The Climbing Majority
Most of today’s climbing media is focused on what happens at the edges of the sport involving the most experienced and talented climbers in the world. Your host Kyle Broxterman believes that most of these stories and experiences do not directly relate to the majority of climbers that now exist. Thanks to gyms, the Olympics, and mainstream media coverage a vast growing group of people are now discovering this magical sport. As a part of this group, he is here to give this new Climbing Majority a voice. Tune in as he explores the world of climbing, through the lens of a non-professional.
The Climbing Majority
62 | Mountain Project vs. Open Beta | A Fight For Data Rights w/ Viet Nyguen
Today, we're diving into something that most of us are all familiar with - Mountain Project. It's the guidebook that's always at our fingertips, supported and enriched by our very own community. Yet, as revolutionary as it has been for sharing and discovering climbs, it brings up a few questions that we might easily overlook. Questions like, who actually owns the data we input? What happens to our contributions if we decide to bow out and delete our profile? And what do these practices mean for the future of climbing information? Honestly, these questions can really make you pause and think.
That's exactly why today, we're sitting down with Viet, a climber who's spotted the signs and decided to carve out a new path. He's one of the pioneering brains behind Open Beta IO, an initiative that’s rethinking our approach to how we share climbing data.
Viet’s vision? It's all about creating a space where information is not just shared but is open-sourced and accessible to all. As things stand, the data we openly donate to Mountain Project can't be repurposed or reused by others. To Viet, this lockdown of publicly sourced information is not just ethically gray; it's a blockade to the myriad of possibilities this data could unlock. But challenging the status quo and attempting to alter two-decade-old climber behaviors come with its own set of hurdles, questions to be answered, and ethical dilemmas to navigate.
So, get comfy and join us as we dive deep with Viet into the essence of Open Beta, the motivations driving it, and its potential to redefine how we, as climbers, connect with each other and the crags we cherish. At the very least, it's a chance for us to reflect on our complacency with surrendering our data, contributions, and creative outputs without much thought on how the way this data is being managed might actually be holding our community back.
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Contact us:
IG: @the.climbing.majority
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Resources:
Openbeta.io
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:24:06
Unknown
Hey, everyone. Kyle here. Welcome back to the Climbing Majority podcast, where Max and I sit down with living legends, professional athletes, certified guides and recreational climbers alike to discuss the topics, lessons, stories and experiences found in the life of a climber. If you haven't already, please subscribe, rate and review us wherever you get your podcasts.
00:00:24:17 - 00:00:49:03
Unknown
What's up, everybody? Today we are diving into something that most of us are super familiar with. Mountain Project. It's the guidebook we always have at our fingertips, supported and enriched by our very own community. Yet as revolutionary as has been for sharing and discovering climbs, it brings up a few questions that we might easily overlook. Who actually owns the data that we give to Mountain Project?
00:00:49:05 - 00:01:10:20
Unknown
What happens to our contributions if we decide to bow out and delete our profile? And what do these practices mean for the future of climbing information? Honestly, these questions really made me scratch my head for a little bit. And that's exactly why we're sitting down with Viet today, a climber who spotted the signs and decided to carve out a new path.
00:01:10:22 - 00:01:35:02
Unknown
He's one of the pioneering brains behind open beta IO, an initiative that's rethinking our approach to how we share climbing data via its vision. It's all about creating a space where information is not just shared, but is open sourced and accessible to all. As things currently stand, the data we openly donate to Mountain Project can't be repurposed or reused by anybody else.
00:01:35:04 - 00:02:10:02
Unknown
To vet this locked down of public sourced information is not only ethically gray, it's a blockade to the myriad of possibilities this data could unlock. But challenging the status quo and attempting to alter a two decade old climber habit comes with its own set of hurdles. Questions to be answered and ethical dilemmas to navigate. So get comfy, sit back and join us as we dive deep with Viet into the essence of open beta tyo the motivations driving it and its potential to redefine how we as climbers connect with each other and the crags we cherish.
00:02:10:04 - 00:02:23:07
Unknown
At the very least, it's a chance for us to reflect on our own complacency with surrendering our data contributions and creative outputs without much thought on how this data is being managed and how it actually might be holding our community back.
00:02:37:04 - 00:03:00:13
Unknown
All right, everybody, welcome back to yet another episode of the Climbing Majority podcast. Today we are sitting down with the founder of Open Beta IO, Viet Viet to welcome to the show. Thank you. Glad to be here. Glad you're glad to be here. Yeah. How's it going, man? How are you doing today? I'm doing great. Yeah, I've been working a lot.
00:03:00:13 - 00:03:31:16
Unknown
Haven't got a chance to go climbing this week, but I'm looking forward to it. Going to happen tomorrow? Yeah, I think we were. We were just talking, you know, before. We are, you know, recording here that you're currently in Vegas, which is pretty cool. So, you know, what are you doing there? What's going on? Yeah. So I actually came down from, from Portland in, in October to meet up with some of the friends actually, we met through open beta, so which we're going to talk more about in this podcast.
00:03:31:18 - 00:03:54:18
Unknown
So some of the volunteers we decided to meet to get together, to climb and just to hang out, meet to meet up in person because we've been doing everything online and chat and it's kind of nice to connect with with those folks. How many people would you say are currently working on open beta as a project? Yeah, it's interesting.
00:03:54:18 - 00:04:23:11
Unknown
You know, it's a labor of love project. So people who uses a they, they found the project by reading about us online and they, they tend to be tech savvy folks so they would normally if you if you if you're a computer programmer there's a website called GitHub. It's a collaboration website where you can look at the project and then you can pick on a task.
