Engadget - Comments for TomTom becomes Linux licensee, minds are filled with wonder

Comments on TomTom becomes Linux licensee, minds are filled with wonder

Eric — Mar 23rd 2009 10:46AM

you cound nor fins a pic of a TomTom One or anything?

Comments on TomTom becomes Linux licensee, minds are filled with wonder

Robin Jacobs — Mar 23rd 2009 10:51AM

You beat me to it ;)

Comments on TomTom becomes Linux licensee, minds are filled with wonder

Loonie — Mar 23rd 2009 10:57AM

Robin Jacobs - only because he typed it too fast. Therefore I'm awarding it to you. Whatever it is.

Comments on TomTom becomes Linux licensee, minds are filled with wonder

Ditty — Mar 23rd 2009 10:59AM

Yea but i can not spell this morning, so it only counts as half. I need to be fully awake next time i post.

Comments on TomTom becomes Linux licensee, minds are filled with wonder

Robin Jacobs — Mar 23rd 2009 10:47AM

Why put a photo of a Garmin on a entry about TomTom?

Comments on TomTom becomes Linux licensee, minds are filled with wonder

Kevin M. — Mar 23rd 2009 11:40AM

I was thinking the same thing...

Comments on TomTom becomes Linux licensee, minds are filled with wonder

LongKnight — Mar 23rd 2009 11:46AM

Obviously they wanted to help Tom-Tom out by making us think they made usable products.

Comments on TomTom becomes Linux licensee, minds are filled with wonder

Pointy McButterpants — Mar 23rd 2009 10:53AM

Comments on TomTom becomes Linux licensee, minds are filled with wonder

Pointy McButterpants — Mar 23rd 2009 10:54AM

hmm lemme try this: "I <3 my TomTom"

Comments on TomTom becomes Linux licensee, minds are filled with wonder

onepinksheep — Mar 23rd 2009 10:58AM

Engadget, ever heard of Google?

http://images.google.com/images?q=tomtom

Comments on TomTom becomes Linux licensee, minds are filled with wonder

adg1034 — Mar 23rd 2009 11:00AM

Hey, don't be hating. That's a map of the best city in the Midwest right there. Doesn't matter which device it's on.

Comments on TomTom becomes Linux licensee, minds are filled with wonder

RyanTV — Mar 23rd 2009 11:29AM

saying "best city in the Midwest" is like saying "Smartest mentally handicapped person"

Comments on TomTom becomes Linux licensee, minds are filled with wonder

peter — Mar 23rd 2009 11:40AM

woot minneapolis... i was looking at the map and i was like nicolette... university... wait a minute... aha! minneapolis. cool. oh and btw, popular science rated minneapolis as the top tech city back in 2005 http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2005-03/top-tech-city-minneapolis-mn so no, its not like saying smartest mentally handicapped person. its not like even saying obama bowling in the special olympics.

Comments on TomTom becomes Linux licensee, minds are filled with wonder

netposer — Mar 23rd 2009 11:07AM

doh!

Comments on TomTom becomes Linux licensee, minds are filled with wonder

Zorg The Pirate — Mar 23rd 2009 11:02AM

Linux... License? Licensed Linux....

Comments on TomTom becomes Linux licensee, minds are filled with wonder

aly4470 — Mar 23rd 2009 11:38AM

Umm... That's a Garmin.

Comments on TomTom becomes Linux licensee, minds are filled with wonder

Raphael Salgado — Mar 23rd 2009 11:17AM

So, TomTom - Microsoft + Linux = Garmin?

Comments on TomTom becomes Linux licensee, minds are filled with wonder

jimmy — Mar 23rd 2009 11:52AM

despite the obvious photo blunder...

I'm a TomTom fan. I LOVE my TomTom. A vehicle I drive at work has a Garmin and I just don't like it very much. The interface is weird, and there's no way to get a qwerty keyboard. It's alphabetical!! Who does that?

I also have an iPhone, and the SDK is open to turn-by-turn.... iPhone=Unix. Unix=Linux. Linux=TomTom... iPhone=TomTom?
It would never be a replacement, that's for sure, but it'd be nice to have those onboard maps in a pinch...

