Maps should be free, theoretically..

[jgombos]

The US government (and probably other governments) have mapping agencies that operate on taxes and produce raw map data that is free to the public. (ex. http://www.lib.ucdavis.edu/dept/govinfo/mapcollection/mappingagencies.php)

I find it unnerving that I have to pay for the same information twice. I pay the feds to produce the information (via taxes), then I pay TomTom to repackage this publically available map data into a proprietary format (so the free data is unusable with their tools, which I bought), at which point they sell the proprietary maps back to me two years past their date.

Am I missing something? Anyone know if there has been any attempt to create a conversion tool so we can cut out the middle man? All the points of interest are extracted from freely available public information as well.

And more generally, do any navigation product makers sell a product that will simply use freely available map information directly?

[MrT]

Oddly enough water, gas and electricity all exist in nature and all can be obtained for free. However most people pay for these to be delivered in the way they want to use them.

Certainly in the UK the goverment produces maps through Ordnance Survey but any prints or electronic versions based on these are charged for through licences.

[Darren]

[Chopwales]

Nevertheless, the maps you buy from TomTom are completely out of date when you buy them, in good faith.
I have spent a lot of money with TomTom over the years, I'm now running Nav 5 on my XDA Exec.
They have made the new Quickfix available even for low end Go users, but not for us, now they want to charge us to bring our maps "Up to Date" which will probably be "up to a rather old date".
Can't wait to start getting the cheques for my map feedback............!
P.S. Shw mae Darren? Just back from 'Y Sesiwn Fawr', Dolgellau. Wych!
End of rant! Chop!

[Darren]

[jgombos]

MrT: Man-made maps are not even close to being the same resource as natural resources. I don't find the comparison useful. I can't think of any natural resources that I pay for twice - and if I could, I wouldn't use it to justify other such cases.

Darren: Good points - that's the answer I was looking for. I did not realize routing information was embedded in the maps. I figured the navigation engine (ie the software) did all the routing on the fly based on vector images. It probably takes TomTom a full minute to compute a 2000 mile route.

I'd like to find out more about the generation of the routing information. Does it require human interaction, or are proprietary map makers simply maintaining software that does all the work?

It seems consumers could really benefit from some standardization in this area. Pilots in particular. NACO produces all the map data (paid by taxes), then pilots have to pay a fortune in subscription fees to get proprietary maps for their particular GPS model. It seems if NACO were to go the extra mile and produce standardized, usable maps, business forces wouldn't be bending consumers over. It's interesting to see that pilots are paying 2-5 fold what drivers pay for the same area, and yet aviation maps are much simpler (the airways are never under construction, and there aren't stop lights or one ways ).

What does the routing information contain? Is there any reason why the routing information can't be standardized? The only thing that comes to mind is performance. I would not mind taking a slight performance hit, or following a route that is 15 seconds longer if it meant getting more up to date maps, and paying less.

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