On Thu, Apr 8, 2010 at 16:25, John Smith <deltafoxtrot...@gmail.com> wrote: > On 9 April 2010 02:18, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <ava...@gmail.com> wrote: >> I think you're underestimating the effort that goes into reverse >> engineering a format. Many man-years have gone into reverse >> engineering the Garmin format (and it's still not fully understood), >> the Microsoft Office format and Flash just to name a few. > > I realise it most likely isn't an easy undertaking, perhaps it's not > worth the effort and a better use of resources might be to > organise/sell an OSM branded sat nav unit that has wifi and can update > itself.
I'm sure there's someone on-list with access to a few hundred million dollars and access to large electronics manufacturing capability coupled with a global distribution network. Alternatively we could just continue to produce a free map which people can install on devices that either aren't completely closed down or have existing workarounds. Garmin, iPhone, Anderoid and others come to mind. >> Getting a completely different stack of programs to work on new >> hardware might be relatively easy by comparison. > > Given my experience of using bleeding edge builds on other hardware > this won't be used by most people, so while it might be easier for > devs, it isn't for users. You'd just have your map installer install a dual-boot system on the TomTom so they user could pick "TomTom" or "OpenStreetMap" at startup, see what the Rockbox project has done for portable audio players for an example. _______________________________________________ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
