Why do I have to download an improved NGC/IC catalogue and Messier object images? Why not just include them as part of the KStars distribution?
The author of the downloadable NGC/IC catalogue has released it with the restriction that it may not be used commercially. For most KStars users, this is not a problem. However, it is technically against the KStars license (the GPL) to restrict usage in this way. We removed the Messier object images from the standard distribution for two reasons: to simply reduce the size of KStars, and also because of similar licensing concerns with a couple of the images. The inline images are significantly compressed to a very low quality from their original form, so I doubt there is a real copyright concern, but I did obtain explicit permission from the images’ authors to use the few images for which there was any question about it (see README.images). Still, just to be absolutely safe, I removed them from the standard distribution, and marked the download archive as being “free for non-commercial use”.
Related Questions
- Why do I have to download an improved NGC/IC catalogue and Messier object images? Why not just include them as part of the KStars distribution?
- Can I download images on a computer equipped with a built-in Universal Serial Bus (USB) port?
- Does the Sigma digital SLR camera use IEEE 1394 interface to download images?