And, I sincerely apologize (really, I'm being serious here...) for bringing the iPhone into what seems like one of the first non-Apple posts on engadget in a week. Please don't hate.

Comments on TomTom becomes Linux licensee, minds are filled with wonder

Maanfi24 — Mar 23rd 2009 12:00PM

You must have an old one. They all have QWERTY now.

Comments on TomTom becomes Linux licensee, minds are filled with wonder

Brian — Mar 23rd 2009 12:45PM

1) That picture is of a Garmin. It's like a TomTom, it's just easier to use.
2) Garmin has used Linux for sometime. The Nuvi 8xx, 9xx, and 5xxx are all powered by Linux.

Comments on TomTom becomes Linux licensee, minds are filled with wonder

gm76 — Mar 23rd 2009 1:41PM

That 3D map rendering looks awful. When will these companies start putting out stuff that look as nice as iGO 8.3?

Comments on TomTom becomes Linux licensee, minds are filled with wonder

matt — Mar 23rd 2009 2:00PM

Heh. Cockspur street.

Comments on TomTom becomes Linux licensee, minds are filled with wonder

JS — Mar 23rd 2009 4:14PM

LOL, you said spur.

Offtopic, whoy carnt the brit'ish naim their straets and cit'ies properly? This is why New England has screwed up town names too. And Worcestershire sauce exists.

Comments on TomTom becomes Linux licensee, minds are filled with wonder

Joe — Mar 23rd 2009 3:27PM

Lol @ Cockspur Street

Comments on TomTom becomes Linux licensee, minds are filled with wonder

fbfromme — Mar 23rd 2009 10:55PM

I also am a TomTom user (great product!).

I think Microsoft right now may be getting a strong sinking sensation in the pit of their stomachs. Perhaps also hindsight: "maybe we shouldn't have picked a fight with TomTom, who now is suing us back 3 times over, and seems to be joining forces with the entire open source community to blow us away with the combined legal and financial resources of IBM, Sun, RedHat, Novell, and Google...gulp! Maybe we shouldn't have stirred this up with all of Monkey-boy's hooting about Linux patent FUD? Please...mercy?" .

BTW: I am proud to own a TomTom.

Comments on TomTom becomes Linux licensee, minds are filled with wonder

damjan — Mar 24th 2009 1:32AM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Invention_Network

The Open Invention Network (OIN) is a company that acquires patents and licenses them royalty free to entities which, in turn, agree not to assert their own patents against Linux or Linux-related applications.[1]

Based in New York City, the company was founded on November 10, 2005 by IBM, Novell, Philips, Red Hat, and Sony. NEC subsequently became a member. Keith Bergelt is the chief executive of the company. Bergelt had previously served as President and CEO of Paradox Capital, LLC [2]

OIN holds the Commerce One Web services patents (previously acquired by Novell for $15.5 million), which cover several fundamentals of current business-to-business e-commerce practice. OIN's founders intend for these patents to encourage others to join, and to discourage legal threats against Linux and Linux-related applications.

Comments on TomTom becomes Linux licensee, minds are filled with wonder

damjan — Mar 24th 2009 1:36AM

So basically the idea behind OIN is the "Mutual assured destruction" doctrine. TomTom now adds to the portfolio of the patents used to fend Linux from patent trolls (and general trolls like Microsoft).

Now it's intriguing how engadget knows nothing about this?!?

Comments on TomTom becomes Linux licensee, minds are filled with wonder

matt — Mar 24th 2009 1:42AM

If anyone's interested, especially those located in or around Columbia, South Carolina, Open Invention Network's CEO Keith Bergelt along with RedHat's CIO Lee Congdon will be keynote's at an open source conference Saturday April 18th.

It's called POSSCON - Palmetto Open Source Conference, and it's free (lunch provided) just requires registration.

More information can be found here: http://www.posscon.org

It would be a great opportunity to find out a little more about this particular situation, and of course others related to the two. :)

Just a heads up.