TomTom Leeches

Vendor lock in is vendor lock in. Do we really care why anymore, why they want to harm us? The facts are clear, they have and are (most hardware vendors) still attempting (in vain) to lock customers into their platform.

The only reason I can imagine for this is that they are afraid they will be unable to innovate in order to keep customers, therefore they plan to be shifty, evil and sneaky from the beginning.

My suggestion to all: Enact a 3 - 7 year moratorium on purchasing from that vendor. A 3 or 7 year "wait and watch but do not purchase" period. The 3/7 year clock begins when they release open source drivers within the same calendar month as their proprietary operating system preference they cater too. That clock gets reset if any new product is released with ONLY PROPRIETARY hardware or device drivers. Hardware that you can not run on Linux, because the company has NOT released the specs or the device drivers for Linux and Unix.

By insisting on a 3 or 7 year track record, you can never be fooled again. If after 3 or 7 years they have proven by their ACTIONS (they can only lie with words not actions) by releasing drivers and/or schematics for open source and Linux, then by all means consider their products once again. It really is the only way to be sure.

Hand helds ~ think Maemo or Android (are their any fully Linux compatible OSs for hand helds besides these two?) The test, can I install a Linux application and run it on the device? If not, why not.

Netbooks ~ only if it runs a Linux distro, there are so many available today, there is no reason not to seek them out. Netbooks are NOT meant to be desktop replacements, even if the netbooks hardware surpasses the development PCs of the past. Funny when you consider it that way. I remember when a 4 mhz PC was considered a development machine and it did NOT have a hard disk, no PCs did back then.

Laptops, PCs, Towers ~ ONLY purchase from 100% Linux companies like System 76 or ZaReason. Hey you can always install Windows on this hardware, but the same can not be said if you buy a Windows computer with Vendor lock (ed) in hardware, software and device drivers. And when a company drops support for your hardware, at least you know you have another option for it beside the dump. (IMPORTANT NOTE: It might be time to build your computer from the ground up with the ONLY open source BIOS, COREBOOT. Thus any problem encountered has the potential to be fixed. As you have access to all that you need to fix it, even development tool kits. Today Coreboot supports hundreds of motherboards and other hardware. At least you will be able to tweak it if you need too.)

How do you decide on either 3 or 7 years, easy, how long has the company being playing badly, saying one thing, but doing another. If it has been a 10 years or more (you can think of at least one company here I know, one company that I can think of has been behaving badly for almost 20 years now and for that they have LOST MY TRUST) than 7 years might be an appropriate penalty for them to pay. If it has been less than say 7 years or 10 years, than a 3 year penalty period might suffice. If fewer people purchase their products maybe they will actually do the right thing on the front end and if they do not, you are giving time for an honest open source and Linux friendly company (think competitor to them) to arise.

The best thing about this type of penalty, is that each company has a choice. Play fair, innovate and we will purchase your products. However try to lock us in, even once and we will put off purchasing anything you produce for a minimum of 3 years. Since you can NOT trust their marketing FUD, we must all let their actions speak louder than their words. If you base your purchases on a positive track record, you can NOT be taken advantage of without it costing the company dearly in future sales.

You want our business, not only MUST you EARN our TRUST, you MUST keep EARNING our TRUST! As it should be.

BTW the Nokia's N770, N800, N880 and newly release N900 run Maemo (Linux) and accept a GPS module (extra charge), so you have a solution and have had this solution since 2005, though you might not have been aware of it. The N900 was announced this month. Also some other hardware companies have announced support on hand helds for Maemo. (Google Android gives you yet another option, if you can get it with GPS, I have not checked, makes sense that it should offer GPS hardware support to go with Googles software GPS capabilities via Google Earth.)

If a hand held does not support Linux, than it is inferior. Do not purchase it. I would suggest to you that it is NOT SMART. Smart hardware supports Linux. The Nokias are examples of true smart phones, they just do not lock you in to a cellular plan and that is a good thing.

Full Disclosure: I do NOT work for Google, Nokia, or any company that I have mentioned here, though I would be honored to be a Product Manager for any company entering the hand held market, Netbook or embedded hardware marketplace with a superior open source and Linux enabled product. Just saying.