00:04:23:13 - 00:04:55:18
Unknown
And that's what most people found us and they usually pick on a simple task to start. And then then there are also a few people who are, who stay and work on multiple task and, and yeah, take on some bigger, harder challenge and you're referencing these tasks within open beta, right? Not right. So it's a coding is the ticket, you know, it's like work where similar to work where you're your team leader or boss would give you a task.
00:04:55:18 - 00:05:18:20
Unknown
Hey, you know, add a button to this website. Yeah. So not currently. We have about we have about three or four active contributors and then we have every I think every two weeks someone would drop in and, hey, you know, I want to pick up an issue, you know, send it to me. And so this is just like free forum.
00:05:18:20 - 00:06:01:14
Unknown
Anybody can can collaborate or get in or get in contact with you. Is that correct? Yeah, that's the gist of it. So we are a 100% open source project. By open source, it means the source code, the recipe behind the website, and it's all out in the open and anyone can look at it. And then it's, it's very similar to we, we apply the workflow, the practice best practices that if someone who has worked in a, a small software company or a big software company, you would be very familiar with this process.
00:06:01:16 - 00:06:25:17
Unknown
You look at a ticket and you kind of know what to do and you can ask question and then you make a you make a proposal and then we can look at the proposal and then we can see if it's acceptable or we can we can get feedback. And then then we accept that proposal and that becomes part of the software.
00:06:25:19 - 00:07:00:22
Unknown
You know, that makes sense for sure. I think that the question I have is so too to someone who is not tech savvy, to someone who is not a coder or a programmer. How does open beta benefit them? Like to me and myself included, Max included, you know, were were avid users of Mountain project. You know we we enjoy the flow of of sharing our our information or our pictures and stuff to a collective site for everybody to collaborate and share information.
00:07:01:00 - 00:07:24:17
Unknown
So for for people like us and for maybe some people in our audience who, you know, might not see the benefits of having an open source code and access to information to build programs on how would this benefit and how would this relate to to people like us. Yeah, excellent question. Yeah. When when you reference yeah you talk about mountain Project.
00:07:24:21 - 00:07:54:10
Unknown
They I don't know the exact year, but they probably started at least two decades ago, you know. Yeah. 2005 is when they were founded. Okay so yeah so they, they have a a to a long head start ahead of us. So right now what we trying to do is kind of building the foundation of the website so that user can add more climbs and ramps.
00:07:54:12 - 00:08:19:10
Unknown
At the same time we try to accelerate and do some of the stuff that currently not, you know, available on Mountain Project. Example Yeah. So at this point, it's not the site, it's not particularly useful yet for a lot of we can work out why you want to go climbing in Red Rock this weekend. It's too hard to use a bit clunky.
00:08:19:12 - 00:08:45:15
Unknown
So we are focusing on getting the site to collect information, to collect climbs and hopefully once we get more of and more information, then we can work on a mobile app. For example, there's a essentially a deeper history here of what's going on. So I think if we can just quickly ideally like jump back a little bit here.
00:08:45:17 - 00:09:08:11
Unknown
So yet, what is your like relevant experience as like how did you get into, you know, open beta? How how how did that come about? Like, what skills do you have that's relevant in that domain? And then additionally, what is your history with Mountain Project that kind of started open beta? Do you mind like jumping into that a little bit?
00:09:08:13 - 00:10:04:17
Unknown
Sure, yeah. By training I am a software engineer and I happen to work in what they called enterprise open source, meaning what we work on open source software, but we are able to make money and by providing services to its customers can use the software and they pay for services. They get the source code for free. And yeah, So then when I started working for that company, I met a lot of the people who actually were part of the the stone master of open source, the people who who worked on some of these important software that part of the Linux operating system and how ecosystems that pretty much run the Internet now.
00:10:04:19 - 00:10:29:00
Unknown
And that's really inspiring. And it's sort of connecting the dots. You know, climbing is by nature is very collaborative process. You put up this raw, you cannot finish it. It's too hard. You invite someone else to do that. FAA And then we share information. And and when you go to a new area, you ask for more information, then, yeah, it's like changing data.
00:10:29:00 - 00:10:57:23
Unknown
And I thought that's process is very collaborative and why don't we applying some of this principle and open source and extend that to rock climbing and Yeah. And that's the to just click. And when did you, when did you actually like start the formation of open beta. How long. Yeah, I started it probably 2018. I'm sorry very before that, but I didn't know what to do.
00:10:57:23 - 00:11:25:18
Unknown
You know, I knew at the time that this collective knowledge of no climbing routes should be freely available. For example, if you are coding student right now, you want to make a map of major climbing areas in the U.S. How do you do that? You don't have any data at the moment and that's where that's open beta fills in the blank.
00:11:25:18 - 00:11:48:20
Unknown
We give you that. It's just a small file that you can look you can make a map out of. And yeah, so that's a great starting point for someone who get into coding. So I'm sorry I sent you out to question again. I got sidetracked. you're good. Yeah. So, I mean, I guess this brings me back to more.
00:11:48:21 - 00:12:17:15
Unknown
My main questions here is I'm trying to dissect the value that open beta brings to the community because on a surface level, you know, we enjoy a smooth interface, a well-presented collection of data that is crowdsourced. You know, we freely give that to Mountain project and we can talk about the legalities behind that data and where it goes and who owns it, which is interesting.
00:12:17:17 - 00:12:44:14
Unknown
But on the surface, I'd say 90%, it's just a s estimation. I don't see the benefit that you see in open source in terms of the data itself being accessible to people who want to use it to create maps or to use it for coding. So I guess what I'm trying to get you to do here is to try to to present value to to me to, to Max, to, to everyday climbers who aren't coders.
