Gregory Maxwell a écrit :
When I pointed out that material related to the ESA
should be Free I
wasn't attempting to make some grand argument about freedom, but
rather a more pragmatic reflection on the nature of space programs:
They aren't in business to generate pretty pictures,
That's exactly one of
the problems. Since their line of work is building
launchers and the like,
they've largely off-loaded the tasks of taking pictures and maintaining
pictures databases to
external contractors. Also, since their job is not to provide a database
of pictures free for
advertisers to use, they buy the rights to these pictures from the
external contractors only for
information and education purposes. Buying them for all possible
commercial uses, even if
possible, would be more costly and wouldn't be in their scope of work.