Today companies can safely migrating from any proprietary solution to an equal or superior open source solution. There are currently NO EXCEPTIONS that I am aware of, as over the last year any remaining gaps in hardware or software have been filled very effectively with viable open source compatible solutions. Anyone fortunate enough to work on these types of migrations must find the work extremely fulfilling and enjoy going to work every day. Of course its an added plus that the company ends up with a lower TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) thanks to the migration. Such a company would be a better financial investment also as they are reducing costs and making future funds available to increase products and marketing to sale more product. I wonder how many investors are paying attention to this? Would be a sure sign of a well run company with a smart executive board!

I would not be surprised to find one or two proprietary software solutions that will run better, I am just currently NOT aware of any. Considering that their are over 500 Content Management Systems available for you today, is there anything that you can not get a computer or server to do to increase the profitability of your business? I think not.

If a company continues to innovate, well they built it, why shouldn't you purchase it. But ask yourself the next time you see their new release, have they really innovated? And be honest about it.

Sorry Caitlyn I must respectfully disagree with you and agree with gus3. Too many companies, Dell being one of them, pay lip service to Linux and cater to Microsoft. And it always sets Linux back, and the repeat the cycle over and over and over again. If you never do anything to punish the offenders how are they going to learn their lesson.

The Linux market is huge and getting bigger. Two companies, Novell and Redhat both have well over 8 to 14 million Linux users, wish I had the article in front of me as I would post a link to it. That is only two Linux companies of many. The point is that one FUD marketing technique non-Linux companies use to justify their wrongful neglect, is to state that the Linux and Unix marketplaces are too small to matter. LIES, Lies and more lies. FUD, Fud, fud. Therefore why should they (hardware companies, device driver companies and BIOS developers) do anything to help Linux. Especially when Microsoft, un-offiically, tells them what they want and based on that one un-offiical, never to be proven conversation, companies that could increase their sales by development for Linux either do NOT, or worse pay lip service that they support Linux, when the reality is something very different. More of a shell game for them as they do not want to piss anyone off and that might cost them sales.

Look at how Microsoft forces the retail chain to pre-purchase a large number of their new operating system software or else they will be alloted less quantities in future releases. You can NOT say that, that does not happen as it has been documented. Of course those un-official conversations are rarely if ever put on paper and are denied in public. All involved know how it makes them look to the buying public. NOT GOOD. And it artificially inflates the number of purchases of the new OS which is used as more marketing FUD.

Again this only hurts the Linux / Unix marketplace and they know it. Sadly for them, the average user that I know is either already aware or becoming aware of this bad practice.

The fact is that they KNOW the Linux market place is significant, not just in total users and lower TCO, Total Cost of Ownership, but in the developer market itself. What developer worth his salt does not want to be able to go into the low level part of an application, operating system, device driver or even the BIOS (thank you Coreboot) and modify or add some C (if you can program C++, you should be able to handle C) code and fix a problem that was neglected by the manufacturer, often by design. (The most notable example that leaps to mind is when the BIOS manufacturers had branches for every Microsoft OS, including ones no longer supported like (95/98, ME, etc...) but only one branch for every flavor of Linux and Unix. Worse yet, the Linux branch did not work correctly with the end result being that the internal fan did not shut off and shut on at the correct times to keep the PC cool enough. Of course the PC overheated and locked up and would not run correctly. All the proprietary companies simply blamed Linux, not their problem. Unfortunately for them and especially the proprietary BIOS manufacturer the hacker/coder who owned the machine was able to reverse engineer the BIOS well enough to figure out what was wrong, the BIOS. It would have been illegal for him to modify and correct the problem because the BIOS was proprietary, even for his own use and NOT for resale. Had he been told upfront that the motherboard + processor combo used a BIOS that was nasty to Linux and catered to Microsoft on the front end by design, he could of avoided the problem and bought a superior, Linux compatible motherboard. Of course they have financial business reasons for not being up front not they would be allowed to be honest, as it would cost them their Microsoft business, probably 40 - 60% of their cash flow.

The point is that these proprietary vendors can make back room deals to screw over the Linux community, specifically catering to another proprietary vendor and there is nothing you can do about that. If you ever even hear about it. In my 20+ years I have only been made privy to two examples, though I would be hard pressed to prove either. No the only viable solution is to make it so reprehensible to ALL, that they refuse to be a party to it. You hit them where it hurts, in sales period, their cash flow.

