Hello Tim,
I'm not sure anyone is suggesting that the products developed by the US Govt. are "free". Just like the air traffic control system and all it's support, it's paid for by taxpayers and taxes (fuel and income taxes in my case).
Kind of like funding public schools to educate children of those who choose to have children, and then paying that 1 out of 1000 that becomes a doctor to actually do some doctoring on my behalf. Pay twice for the same service.
I develop the Android OpenFlight* products, and have distributed the free version of the chart viewer for free (and ongoing chart updates) to something like 10,000 pilots. Most of these users are indeed getting something for "free" - I spent a lot of time and effort developing the program, and I pay for the servers to serve the maps on an ongoing basis. I recover a fraction of my costs by selling an "Unlimited" version of the GPS-enabled OpenFlightGPS.
If the FAA decides to charge for the current free digital downloads, it will drive me out of the business of providing this app to many pilots at absolutely no cost. These are products that I have developed for my own use due to my desire to take advantage of the tablet/cell form factor devices, but there will be a point that it will no longer be reasonable for me to provide this service to the already beleaguered general aviation pilot.
Roger
Let me try to make my position clear. On the subject of instrument approach plates (and this probably applies to the other charts as well):
First, the FAA has to create the procedures themselves. That's their job, and it's clearly in the public interest to do so. So in my opinion, that task should be funded by public revenue (taxes). That gets the textual descriptions of the procedures that AeroNav and Jeppesen (and probably others) use to develop the charts themselves.
Then, there is the process (cartography?) of creating the charts, which results in an image. Whether this is a public function or not can be debated.
Then there's the process of taking that image, and distributing it, either on paper charts, on a DVD of charts, or online for download. This, I believe, is a function that AeroNav can
legitimately charge for. However, the data itself should not be copyrighted or licensed. If you pay for the product, you should be able to make unlimited copies and redistribute as you see fit. From a safety standpoint you should certify and be ready to prove that the charts were not compromised in any way. Don't want to do that? Don't go into the charting business (which is what Jeppesen, and to a lesser extent Foreflight and Hilton and possibly you.. are in now). Someone who comes to grief because the chart was altered should be able to sue the alterer to recover their losses. There ARE differences - Chartflier used to have large gaps in the offshore areas that existed in the paper charts, and that's unacceptable. They're fixed now.
If the FAA is selling fewer printed charts, then they probably have to reduce the staffing levels associated with those tasks. They should NOT start to try and charge for other products in an effort to keep staffing up. When the car came along the buggy and buggy-whip and tack and other horse-and-carriage businesses suffered. Tough.
So, I'm fine with the FAA recouping their production and distribution costs for the digital products. I pay a couple hundred bucks a year for approach plate DVDs every 28 days. That's reasonable to me to cover the cost of making the DVD and shipping it to me. I don't want to pay a dime more, and I don't want them telling me that I owe them MORE money if I copy the DVD, or if I use it to make the plates available on the internet.
If they wanted to charge for download products, they should be able to come up with a subscription fee that would give access to all the products for a year, at a cost that would cover the expenses of hosting the data and the associated bandwidth. And again, there should be no licensing or copyright. If someone downloads the data and re-hosts it, that's not costing the FAA anything, and they have no "right" to expect income on the data except for those who get it from them directly, and the income should only cover their expenses, they're not a for-profit organization.
And Roger, if you're only recovering a fraction of your costs... then you're a heck of a nice guy, but you aren't a business. Folks who take Gov't charts and redistribute them SHOULD be able to sell a product for less money than Jeppesen, because Jeppesen does the cartography. But "Less than Jepp"!="Free".
