MapSource 6.15.9 a warning maybe?

[-Oz-]

Yea, I gotta get another for my new desktop

[Seldom]

Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems to me that Garmin is certainly within their rights to change their copy protection scheme at their whim. People who have built businesses on the basis of reverse-engineered unauthorized software have been taking a risk. I don't know what assurances you get when you pay $2000 (or whatever) for the full version of cgpsmapper. Did Stan ever promise that it would continue to work? Will he refund your money?

Garmin is entitled to protect its intellectual property, but what about the property rights of users who bought Garmins and then bought maps  of things Garmin wasn't publishing at the time from third parties who locked them? (I made a 24k map of Canyon De Chelly before they did.) Does a EULA come with a GPSr, or just the software?  Because I don't remember agreeing to put ONLY Garmin products or their authorized raster graphics on my GPSRs. And if I didn't agree to that, they owe me a disclosure that they are going to reduce the utility of my equipment and an opt out option.

[Boyd]

Shouldn't it be the other way around? Did the maker of the third party map guarantee that it would work? The file Readme0097 which is included with cgpsmapper says

Please keep in mind - I have never seen any official specification for Garmin
maps - most of the work base on reverse engineering - therefore I cannot give ANY guarantee,
maps created with this tool will work at all - even more - I cannot give you
any guarantee, your GPS becomes operational after uploading maps created with
this program.

That seems pretty clear to me...

[Seldom]

Please keep in mind - I have never seen any official specification for Garmin
maps - most of the work base on reverse engineering - therefore I cannot give ANY guarantee,
maps created with this tool will work at all - even more - I cannot give you
any guarantee, your GPS becomes operational after uploading maps created with
this program.

Stan doesn't owe us anything.  He didn't guarantee it, but it did work for a few years.  If it hadn't worked Garmin wouldn't owe anybody anything. Or if Garmin had settled the issue with Stan somehow (say, made him agree to stop making compilers) then the intellectual property issues would have been clear.  But they didn't do that.  They in effect didn't contest a right of way on what may have been their intellectual property.  Folks used it, and payed money for stuff that used it.  Once a right of way is established, you can't just close it because it's inconvenient.

[Seldom]

Stan's latest report on locking:

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/map_authors/message/11780

I don't see how limiting the FID to 2047 helps, but perhaps somebody here can enlighten me.

[Boyd]

If I understand... Garmin has reserved some of the Family ID codes for their own use, so locked maps which use these codes have stopped working. But it appears the fix is to just use another code. For our free maps, we make up own own FID's (or at least that's what I did) and just hope for the best. I guess the FID takes on some added significance if you are locking your map.

[-Oz-]

Yea, I wish there was a better way than just making up an FID.

I was thinking of making up one FID then doing products underneath that but never figured out how (since Mapset Toolkit locks it to 1).

[Boyd]

New version of Mapsource just released: http://www8.garmin.com/support/download_details.jsp?id=209

There are several references to map unlocking. I wonder if this fixed the problems of 6.15.9 or if it has created even more?

Change History
Changes made from version 6.15.7 to 6.15.11:

    * Improved performance for custom draw elements.
    * Made sure waypoints of type 'Geotagged Photo' don't crash MapSource.
    * Allowed the import and export of unlock codes.
    * Made sure unlocking changes get propagated without needing to restart the application.
    * Phone numbers that were imported from gpx files were not written back out again. This is now fixed.
    * Added support for enhanced map security.
    * Fixed unlocking issue.
    * Implemented Asian 6-level address search.
    * Improved trimming performance for some Asian map products.

[Seldom]

Don't know about the unlocking, but 6.15.11 crashes as much as 6.15.9, or maybe more.

[Boyd]

This is why I don't update any Garmin software unless necessary 

[Boyd]

Look two posts above... he was talking about 6.15.11 

[eaparks]

I'm concerned about what the "Added support for enhanced map security" really means.  Could be a politically correct way of saying we are making it more difficult to generate 3rd party custom maps that are not Garmin Custom Maps. 

I'll be optimistic until I encounter a problem and hope it doesn't prevent us from making our own custom maps and loading them with Mapsource.  My main reason for staying with Garmin is so I can use my own custom maps. 

[Seldom]

6.15.9 was locking maps that weren't locked by Garmin publishers.  The "added support" could mean they will leave those maps alone.  After all, they did put support for transparent maps back into the OR300 3.6 firmware.

[Seldom]

Has Garmin ever published an official position on third party maps?  Like "We'll tolerate them because they give us an opportunity to sell more hardware."

[Seldom]

This is semi-official.

https://forums.garmin.com/showthread.php?t=5632