[clug] tomtom one

Sam Couter sam at couter.id.au
Tue Jul 31 11:08:56 GMT 2007


Kim Holburn <kim at holburn.net> wrote:
> I got a Tomtom One recently and it is a pretty useful gadget.

I want a Tomtom Rider, except for the next few things you've mentioned.

> the software that comes with it 
> to communicate with your PC is pretty dreadful.

To be expected. They sell hardware, not software. I wish hardware
vendors would get a clue and offload the software development to those
of us who would do it for free. I would guess they have a commercial
arrangement with the providers of the map data that requires them to make
it hard for us.

> [ ... ] written for windows

That's a killer from my point of view.

> I don't understand how they could mix GPL, LGPL and proprietary software 
> essentially on one embedded device.

Easily. Provide source for all the GPL bits and the LGPL bits you've
modified. That's all the license requires.

> I expect this sort of thing would get much more difficult with GPL3.

Not likely. GPL3 will cover only the GPL3 software, not the other
software on the device. As long as the device allows you to modify and
replace the GPL3 software, I think it's probably compliant regardless of
what other software is on the device.
-- 
Sam Couter         |  mailto:sam at couter.id.au
                   |  jabber:sam at teknohaus.dyndns.org
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