Questions and Answers
I cannot see my house on the map / Why should I use if there is Google Earth already?
aims to be a lightweight fast educational geographical browser that easily runs on any platform that is supported by . While higher resolution maps would be nice to have they aren't necessary for every user and every use case (just like you don't use a full blown text processor each time you just need a simple editor). Also notice is free software and is based on data that can be freely redistributed in the same way that applies to Free Software.
Why is so fast although I don't have hardware acceleration enabled? / Why doesn't run smoothly on my expensive 3D graphics card?
Despite depicting the earth as a globe doesn't make use of any 3D hardware acceleration. This has the advantage of running at a decent speed on any platform and hardware supported by . However it has the disadvantage that it doesn't run as smoothly as it could if it used hardware accelerated OpenGL. just uses plain 2D graphics and therefore requires a graphics adapter that is fast at drawing 2D graphics. We plan to add an optional OpenGL backend in the future.
Will I ever have to pay for ?
No, never. But the authors always welcome feedback. is licensed under the LGPL, so you will never have to pay for this program.
How can I contribute?
is not only an application but also a Free Software project. As such it's easy to join: just contact us via the marble-devel mailing list (marble-devel@kde.org).