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The Future of Free and Open-Source Maps (emacsen.net)
Grady Martin writes: Former OpenStreetMap contributor and Google Summer of Code mentor Serge Wroclawski has outlined why OpenStreetMap is in serious trouble, citing unclear usage policies, poor geocoding (address-to-coordinate conversion), and a lack of a review model as reasons for the project's decline in quality. Perhaps more interesting, however, are the problems purported to stem from OpenStreetMap's power structure. Wroclawski writes: "In the case of OpenStreetMap, there is a formal entity which owns the data, called the OpenStreetMap Foundation. But at the same time, the ultimate choices for the website, the geographic database and the infrastructure are not under the direct control of the Foundation, but instead rest largely on one individual, who (while personally friendly) ranges from skeptical to openly hostile to change."
This is sorta peripheral, butt I have been having fits with my Garmin updates. The maps are definitely not up to date. the last trip I took, the speed limits were wrong more than they were right. With the insulting requirement to buy the same map over and over for the devices I own, and their arrogance, I am considering ditching all my Garmin devices. My better and I spent three months in Chile and we tried using OpenStreet maps. They were unusable. We bought the Garmin S. America set and it was marginal at best. We used Google maps and Waze when we had cell service and the Google maps are much much better. And free... as long as you have cellular service. Question: How is it that Google maps are head and shoulders better than Garmin maps and Garmin charges out the wazoo???
Dear Microlimp: I give you 2 valid product keys for win7 and you reject both of them. Piss off you wankers!!!
Garmin must have fired or lost some of their key technical employees, and/or decided to let marketing run things, because they have gone straight into the toilet. My first GPS, which I still own, is a Garmin GPS 12. This was one of the early 12-satellite GPSes and it has a serial port connector, which is why I bought it in the first place. It is great in every way for what it is; durable, usable (the UI was good for its day) and above all reliable.
I also own a Garmin Nuvi 1450LMT. It is a total POS. Touch recognition is complete garbage. But what's even worse than the unit itself is the management software. The software to load maps onto the device has gone through several revisions, a complete rewrite, and several more revisions. During that time I've tried to update my maps about ten times, and succeeded twice. One of those updates left the device unusable for literally years. It actually erased the maps from the device, then refused to load any new ones, saying it couldn't find it. They eventually updated the software and it found it, so I did a map update... which claimed to work, but didn't actually load anything but highways. I did zoom in, nothing. So I did another map update, and that one actually worked. The GPS works as well as it ever did now, which is not that well. GPS reception is good, everything else about the unit is bad.
But let us not forget Garmin Viago, their GPS software for Android. It came and went in about three months, it literally never worked (I tried to use it a dozen times, got it to find an address about twice, got it to actually route me there literally zero times) and I'm just out the money I spent on it now. They literally threw up their hands and walked away because making an Android GPS app was too hard for them.
In short, Garmin is totally incompetent today, and giving them money is a total noob move.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"