00:12:44:14 - 00:13:19:20
Unknown
Like what does open beta do for them and why should they use your program, your, your website, you know, over Mountain project, right. Yeah. So yeah, when we talk about climbing, we tend to think that it's a physical activity. You have to go to a climbing area and touching the rock. But for many of us, climbing can mean exercising your your intellectual, your brain muscles and told me it just as rewarding, you know.
00:13:19:20 - 00:13:50:02
Unknown
And I used to live in Portland when it's raining so much I couldn't get out and climb. But by making in Smart App, making a climbing map, that for me just as satisfying as going now to Rock Climb and in order to do that, you need all of this information. And and without these baseline knowledge that is accessible to everybody it's it's not possible.
00:13:50:04 - 00:14:11:02
Unknown
Yeah so I guess like for the direction what I'm wondering here is essentially like it in in regards to this like we're looking at a debate of like where the information is coming from. Correct. So like Mount Project is facilitated by us as a community collaborating and providing our information there. And you know, if I'm misspeaking here, you can correct me.
00:14:11:04 - 00:14:51:11
Unknown
So it's like we're providing our information to this website and we're getting like a functioning and good website. But there's kind of this like dilemma of like what is being done with the information and then also what could be done with the information. And my understanding is like your estimation essentially is like this information is provided by climbers as a community and if it was available to the climbing community, particularly in the digital space that you're operating in, then this opens up like a massive realm of collaborative of opportunity for us to use this data in a lot of really interesting ways to produce value for the community.
00:14:51:13 - 00:15:14:15
Unknown
Like, that's essentially what I'm getting out of this. Does that does that sound correct? Right, Right. Yeah. So when people think of climbing information, they tend to think in the very binary binary way. You know, if I if I use the website, I don't support guidebook authors. If I use my own project, I don't support the guidebooks. You know, we all can can coexist.
00:15:14:15 - 00:15:48:07
Unknown
You know, you can support open data providing information so that the community can freely reuse that information to do coding or for their school project doesn't mean that you're not supporting Mountain Project and and the data can and open beta user. We can help improve the data, make it's more accurate in the more digestible form and that can be reused by non project user as well.
00:15:48:09 - 00:16:09:00
Unknown
Okay. I Max, I think that was a really great point. I think that my question here now is has it been determined whether or not Mountain Project actually legally owns the rights to that data? I know there was a bit of a cease and desist and almost like a bit of a legal battle between you guys. What ended up happening there?
00:16:09:02 - 00:16:40:15
Unknown
Was there a verdict like does Mountain Project actually own that data that we, the public gave to them freely? Are they gatekeeping that information from people like you? Or I could talk to us a little bit about what's going on there. Yeah, I'm a professor. I'm not I'm not a lawyer. But from what I learned, that if you read the fine print of any and crowdsourcing website, it's basically say you, you give that company the rights to reuse your contribution.
00:16:40:17 - 00:17:06:15
Unknown
So yeah, so basically you still when when you submit a when you upload a photo, you still the copyright owner of that photo you just grant them a the right to use it on their website for any purpose to eternity. The same thing with your raw data. And so does that apply even if you've remove the information? If you remove the information, do they still hold the right to use the data that you shared?
00:17:06:15 - 00:17:51:01
Unknown
Essentially? Yeah. That technicality, I don't know, but I know that for example in the in the EU you can you have the right to ask if people get forgotten and they they obligated or legally obligated to delete your account, your contribution. But I don't think we operate under that. What I've actually read about this is if someone decides to take down their submission and mountain project deems it to be a useful bit of information, what apparently they've been I'm not sure if this has been confirmed, but there have been rumors that they will repost that information under what's called an orphaned user.
00:17:51:01 - 00:18:11:19
Unknown
And apparently there's these submittals of information on mountain project by the user orphaned user. And apparently they're repurposing the information, taking your name away from the data that you gave them and repurposing it under a generic title. And so, you know, back to what you said, Viet here, you know, you gave them the rights to the information the second you gave it to them.
00:18:12:00 - 00:18:40:01
Unknown
And once you remove it, not only do they keep the information, but now they strip your ownership from it completely because your name is no longer tied to it anymore. But they deemed it that information was valuable to the community, and so they're going to leave it on their site. it's a bit of a gray area. I'm not exactly sure how to feel about it, but I think that I think the question here for me is like, yes, they have rights to your data, right?
00:18:40:06 - 00:19:00:18
Unknown
Fine. You know, you give it to them. The same with the Internet. Pretty much anything you post these days, it's like it's free for all. My question is, are you Viet? Are you barred from accessing the data off of Mountain project? Like can you not access it is there a gate there a legal gate? Me personally are open being like.
00:19:00:20 - 00:19:24:22
Unknown
So for me, I think that to me I think the open beta success relies on access to all of the data. It needs everything, right? It needs all the data. And to do that, I think that the the root of expecting every single person to switch their behaviors to submit stuff to open beta moving forward is is a monument mental task.
00:19:24:22 - 00:19:49:16
Unknown
I mean, Mountain Project has been doing this for two decades and it's a huge resource. So to me, I think that expecting or hoping that I'm working on getting open beta to that stage is like this big, long, crazy project that would take a long time. But the shortcut to me is finding a way to somehow legalize or access the data that's already available.
00:19:49:17 - 00:20:18:15
Unknown
You know, with tools like AI that's coming out, information is is everywhere. Like why can't we just find a way to repurpose this data to make it, you know, open source? Well, that's that's what essentially what we did two years ago. That's what's caused the legal issue where on the website there is a collection of data partial partially extracted from mountain project that been published.
