[Dxspider-support] QRZ.PL rewrite

[Rene Olsen]

Hi Dirk.

On 6 Sep 2009 at 19:37, Dirk Koopman G1TLH wrote:

> Jim Reisert AD1C wrote:
> > On 9/6/2009 6:28 AM, Ricardo Suarez wrote:
> > 
> >> Good job, but is a secure waste of time, the owner of qrz.com NOT want
> >> us as users, he wants us as readers of commercial announces, non better
> >> demonstration of this the aleatory lines added on the qrz web page. For
> >> this cause I run on my new approach to solve the cluster´s dx 
> >> information.
> > 
> > Have you looked into the XML lookup?  It requires a username/password, 
> > but you get XML output which can be easily parsed, not ads!
> > 
> > 73 - Jim AD1C
> > 
> 
> I have a "license" to use this XML interface. For various reasons (which 
> is partly to do with lack of time and partly because of one aspect of 
> the API) I have not rewritten sh/qsl to use it.
> 
> There is also the small matter of a suspicion (and it is, currently, no 
> more than that) that we are being treated differently to sysops of other 
> software, in that (I think) we will have to pay the subscription to his 
> xml service, where as (I am given to understand) they don't.
> 
> I would be open to changing sh/qsl to using the XML interface, if there 
> is any interest.
> 
> Dirk G1TLH

If you want to spend time rewriting the qrz.pl to be able to use the XML interface if sysops 
have paid for a subscription, is of course up to you.

I for one am not going to spend 30 $ a year for something that we have actually helped the 
owner of qrz.com create, by putting out information into that database and maintaining it for 
free. I spend plenty of money running the cluster as is, and spending another 30 $ a year is 
just out of the question.

If it is as you say, that users of other software get to use the XML for free, then I would say 
that owner of qrz.com can suit himself.

For all I care some url's could even be added to the text that spider would output after a 
sh/qrz command. I couldn't care less if 2 or 3 links were added to the output.

Actually as far as I can see I have not lost any users due to the fact that qrz.com is no longer 
working. A few have asked why, and I have told them. So I guess they just go to qrz.com and 
do their lookups there instead.

Thats just my view of things.

Vy 73 de Rene / OZ1LQH