[Opengenalliance] How open is FamilySearch?

[Ben Laurie]

On Wed, Jan 4, 2012 at 11:51 AM, Ben Laurie <ben at links.org> wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 4, 2012 at 10:03 AM, Ben Brumfield <benwbrum at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I'm considering integrating my manuscript transcription software tightly
>> with FamilySearch to look up and provide unique IDs for people and places.
>> (Although I wish it were possible, this is not something that can be done
>> with sites like DBPedia because Wikipedia's notability requirement excludes
>> most people who show up in genealogical records.)
>>
>> I am concerned that FamilySearch may not be considered Open, however.  They
>> have an excellent, free-as-in-beer API to their data, but you certainly
>> can't download all their records and trees to set up your own database.
>>
>> What is the general perception of FamilySearch's openness among the
>> community?
>>
>> Their license agreement is here:
>> https://devnet.familysearch.org/certification/affiliate-programs/familysearch-legal-agreements/APILicense.pdf
>
> The general view, at least from where I'm sitting is: open but not
> very accurate.

I forgot to add: as you say, not open in the sense of being able to
grab all the data - and in general the LDS seem to be fairly whimsical
about who gets special access to what.

>
> I have not looked at their API, does it allow additions and corrections?
>
> Sounds like an interesting project to start and make _properly_ open...