00:20:18:21 - 00:20:50:08
Unknown
So in a sense we we freed or we liberated part of that data community contribution and it's now freely available. Now they sent you a cease and desist, correct? Yes. So did anything evolve from there? Was it actually determined that you guys were not allowed to repurpose that data? Yeah, I mean, it's yeah, it's I learned a lot about this whole legal process is fascinating.
00:20:50:10 - 00:21:20:04
Unknown
A cease and desist simply means that you you we are we may not have the right to publish information and the the company that's hosting that information, they have to take it down. So so in a way to to show that company from legal liability. So that's that's simply what it is. So we host it the data file on this website and there was forced to be taken down.
00:21:20:06 - 00:21:44:20
Unknown
And that's a legal procedure that we followed. And and we follow that legal procedure. And the data after two weeks have been restored and ever since it's been there. When you say restored, do you mean restored on open beta or restored on mountain project? So it's still an open beta, is that correct? Yes. Okay. So hypothetically, did you challenge their cease and desist order?
00:21:44:20 - 00:22:27:21
Unknown
Like what happened with that from a legality standpoint? Yeah, I mean, I again, that's my lawyer. I was dealing with that. So basically when you when you file a they call the DMCA takedown, then whoever hosting your content, for example, if you put someone else's video on YouTube, then the owner can file a cease and desist and they and then if you don't take it down, then they can they follow through the DMCA process where YouTube is obligated, legally obligated to remove your video, and then it's up to you.
00:22:27:21 - 00:22:52:23
Unknown
The burden of proof is on you to say to prove that you, the other party, does not have the legal right. And that's what we did. That's what our lawyer did. Do you feel and when you. Yeah, sorry. Go ahead. well, I was just wondering. Sorry for the interruption, but do you feel that Mountain project actually had, like a legal precedent to pursue you in the way that they did?
00:22:52:23 - 00:23:13:03
Unknown
Or do you feel that that was more so intimidation to try and just get you to stop doing what you were doing? So did you actually have legal right to use the data in the manner that you used it? Like, I'm totally out of my depth here. I don't understand the legality of, you know, internet like crawling and what is available and what isn't to be used for like repurposing.
00:23:13:05 - 00:23:41:13
Unknown
So, yeah. Do you feel like it was like they actually thought you had done something improper or it was more intimidation? And do you actually have the legal right to use the data in the manner in which you did? Yeah. I mean, I can't really speak to the legality of it, but I, I think, you know, it's just someone just was doing their job, you know, just they saw some some guy putting their data online and they just reacted to it.
00:23:41:13 - 00:24:06:05
Unknown
And I think they might have overreacted. Yeah. I mean, we can focus on talking about man project and but I think it's it's been in the past. I think at the end of the day, they just made up of people like ourselves. Some of them are climbers. They're just getting paid to do their work. So I think and maybe they move on then.
00:24:06:07 - 00:24:40:08
Unknown
Yeah, I've been around the tech industry long enough. I can tell you like like super well-funded companies two decades ago had no longer route, you know, so I wouldn't worry about that. Whatever we about is climbers, our community, how do we look at all of this contribution? And, you know, we giving away our contribution for free and they are the data is being bought.
00:24:40:08 - 00:25:04:18
Unknown
And so, you know, how do we as a community going forward, how do we address this? You know, I'm thinking about the other day we we can just go to the store and buy a generic puffy jacket. And we don't we have to buy a certain brand because we y y we pay a lot of money for a jacket because we believe in the company mission.
00:25:04:18 - 00:25:39:18
Unknown
You know, we believe that they they practice fair labor law, They pay their worker well and they they protect the environment, for example. And I think by the same token, I think clamor we can look at the this knowledge, the volume of climbing knowledge, how we treating them for the next generation. You know, so is is your mission for open beta to change the behaviors of climbers to input their data to open beta instead of mountain project?
00:25:40:00 - 00:26:10:04
Unknown
Is that your mission? No, I don't think I don't think we we just want to create an additional outlet where people can share contribution that they can, but rest assured that the contribution is remained freely available for the next generation. And we do. We do so by following some of these great examples in the industry. You know, we follow Wikipedia and OpenStreetMap.
00:26:10:06 - 00:26:34:06
Unknown
We we follow how how they license their data that protect the right of their their user to protect the community, put the community interests first and foremost. For example, I'm not sure everyone knows that, but Wikipedia, all the information they're you can freely copy the information and you can sell it. You can make a book and sell it and make money.
00:26:34:06 - 00:27:00:12
Unknown
You just have to attribute give proper attribution, for example. Really interesting. I did not know that we're not trying to put, you know, guy authors or man project or any other companies out of business. You know, we can't we just a nonprofit and we have no budget. We just want to preserve information and for and make it freely available for everyone to use.
00:27:00:14 - 00:27:23:15
Unknown
And it's again it's not a binary, you know, idea. It's it's it's can we can coexist and other project can coexist. Yeah. I think that's a really, really interesting point. And so for me like what this makes me think of is it's essentially completely analogous to like we can we can extrapolate this to social media, right? We get this service for free.
00:27:23:15 - 00:27:47:20
Unknown
Everybody use it for free, when in reality our attention span is actually the commodity which is being sold, which is currently one of the most valuable things on the planet, which these companies make unbelievable amounts of money. At the same time, it's nuanced and it's complex. There are avenues in it where it's educational, it's amazing, it's inspirational, it allows people to connect.
00:27:47:22 - 00:28:13:15
Unknown
It also has a lot of mental health issues and drawbacks. And so seasonal depression. So there's there's all these issues with that. But essentially it's like it's almost like this this inability for people to coalesce and work together to understand that our attention is quite literally one of the most valuable things on the planet. And how do you coordinate individuals to aim their attention in directions that make sense?
