Important - Highcharts Licensing

[SamiS]

In my view if you use Highcharts on your public website then you are in breach of their Ts&Cs, however if you only use the dashboard on your PC at home then how are they going to find out. Running CMX itself I don't see they can do anything about. The thing is it is up to the company to prove you are in breach, this would be a civil case and no law is broken IMHO.

By a quick glimpse I do not see any Highcharts libraries in CumulusMX installation folder locally. Based on that, if I have understood correctly, your browser loads the libraries from Highcharts Cloud CDN (or browser cache) whenever you open graphs on your local dashboard. Of course (at least under finnish laws) they would have to get a court order to force isp to reveal who was using that particular ip address at specified time.

[mcrossley]

The Highcharts files are not distributed. That is because the original licence terms said you were free to use them for non-profit, but you were not allowed to distribute the source.

[sutne]

…..if I have understood correctly, your browser loads the libraries from Highcharts Cloud CDN (or browser cache) whenever you open graphs on your local dashboard. Of course (at least under finnish laws) they would have to get a court order to force isp to reveal who was using that particular ip address at specified time.

I think wil should stop all discusions based on «they cannot find out who is using their software».
If they require us to obtain a license for using their software, we have to do that or find something else that is freeware.
Using their software without license is stealing.

[broadstairs]

This is not stealing this is a civil case if it comes to court, let's stop with emotive words. They are not losing money here because the licence cost nothing. All we need to do is either sign up or not use it, it's down to them to determine if we are using their code outside of their licence and then take us to court. I suspect they will not go that far as it will cost them more than they would get plus the publicity would not be good.

I for one will not use their code, I don't like the way they behave. As I said I don't use the graphs on my website and will look for alternatives which are free for amateur/non-commercial use. I suggest we vote with our feet and refuse to recommend or endorse their product.

Stuart

[SamiS]

…..if I have understood correctly, your browser loads the libraries from Highcharts Cloud CDN (or browser cache) whenever you open graphs on your local dashboard. Of course (at least under finnish laws) they would have to get a court order to force isp to reveal who was using that particular ip address at specified time.

I think wil should stop all discusions based on «they cannot find out who is using their software».
If they require us to obtain a license for using their software, we have to do that or find something else that is freeware.
Using their software without license is stealing.

Agreed. In my opinion it is quite obvious, that on longer run CumulusMX developement can’t be based on using a component that most users will likely be using illegally against licence terms. But we must also be realistic about the fact how long it will take to rebuild the graphing features around a new technology.

My earlier messages main point was just to make it clear that they will know about the usage also from the dashboard, not only website.

[saratogaWX]

I agree.. we have to eliminate Highcharts from our usage and replace with an open source graphic package (JavaScript)

I'm looking at:

ApexCharts
https://apexcharts.com/javascript-chart ... ne-charts/

ChartsJS
https://www.chartjs.org/
https://github.com/chartjs/Chart.js
https://www.chartjs.org/docs/latest/getting-started/

Apache ECharts
https://echarts.apache.org/handbook/en/get-started/#
https://github.com/apache/echarts
https://echarts.apache.org/examples/en/index.html

plotly.js
https://plotly.com/javascript/
https://github.com/plotly/plotly.js

now. I'd like to use a package that doesn't require a CDN/external URL source to run correctly and is under MIT or Apache license (free).

[Mapantz]

It'd be between Apache and ChartsJS for me. Probably ChartsJS

[broadstairs]

I do wonder what Highcharts might do about use CMX users if they assume that having CMX requires a licence!

While I totally agree Highcharts has to go I do not understand why javascript is the only way to go. My experience of running my website since 2005 is that at no time did I get any criticism of not having charts let alone realtime charts. I did eventually provide charts based on JPGraph which uses PHP but to be honest they were rarely if ever looked at by my visitors. I hardly ever look at the charts on the dashboard and certainly will not now while they are based on Highcharts. Historic charts can be very useful but do not necessarily need to be animated, a simple line or bar chart showing daily, monthly and yearly values are the useful ones in my view. and only need to be updated on a daily basis.

Now I expect people will disagree with me but hey ho that's life. Just my opinion.

