Changes to accessing and using MaxMind's databases
Hi! When trying to update tor's geoip databases the other day I found that MaxMind's GeoLite2 database is not available for download anymore. The reason is: https://blog.maxmind.com/2019/12/18/significant-changes-to-accessing-and-usi... We do not have a MaxMind account (yet). As of now, we cannot update tor's geoip files nor the files used by Onionoo. Should we try to get somebody who knows more about licenses and legal stuff to review their GeoLite2 EULA and tell us if it's okay for us to sign up for a MaxMind account? A possible downside would be that whoever wants to verify that we didn't mess with their database when converting it to our format would have to sign up for an account, too. An alternative is to find another, truly open data source than MaxMind databases (#25542, #26585). However, this could eat up more time than we currently have available, and we should have something ready in a few weeks from now. I'm not sure how we would squeeze this into the metrics team schedule, so we might need help with this. Thoughts on the two alternatives? What else did I miss? All the best, Karsten
On Thu, Jan 9, 2020 at 8:25 AM Karsten Loesing <karsten@torproject.org> wrote:
Hi!
When trying to update tor's geoip databases the other day I found that MaxMind's GeoLite2 database is not available for download anymore. The reason is:
https://blog.maxmind.com/2019/12/18/significant-changes-to-accessing-and-usi...
We do not have a MaxMind account (yet). As of now, we cannot update tor's geoip files nor the files used by Onionoo.
Should we try to get somebody who knows more about licenses and legal stuff to review their GeoLite2 EULA and tell us if it's okay for us to sign up for a MaxMind account? A possible downside would be that whoever wants to verify that we didn't mess with their database when converting it to our format would have to sign up for an account, too.
An alternative is to find another, truly open data source than MaxMind databases (#25542, #26585). However, this could eat up more time than we currently have available, and we should have something ready in a few weeks from now. I'm not sure how we would squeeze this into the metrics team schedule, so we might need help with this.
Thoughts on the two alternatives? What else did I miss?
There's a debian-legal thread here: https://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2020/01/threads.html
From what I can tell, Maxmind's new EULA is not compatible with redistributing the information as free software, but of course I am not a lawyer.
-- Nick
participants (2)
-
Karsten Loesing -
Nick Mathewson