I wonder if Google realized that a lot of companies and government organizations were confused about licensing or ignorantly non-compliant or just gave up and tried some other program. I know in my department we already installed alternative software for most people. Although nothing is as nice or easy for exploring or creating KML files as Google Earth in my experience.
I've never heard of Google Earth alternatives. Any recommendations?
It would need lots of work to become a real alternative though.
You have to specify if it's a Address or a Place (if your initial search doesn't work, which is pretty much always)
There's also a bunch of "WMS Viewers" that you can point at National Map endpoints (which shouldn't have any licensing issues):
http://raster.nationalmap.gov/arcgis/rest/services
I've never had a use for them so I don't know if one works well and has nice caching features.
I've used it create maps for long bicycle trips in SE Europe. A highest-detail map of the balkans is about 1GB. I used Galileo Offline Maps to render it on an iPhone.
In general, Google has disdain for the very concept of "offline", so I suspect this feature never happens.
remember: paying users expect support
a. make free without knowing who is using your project
b. make free with knowing who is using your project
The current Linux situation with Google Earth is a joke -- 3 years old, crashes, based on wine, no pro features.
The real cost, of course, is maintaining and serving all that data. I expect that Google, in offering Google Earth Pro for free, ensures that no other competition can slide into this space, and, I also expect the incremental revenue associated with the Google Earth Pro licenses probably wasn't worth the cost of not owning that market 100%.
This is going to make life for a lot of the other GIS vendors even more miserable than it already is - I can see MapInfo being annoyed by this decision. Just spitballing, but perhaps Google is looking at acquiring them (or a competitor?)
[1] http://www.quora.com/How-much-did-Google-acquire-Keyhole-(Go...
It is great for viewing and creating small datasets. Viewing larger datasets required a surprising amount of effort in terms of tiling and converting. The tools built into Google Earth were never very good and people were pointed at server products. This was completely at odds with the simple ethos of Google Earth and often lead companies to invest in expensive ESRI products that offered Google Earth support!
Google are concentrating on server products with web interfaces and GE never fit into that. It is fantastic for professional users but Google have no idea how to sell to those kind of people.
So could be that Google is simply moving that team onto more strategically useful projects. Personally I can't see why they kept supporting this as it isn't core business.
Perhaps they're starting to see a handful of people relying on other data sources, so they want to give people an incentive to stick with Google?
Meanwhile it would be great if Google could provide a repository with a linux version that runs flawlessly.
Thanks!
http://dl.google.com/earth/client/advanced/current/GoogleEar...
Access to this site is currently restricted
A really nice post-christmas present from Google.
> Error! Your sign up can not be completed due to We're sorry. We are experiencing technical difficulties. Please try again later..
"can not be completed due to We're sorry."
I might start using that as a reason.
