (or even revoked) shortly thereafter, because the API provider wasn't aware of our "broken design" and the implications of it onto his business.
Just some food for thought ...
Don't get me wrong, I don't disagree with the feature at all - just the way it's implemented currently, I am simply not sure if it's future-proof.
Personally, I'd hate developing this feature only to get a notice saying that the API use needs to be restricted to 10 simultaneous clients ...


== Status ==
== Status ==
Retrieved from "https://wiki.flightgear.org/Special:MobileDiff/55364"

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