00:28:13:15 - 00:28:41:22
Unknown
And so like in the example of open beta here, it's like if you could simply just try and provide the information for the community as a whole and not try and repurpose it as this commodity to sell for advertisement or something, there's something like more holistic altruistic, and there's like a longevity in that, that people can repurpose the data and in better ways, hypothetically, right?
00:28:42:04 - 00:29:07:01
Unknown
But it's like it's the common it's a common issue of like, how do you get people to work together to do that in, in enough of, in enough of like a consistent are a group, right. Like that's a really, really complex issue. I'm wondering like do you have any like insight? Like, do you have any ideas as to how to like, try and promote more consistency to people posting to, to open beta?
00:29:08:14 - 00:29:15:00
Unknown
If you've been enjoying the climbing majority, please rate and review us wherever you get your podcasts.
00:29:16:10 - 00:29:17:17
Unknown
Yeah, it's it's, it's a
00:29:17:17 - 00:30:04:12
Unknown
it's really a challenging task for us. The majority of our volunteers are very tech savvy and we lacking in we're lacking volunteers and and marketing and project manager management, those kind of disciplines. So yeah. So the listeners, are you a project manager at some company? We welcome your help you and marketing we love to talk to you if you are if you a attorney would love to help drafting some of our terms and conditions that you know protects our users and protects a contribution and then and then they can have a longer answer.
00:30:04:14 - 00:30:34:22
Unknown
If you look back in the history of software, you know, back in the early 2000, everyone thinks that by guarding the recipes of the software, that's how you make money. But then as it turns out, you don't make money just by selling a Windows or the Mac operating system. You make money by providing added services, adding added values to your software.
00:30:35:00 - 00:31:18:14
Unknown
And so now yeah, so now the the operating system, the software loading is practically free and and companies found a way to monetize the added values and I think the same and it takes it takes company two decades to figure that out some of the brightest people and open source to figure it out now so yeah so climbing Sam I see something very similar right now we we at the, at the at like the early hours of of of the intersection of technology and climbing and of course you would have players that apply the same playbooks and business.
00:31:18:16 - 00:31:49:01
Unknown
How do we capitalize on this information. How we make money extract values out of this. But then I think in the next few years they realized the information is just commodity. You need to provide something more than just the location of the climb, the great you know, something, something more than that. I don't know the answer yet. And I think at that point, the the information we fighting now we care so much about is not going to be an issue.
00:31:49:03 - 00:32:21:01
Unknown
You know, it's it's going to be a very a more interesting and more difficult problem to solve. And that's innovative for the next generation. And yeah, and by that time, hopefully they have we have a complete database of climbing in the world and everyone freely to use. I think that impacts your your references social media was interesting. I think that I'm thinking about things in the future that would cause people to maybe shift more towards using open beta and open source software for their climbing information.
00:32:21:01 - 00:32:42:00
Unknown
And the first thing that comes to mind is, you know, Max is talking about attention and how we're all addicted to social media. You know, we could label ourselves as addicted to Mountain project. You know, we we like to interact with it. It's something we like to use. But there's rumors going around that Instagram and Facebook are going to be subscription based eventually.
00:32:42:02 - 00:33:00:00
Unknown
And, you know, so now everybody's addicted to it. Now, you know, if you want, you know, they came out with the verified badge. If you want to pay $15 a month, you can get a little blue tag next to your name, you know, and then it's going to be verified. Plus, we're you know, if you want extra reach on your Instagram, you can get the gold badge for $50 a month.
00:33:00:02 - 00:33:21:11
Unknown
And so now, you know, we're the ones essentially making them who they are with the content that we're providing for them to use. And now there's rumors of them turning it back around on us and charging us, the creators, for, you know, to use the platform in the first place. And so I think there's some analogous things here with Mountain Project in the future.
00:33:21:11 - 00:33:42:19
Unknown
You know, there's it's being used by so many people. It's such a huge hub for information. I could see something like this happening where Mountain Project starts to charge a membership for use like 20. I think it's either 27 or 29 crags on the you are the EU, you have to pay it. I think it's a one time purchase which is nice, but you have to pay for it to get access to the information.
00:33:43:01 - 00:34:03:19
Unknown
And I see potential for Mountain Project doing that. And since they own all the data that we give them, they have every legal right to do that and say, Well, sorry you gave us the information, it's ours. Now, you know, if you want access to it, 15 bucks, you pay. And so I think that that could be a moment where people are like, you know, here's the middle Finger to Mountain Project.
00:34:03:20 - 00:34:36:16
Unknown
You know, let's go over to open beta because it's open sourced, there's no fees. Let's rebuild this community. And, you know, as a group, somehow collectively move that data from one place to the other. And so I see that potentially being a situation where, you know, there is a value added to the general public who might not be coders and might not understand the benefits of open source code or open source data, but respect a platform for not charging them for use and for storing their information.
00:34:36:16 - 00:34:58:16
Unknown
What do you thought about the future and kind of like events that would would lead people to to open beta? Like are there other avenues that you've thought of? Yeah, I mean, I want to clarify one on key point. When people talk about open source, we use the word freed a lot, but it's actually not. It's a free and open source.
00:34:58:17 - 00:35:26:12
Unknown
It is is the freedom to use information. It's not you can you can do start people for using their data, your information. It's a freedom for everyone to do what they wish. Yeah. So I think I think in the perfect world I this was I proposed to my project. You know, we a lot of us are coders, we are nerds, you know, that has helped you make the data better.
00:35:26:14 - 00:35:49:09
Unknown
You can do monetizes. Maybe I just want to make an app just for all. In fact, all the easy climbing five seven trap in Red Rock, you know, And there's a room for that app and I could sell it for a small amount of money and I could improve all the data that my project can or any other companies can can monetize.
