September 8th, 2009
TomTom launches OpenLR open navigation project
TomTom, the European GPS company that got into a patent battle with Microsoft early this year, is now launching an open source navigation project called OpenLR.
(The map to the right, from the OpenLR site, is part of a demonstration showing differences between OpenLR coding and that of the Traffic Management Science (TMC) system, which uses FM radios.)
TomTom settled the suit by agreeing to pay Microsoft based on its claims, which involve FAT file names, and to take the “offending” technology out of its products.
In July a Linux patch was released supporting long file names, which all vendors are being urged to use to avoid future litigation.
The idea of OpenLR is to open source overlays onto GPS databases, placing weather or traffic information on a system for instance. The system is map-agnostic so lots of vendors can use it.
TomTom is inviting other vendors into its sandbox to enhance the system. The code will be licensed under GPL v2. The technical documentation is under a Creative Commons license.
TomTom plans a presentation on OpenLR at the ITS World Congress in Stockholm September 21-25.
Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist for 30 years, a tech freelancer since 1983. You can follow Dana on Twitter. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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| 09/08/09
