Trip Planning Software for Linux?

imadcow1 asks: "I recently went on a trip that involved many destinations. I had to use Yahoo Driving Directions which was not efficient at all. Is there a trip planning program (open source or not) for Linux?"

Comments

Er...

[dasunt]

"I recently went on a trip that involved many destinations. I had to use Yahoo Driving Directions which was not efficient at all. Is there a trip planning program (open source or not) for Linux?"

Obviously I need to hand in my geek registration card, since I'm don't see why a simple ink-and-paper road atlas won't work.

Lets review the advantages:

• Cheap: Tends to be $19.99 or less.
• Easy to use: As long as you have the basic skills of a chimp and know alphabetical order, you should do fine.
• Theft-resistance: Nobody breaks a car window to steal a road atlas, as opposed to a PDA.
• Very portable: The smallest models will fit in a pocket.
• Easy to find/replace: Check the corner gas station or local mega-borgmart.
• With "flashlight" accessory, can be used in the dark.
• With "small notepad and pencil" accessory, can be used to write detailed directions (note, some thinking may be required.
• Used by professionals: Many truckers travel thousands of miles and to unknown destinations using nothing more then a road atlas.

As long as you are traveling, why not pick up a road atlas? Just spend 5 minutes in advance to figure out your trip, right the directions down in large type so you can glance at them while driving, and record any landmarks before you need to make a road change (after Large City USA, I need to turn south on I3117). Then keep the most recent route change in your head while driving.

This has been discussed before

[wowbagger]

This Slashdot story discussed the same issue - specifically the possibility of getting Delorme to port their trip planning software to Linux.

In this comment I asked people to write to Delorme and request this, and to respond to this Journal Entry telling me they had done so. In the past I have contacted Delorme about this, and they keep telling me "Oh, we've never had any requests for this" - demonstrably false after my first request, so I wanted to have the evidence to point to in order to bring more pressure to bear upon Delorme.

And as I commented in this journal entry the result was a big, fat zero. There were no replies to my journal entry, and as far as I can tell, no replies to Delorme.

Now, what does this tell us? When a story like that hits the front page of Slashdot, and fails to engender enough support to even generate one response, then the only thing one can conclude is that there is not enough demand for this product to make it worth anybody's time to do. Hell, I do software design for a living - and were I working for Delorme I would not recommend spending any effort to do a port precisely for this reason. The opportunity cost is too high - even if the cost of a port is only a few man-weeks, the money you can make spending those man-weeks on improving the Windows product is FAR greater than the money you would make on the Linux port.

Furthermore, I would assert that a program like this is very difficult to do in a Free Software environment, due to the dependance upon a large, detailed, and accurate database. One lone hacker can create a vector map display widget, one lone hacker can create a route planning routine, but one lone hacker cannot create a detailed database of roads (including road type, speed limit, any one-way restrictions, etc.) attractions, exit services, hotels, etc. The only way I could see to do this would be to allow submissions by the public to a database, with some sort of reputation system and approval system (think Wikipedia. Or more realistically, think Slashdot. Do you really want your trip planning software trying to route to on 69 Goatse Rd. to the Portman Museum of Grits in Frist Prost, AR?)

I shall say it again: IF this is something that matters to you, write a polite letter to:
sales@delorme.com

or better still, write (on paper, with proper spelling) to

DeLorme
Two DeLorme Drive
P.O. Box 298
Yarmouth, ME 04096
USA

The head of Delorme's name is David Delorme, perhaps you could address your letters to "Sales Manager" and CC David Delorme.

And again, if you do so, please drop me a line as a response to this post.