00:35:49:10 - 00:36:15:04
Unknown
And in the end, it's a win win for everybody. The community has access to this body of information that you can use to learn to follow in machine learning, for example. And at the same time, other tech savvy people can can do apps and and make some money and large businesses can still have a business out of this whole community.
00:36:15:06 - 00:36:49:16
Unknown
Do you see like a a harmonious situation where what you're trying to accomplish at open beta and what mountain project has accomplished and is doing? Do you see a chance for you guys to kind of merge and and become the best versions of both of your some of yourselves? Like where, Yes, Mountain Project owns the data, but people can lease the data or people with an idea can come to them and say, Hey, if you give me access to this data, I've got this idea that could benefit your site because I feel like it's missing X, Y, Z.
00:36:49:18 - 00:37:09:12
Unknown
Like, you know, if all the data has to live on mountain, do you, do you feel like they are open to that kind of process with that? Would that solve kind of what open beta is trying to solve, or is it still a problem? Because Mountain Project essentially owns the data and is gatekeeping it? Yeah, I think I want to clarify.
00:37:09:13 - 00:37:49:06
Unknown
They do not own the data from from someone who I understand you know we just give them the license to use it not sort they they don't technically own it. Yeah I my my, my door's open, I, I, we love to collaborate, but with them I'm happy to do that and under one condition that the community contribution should be available for the community to use, whether for a school project or someone else who monetize on it.
00:37:49:07 - 00:38:25:00
Unknown
So I'm curious real quick, if they don't own the data, then why can't you use it? Yeah. So for example, the the route name and location, you know, Mount Wilson in that rock Vegas, nobody it's a it's a factual information we nobody can't can copyright that information. Right. But the description for example someone writes a description how to do it, how to how this climb is really hard it's opinion based.
00:38:25:02 - 00:39:03:16
Unknown
Yeah it's art okay. Yeah. Creative expression to that. That is copyrighted by the author. The original author. Okay. Right, Right. I have to get permission. Permission from the poster on Mountain Project to be able to copy that description on to open beta. Right, Right. Okay. Thanks a lot more. So the general information I got from what I know, the climb the climb name location though, is factual and it is fair game.
00:39:03:18 - 00:39:28:23
Unknown
Okay. But not the pictures and the descriptions people submit. Okay. All right. Interesting. And since it is crowdsourced and Open and Mountain Project doesn't have the data itself, it's like it would be impossible to go around and ask every single submittal to ask if they you could use their data could. And if Mountain Project doesn't own it, then they can't license it to you either, correct?
00:39:29:01 - 00:39:56:10
Unknown
Right. Wow. Okay. So it's kind of just like actually, Yeah. I take it back. I think. I think I think a lawyer can correct me here, but the fine print does say you grant them a you realize and your data, your information to them and I think they free to, to Yeah. Like a blank check but they have no interest in licensing their data to you because they see you as a competitor.
00:39:56:12 - 00:40:19:00
Unknown
I mean yeah, I mean if, if, if I, if I run a business, I don't want, you know, my competitors to have that information. Yeah. You know, I see that. Interesting. It's an interesting, interesting space to be in. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I have no dog in this fight, you know, it's, it's, it's. It's a labor of love project.
00:40:19:00 - 00:40:59:12
Unknown
It's. It's. But it's how. Yeah, I and I feel like I'm very fortunate to wake up and say, Hey, what am I going to do today? I'm going to go climbing or I'm going to buy some code on a climbing website and yeah, yeah, yeah, I know the I think there's a comment here in the article where it says Forever a user agrees user content and a number of different ways, including copying it, publicity, performing or displaying it, reformatting it, modifying it, translating it, incorporating it into advertisements and other works, creating derivative works from it, promoting it, distributing it as such.
00:40:59:14 - 00:41:17:20
Unknown
Yeah. And it keeps keeps going. So so there's obviously like a lot of leeway they have of what they can do with that information. Right. So there's a lot going on there to report a blank check. Yeah, exactly. It's pretty much a blank check to just do what you want with your data. And I mean, this article, you know, so does date like forever.
00:41:17:22 - 00:41:43:16
Unknown
So I don't really know what that means if you can get rid of your data, but yeah, it's it's a much broader like interesting discussion I think So I guess like an interesting question I'd have for you here yet is is if you just had a blank check to just do whatever you want in a hypothetical world where theorizing here situation for open data, what would that look like?
00:41:43:16 - 00:42:17:00
Unknown
And then the other side to that coin is in a more realistic way. How could you actually implement some of those ideas and what does that look like? Yeah, if I have a blank check. Good question. Yeah, I guess I would quit my job and work in open beta full time, I think. I think, yeah. Seriously, I would hire I would hire, you know, the additional people with the business skills.
00:42:17:02 - 00:42:58:07
Unknown
Someone in project management, someone in marketing. I would hire a lot of writers and to, you know, to create content for us. Yeah. So yeah. So as a small in a way we're like a small startup and you have to niche down. You have to find your niche and just singularly focus on that one feature. Even companies like Apple and Steve Jobs have to cut so many projects just to work on the iPhone.
00:42:58:11 - 00:43:33:20
Unknown
Just one thing before they expand that again to do many other things. Yeah. So we so for example, earlier this year we added a feature to that site where when you search for a climb climbing area, you will see the local climbing organization listed under. If you go to Red Rock, you will see Southern California climbing Coalition. You go to Boulder, you see the border climb Climbers Coalition.
