Your program, though in itself free, may be restricted by non-free software that it depends on. Since the problem is most prominent today for Java programs, we call it the Java Trap : http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/java-trap.html



http://www.seedwiki.com/page.cfm?doc=CentennialMap%20Project&wikiid=6378 Map Project Page



With respect to maps themselves, the point has been made that all maps lie. That is a bit harsh, but served as the premise for Monmonier's book, How to Lie with Maps, whose forward (by HJ de Blij, for the second edition) summarizes these issues quite well, including the line where information crosses to advocacy. (ex China discovering North America http://www.1421.tv/pages/maps/pizzigano.htm )



Map / Portrait Reference Library; http://www.barron.co.uk/?pgid=2



" Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." - Howard Thurman



ROSEMARY DOBSON'S "THE CARTOGRAPHER" poem 7 in The Devil and the Angel (a verse play: ca. 1945)...

The Devil woke me from my fit of dreaming.

"Old man," he told him, "you must take a journey;

Choose Heaven or Hell, for one's your destination."

He stared. "I seek for Terra Incognita,

The Unknown Land--I map the world this way"--

And would have shown us all his coasts and ranges,

The margins of the world, the Blessed Islands,

And where the uncharted, unknown oceans lay,

But that I spoke. Showed from my store of knowledge

Much that is past and present and to come.

The Devil, meanwhile, whistling inattention,

Leant by the panes and spied the market-square

Till--"Heaven," I said. "There's your only Incognita.

Got sir, all's known of earth, or will be shortly;

Ahead lies Heaven--a yet uncharted vastness,"

Then said the Devil, "Or else ahead lies Hell;

That too's for your discovery."

"Both, both!" he cried, and gathered up his compass.

We spread our hands and sighed at one another.

In Rosemary Dobson, Collected Poems. North Ryde, NSW, Australia: Angus & Robertson/HarberCollins, 1991 (26).