Stuart

[saratogaWX]

Stuart,
I share a longtime aversion to excessive use of JavaScript in websites -- it runs in the browser, and if it comes from a CDN, there's always the possibility of it not being available (internet issues) or, recently, getting malware via an infected CDN distribution.

CumulusMX is designed to be configured/displayed in a browser, so using a JavaScript graphing package for the abundant data makes sense to me given the built-in webserver in CumulusMX. I think few folks would install/use a local WAMP server (or heaven forfend, IIS) for additional webservices AND have PHP available for things like JPGraph. I do miss the old static .png images created by Cumulus 1.x which you could choose to use or ignore as you wish.

I'm trying to find a simple (but supported) open-source package that can produce comparable graphs to Highcharts without the licensing issue and (hopefully) with a similar graph specification syntax to make the conversion simple.

@Mapantz I also lean to the ChartJS and Apache offerings.. I'll generate prototypes of each I'd mentioned to see how they look (and how onerous it is to convert specification syntax from Highcharts).

[broadstairs]

I share a longtime aversion to excessive use of JavaScript in websites -- it runs in the browser, and if it comes from a CDN, there's always the possibility of it not being available (internet issues) or, recently, getting malware via an infected CDN distribution.

Totally agree and I try to avoid javascript at all costs on my website, if I can't run the code on my server I'll only use it if there is no reasonable alternative!

Being a Linux user I always have Apache running on all my machines

Stuart

[AndyKF650]

Just to add to my situation, as a lowly user of CMX I find that the HighCharts way of dealing with protecting their IP against non-commercial use is a bit heavy handed. As ever I think that CMX and CUtils are both great non- commercial uses of a multitude varying software products and the skill sets of our developers.

After HighCharts initially denied my licence application, they sent another email which got locked into a spam folder'. This suggested that I apply on a separate new form which I completed and last night I received confirmation that my application had been successful and received some form of certificate as follows. The new form only required my name, email address, website address and some brief wards about personal weather data collection and visualisation.

Your Highcharts Personal License Application
Hi Andrew ,
Thanks for your interest in our Personal License.
We are happy to inform you we have accepted your application and have granted you the right to use Highcharts in your personal projects for one year at no cost.
The attached license certificate details your software usage terms and the start and end dates of your license. Download your chosen Highcharts libraries at highcharts.com/download. If you have any questions, reach out to our sales team at sales@highsoft.com.
Remember, a Personal License does not renew automatically, and you will need to apply for a new license at the end of your current license term to keep using Highcharts in your personal projects.
Thanks again for your interest in Highcharts. We wish you success.

I suppose this is a step forward but as others have said a rather cumbersome to extract no licence fee.

[HansR]

@saratogaWX:
Note that Highcharts has the possibility to break up code in different segments to define the chart. This is the basis for my ChartsCompiler. If the choice makes that impossible I may have to deviate to another package or (worst case) give up

1. My first impression went to Apexcharts (which looks similar to Highcharts coding and thus may have smaller impact)
2. My second impression was for chartjs but could not find a heatmap there
3. I vaguely looked at Chartist.js which impressed me somewhat bu I did not look further.

Zooming (the stock bar below the chart and the optional above chart selectors) may be a discriminator.
Another discriminator would be: how certain its existence and non commercial license in future?

[HansR]

I agree.. we have to eliminate Highcharts from our usage and replace with an open source graphic package (JavaScript)

I fully agree.

now. I'd like to use a package that doesn't require a CDN/external URL source to run correctly and is under MIT or Apache license (free).

I do not see why a non-CDN would have preference? Contrary: my version selector for Highcharts is based on the CDN possibility.

[The Dalek Hunter]

Should we all be applying for the free licence???

[HansR]

Should we all be applying for the free licence???

Haha... if we do they may start realising the amount of work for them and us and for the negative PR.
Or they start charging...

@sutne: No it is not stealing if you just use it. You can't steel what's for free and we are still talking about a free license. They just ask for a registration. Let's talk about privacy to get what's for free? Do they have the right to keep and maintain your data. And what will they use it for? The obligations back and forth - the costs - in administration are huge for nothing. And no way to deal with it legally because no lawyer would get on a case like that: there is no money in it. This world runs around money. Where there is no money there is no law.

So in a way we are outlaws. (plays Outlaw Man - The Eagles).