00:43:33:22 - 00:43:59:11
Unknown
CC Yeah, I feel like it's something no one else has done. So we try to do something other people are not doing on and another project I wish I have funding for this is we would like to catalog climbs by first ascension. This to me I, I love the history of climbing and and for example, I love classical music.
00:43:59:11 - 00:44:36:22
Unknown
I can go to Spotify or Wikipedia. I can click on Mozart, for example. I can see all of his work. You can click on you can look up John Lennon and you can see all this song you've done. I like to do that. Be able to do that. Just pick your favorites. You know, climbers, you know, Laden core, you know, like all the history, all linear, you know, out of her first lesson, we kind of built to do that by now with open beta, but it's not quite ready we hope to The reason being that I can get a lot of technical here.
00:44:37:00 - 00:45:02:09
Unknown
The FAA information is not something people care about so much so far on my project or in our database. It's just a longs text, you know? Kyle comma Max 2014 like a CSV file or something. Right now it's just like a string. They someone type it in like a string and we like to be able to process that and make it more structural.
00:45:02:11 - 00:45:22:21
Unknown
So you'd have an individual name associating with a climb and that would open up so much possibility. You can do research and you can kind of lock climbs and Yeah, and you see there's no money. I think it's no compelling reason for a commercial entity to do this kind of work, but I think it's so beneficial to the community.
00:45:22:23 - 00:45:45:09
Unknown
Yeah, I mean, shamelessly for myself and my own interests, I'm sure I can find this information through researching a lot more, but I just have this really interesting fascination with the history of the the 8000 meter peaks and and the first sands on them, and particularly the first kind of Alpine style ascents on them. But it's harder to kind of coalesce the information you need.
00:45:45:09 - 00:46:05:00
Unknown
This person's autobiography and this and you search the web, read Reinhold business book. You know, it's kind of all over the place. Whereas like, if I could look at like an integrated map and you could see, like, here's like, you know, G1, G2 years, K2, and like, you can look at the like first ascension is of the routes and stuff that'd be like all integrated into one place simply.
00:46:05:04 - 00:46:25:03
Unknown
That would be really, really cool. Yeah, that'd be really amazing. Yeah. It seems to me like Mountain Project needs just needs to hire you and watch it. Coders to implement a bunch of sick features. That mountain project is missing. It's very expensive to run a software team. So I don't think I don't think. I don't think they have to charge.
00:46:25:05 - 00:46:47:03
Unknown
They'll have to charge us the subscription to get you guys as a team and yeah, okay. Yeah. Okay. So I've got one last question here on the user, which I'm kind of interested in, and then maybe it's, it's out of your depth. It's certainly out of mine. But, you know, there's a lot of changes coming in the technological industry and particularly talking about like artificial intelligence.
00:46:47:03 - 00:47:09:19
Unknown
Obviously, we're not at AGI, but we're in these language processing models that are allowing people to do a lot more. How do you like foresee your role with open beta? And, you know, these advancements in in language processing models like how is that going to affect you and your goal here? Do you foresee that as a positive influence?
00:47:09:21 - 00:47:48:04
Unknown
Do you like how do you perceive that? Yeah, I think it's a huge I it's a big we're looking forward to be able to apply that in an open beta. For example, we hoping to app commenting section to other climes and you can, you can feed that into chatbots and then you can train it and then it can summarize a claim for you and you can train the models so that because right now if is really good at understanding regular English, it can construct sentences, but it doesn't know your particular domain.
00:47:48:06 - 00:48:14:06
Unknown
So you can train it, you know, in climbing. We have all this jargons we use, you know, it's run out, it's a slope or, you know, Yeah, like an alphabet. So yeah. So you can train, you can feed all of those keywords into to catch your beauty and then to give you a better summary of the client. That's, that is one option.
00:48:14:08 - 00:48:38:16
Unknown
Or you can actually you can do it right now with the data we have, you don't have to use just your feet. You can if you want, you can give it all the descriptions that people have written for our clients and you can tell it to give you a sentiment is a positive, is negative, is neutral, sexist, all kind of stuff.
00:48:38:17 - 00:48:54:22
Unknown
Interesting thing you can do with the with the data. Do you do you foresee this as a tool for maybe like, for example, like in this, you know, I mean, it's probably the wrong terminology, but we'll get it like David and Goliath, you know, it's like the little guy versus the giant kind of thing. Mountain Project being the giant.
00:48:55:02 - 00:49:21:03
Unknown
Like, do you foresee these tools is a way for individuals who, you know, you are a startup or you know, you are a not for profit and maybe this is in the future going to be a way for people to be competing with that. Because my understanding is like, these are going to be like the new coders. Like, you're obviously way more versed in this, but like, like what is the need for a coder in ten years at the way these things are going?
00:49:21:03 - 00:50:05:00
Unknown
Does that make sense? Yeah, it's amazing. I haven't used it, but people I know using A.I. to assist them with coding and they've blown away how how good it is with something machine is really good at it. You can look at coach. Yeah, exactly. And but you can see now for example on Amazon, if you look at a product, it's instead scrolling through 100 comments feedback before that for the product right now they they used to or something similar to summarizes for you you have to yeah and you can I think you can apply that to climbing easily.
00:50:05:02 - 00:50:31:04
Unknown
What if you just what if you just scanned the internet with barred and chat CBT and had it aggregate all the data that's available publicly and then re paraphrase into the specific claims that exist on open data and start from scratch there as operation? All right. This is exactly what I had in mind the other day. But again, you know, we we have so many you know, we start to yeah, we we just small non profit.
00:50:31:04 - 00:50:54:12
Unknown
So we have to pick our battle and right now it is have to do something really boring which is making the website easier for someone to input a climb. And for sure I will say that as a user I'd say if you the if your goal is to get people to start interacting with the site, more user experience is probably the number one thing focus on.
