I noticed that all comments on HN and on the blog post that addressed the issue of venue data were conveniently dodged.
This is unfortunate and reflects badly on FourSquare since it is highly indicative that this decision is almost certainly about the money being paid to Google for its API and not at all about supporting open-source.
It appears that FourSquare is happy taking what it wants from the commons generated by the community, but when it has an asset that would greatly benefit the commons, and that they don't necessarily need to hold close to their chest to maintain an advantage, that they don't donate it.
To me, that's a shame.
The whole world would clearly be better off if one of the Place API providers with a solid collection of POI internationally (Google and Foursquare) were to donate that set to the commons.
It's great that the commons gains another major supporter, but near as I can tell Foursquare is just using information in the commons to its advantage here without truly participating in the commons.
This is unfortunate and reflects badly on FourSquare since it is highly indicative that this decision is almost certainly about the money being paid to Google for its API and not at all about supporting open-source.
It appears that FourSquare is happy taking what it wants from the commons generated by the community, but when it has an asset that would greatly benefit the commons, and that they don't necessarily need to hold close to their chest to maintain an advantage, that they don't donate it.
To me, that's a shame.
The whole world would clearly be better off if one of the Place API providers with a solid collection of POI internationally (Google and Foursquare) were to donate that set to the commons.
It's great that the commons gains another major supporter, but near as I can tell Foursquare is just using information in the commons to its advantage here without truly participating in the commons.