00:50:54:14 - 00:51:14:13
Unknown
If it's like if unfortunately with these days, you know, we don't have attention spans and you know, our computers, especially these new Mac softwares, it's like everything's lightning fast. It's, you know, it just everything just is there's no waiting period anymore. And so we really notice when a page takes too long to load or yeah, it's not intuitive.
00:51:14:13 - 00:51:37:17
Unknown
And so when we lose the attention span for it too fast. And so you're really you're really up against it in terms of developing, you know, something that that has a very pristine and inviting user experience. Yeah, that's, that's probably the biggest crux in the beginning, at least for, for my yes, for you guys. Yeah. Right. Awesome. Well, you know, I think we've talked a lot about open beta.
00:51:37:18 - 00:52:02:03
Unknown
I'm curious to learn a little bit more about yourself and who you are as a climber really quick before we close this off. Unless you have anything else about open beta you feel like we missed. I think you cover all bases. Okay, awesome. So for yourself, you know how long you've been climbing for? About 12 years. Okay. Were you like mostly in the United States?
00:52:02:03 - 00:52:25:21
Unknown
Where did you find climbing? I'm just curious as to kind of, you know, around us at all about, you know, what do you like to climb? Where is your expertise? Yeah, I learned to climb in in New York, actually. I used to live in New York City, and then I learned to climb. So I took me to the gangs in upstate New York, and it's an awesome top roping area.
00:52:25:21 - 00:52:56:02
Unknown
And I remember the first day I climbed and I just fell in love at climbing. And I immediately I moved west to Portland and. Yeah, and I climbing ever since I climbed, mostly tried. And although the last four years I was living in Spain, so all my climbing was sport climbing. That's awesome, man. Wow. Very cool. Super, super cool.
00:52:56:02 - 00:53:15:05
Unknown
I guess I like the flexibility of your job and everything like that. It's got to be something really, really interesting to do, right? I'm assuming. Right. You can. You can move around, You can go explore. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's really awesome. And so now, now you're in Vegas climbing and red rocks, right? Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty awesome. I, I used to come here, so I came to Red Rocks.
00:53:15:08 - 00:53:51:14
Unknown
My actually, Red Rocks was my first climbing trip ever. I remember coming here first climb in panties wall, I think. Yeah And then the first pull out where all this easy sport climbing for. For the listener who don't know. It's the first crack when you enter the park. It's all five, eight, five, seven. And then looking at the other side of the canyon and seeing all these, like, awesome canyons and and I quickly found out you have to be able to leave track to go there.
00:53:51:16 - 00:54:13:13
Unknown
And that was so inspiring. I told myself, I want to learn Chad and I immediately bought Iraq. And after that trip and yeah and I've been coming back since every every year. Nice, man. That's awesome. Yeah, that's super awesome. I saw that you were in black Velvet Canyon. Did you guys venture punks? No, we did. Yeah, I did dream of Wild Turkey.
00:54:13:15 - 00:54:36:03
Unknown
cool. Then. Yeah. And then adventure is in. It's in Pine Creek. Yeah. it's okay. Yeah. Super. Yeah. One of one of the best climb I I've done so far this season. Yeah, Very cool. What's. What's on the horizon? You got, like, a big check box before you leave for the season, I like to climb this climb called the Warrior.
00:54:36:05 - 00:55:06:22
Unknown
It's like a five. Yeah, five or six pitch. And it's. It's a long approach, right? And I have a long history with that time. I. I visited years ago. I found a partner. We did some practice run, and then the day I was about to climb it, he got really sick so we didn't do it. And then I met another climber and growing season and we hiked all the way to the base and they she also got really ill and we have to bail.
00:55:07:00 - 00:55:35:23
Unknown
So hopefully third time's a charm. Yeah. Good luck on that thing, man. That thing is a big as max. That was a climb I did with Joey. I remember. Yeah. No, that's like a bit of a there's an off with it's like a number six in there and stuff. Yeah. No it's like a run out chimney in the beginning and then it's like this really delicate ten B corner and then you get into the money where you're just like 11 a ten d stem corner or crack.
00:55:35:23 - 00:55:57:19
Unknown
It's, it's a grovel, man. It's a it's a it's quite a climb. I never made it to the top, but I heard it's great. Yeah. I hope you can make it up there. Yeah, looking forward to it. I mean, we really appreciate you coming on the show. This is like quite a unique discussion for us as well to like talking about, you know, open source data and the legality of things.
00:55:57:19 - 00:56:14:16
Unknown
It's really cool. I think the project that you're doing is really, really interesting. And, you know, I wish you and the individuals you're working with nothing but the best and and Yemen stay in contact. You know and thanks again for coming on the show and having a conversation with us and, you know, explaining what's going on in your point of view.
00:56:14:18 - 00:56:42:20
Unknown
Yeah, I've got five. Before I forget, you guys should sign off on an account and put your the link to your podcast on your profile because, you know, you know, everyone is a content creator these days and it really hard to get you know links and traffic to your site is often better as one of their one way to make yourself known in the in this niche of the climbing community.
00:56:42:20 - 00:57:02:12
Unknown
Okay. You got it Yeah I created an account today. We do? Yeah. I'm in like, I'm just uploading my three pictures right now for, like the the account, which I actually kind of like that you have to, like, upload pictures and stuff. Yeah, it's cool, but I'm, I'm in Prague as this huge change that I'm making right now to make the editing so much easier.
00:57:02:12 - 00:57:16:06
Unknown
Right now it's a bit clunky to edit and add routes but promise and couple of weeks. All right, sounds good. I'll hold you to it.