Is it fair that an Intel on board video/sound chip set works for Microsoft, but not Linux? And Intel is better than many about supporting the open source community.

Is it fair that Nvidia will release device drivers for their new hardware, especially their GPUs (Graphical Processor Units) ONLY for Windows. Granted lately they are getting better, they just released the 8xxx drivers. Sure they eventually release the drivers into open source two or three years later. That two or three year hold on releasing new technology only serves to give the Microsoft platform a HUGE competitive advantage over every other OS (Linux, Unix and MacIntosh). Why do you think you only see 6xxx and this year finally 8xxx Nvidia drivers being offered with either System 76 or ZaReason PC offerings. Because those companies were denied a seat at the table. The new processors were out. Anyone working with Video or heavy graphics needed these boards as they loaded up to 50% of the processing off the processor, freeing it up to do other work....huge if that was your business. Who could use them, ONLY Microsoft. Is that remotely fair? Their excuse was probably that the Linux market was too small and our development resources were limited. Note even if true, indicating a business decision failure IMO, it certainly is NOT fair.

Both Intel and Nvidia and every other hardware manufacturer wants the bleeding edge developers to write software and device drivers for their hardware offerings, opening new markets. Trust me, they do NOT want to offend that specific group no matter what the percentages of Microsoft to Linux/Unix to MacIntosh may be. Regardless of what they say publicly.

And if any hardware vendor does NOT have the in house resources to do the coding to get their new hardware to work for Linux and Unix, there is a solution readily available to them. The Kernel Driver project: http://www.linuxdriverproject.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/Driver... they will even work with the proprietary vendor under an NDA to create a GPL compliant version of the driver. Sounds strange I know, see the FAQ: http://www.linuxdriverproject.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/Freque...

As for System76 and ZaReason not being competitive, are you CRAZY or just have not looked recently. Both offer PCs in the $300 - $400 range that will run either Beryl or Compiz and can handle the heaviest of processing loads. Your statement is simply not true, perhaps you were unaware or work for DELL. They also offer more expensive machines with more processors, more memory, etc, like every PC manufacturer out there. One only needs to go to their websites to see for themselves. They are extremely price competitive, even when you consider shipping costs. And they do not bury that they build Linux PCs, way down in their website like Dell does. Also, since the PCs are designed with Linux in mind, they will always run linux, including Video, Sound, WiFi, USB and more.

I do not work for either company. Having got screwed over by Lindros with their proprietary agreement with Microsoft for device drivers I will never let that happen again. Next time the Linux PC I buy will work with Linux out fo the box and I mean everything. And future upgrades will be less of a hassle or hassle free, thanks to my foresight. Ideally I will have a Coreboot installable motherboard as well, if not Coreboot running on it.

When the average user buys a Window PC and either wants to install dual boot or when Microsoft stops supporting the only versions of the operating system that will work on that PC's hardware based on processor, memory or hard disk space what then?

No wonder the average users still is unaware the Linux just works out of the box. Sound, Video, USB, WiFi while not the only issues are some of the biggest one sees when going through the forums and wikis looking for help with configuration issues. 90% of the time its because of proprietary hardware or proprietary device drivers, all of which would have been avoided had the PC been bought from a Linux vendor. The average user is simply NOT aware that the fault is NOT Linux in many instances, but a proprietary vendor catering to Microsoft. Of course Linux gets blamed, is that fair?

It really sucks when those same proprietary companies that cause the configuration errors will blame Linux. Even when they know its their fault.

Heck I have been in a shop where Microsoft denied the problem was with their products, only to be outed months later as having lied. They knew it but did not have a solution for the problem, so they denied the existence of the problem. Any one who as worked in corporate america for any length of time understands that this is standard operating practice for poorly managed companies. After all it can never be the companies fault, you might not purchase their products. They do this over and over again. So do you really think they even think about lying about Linux, Unix or MacIntosh. Come on get real.

I knew one company where the problems were always blamed on someone in the operations department, otherwise people might not purchase the application software or the companies consulting services had they known the truth. Years later I compared notes with another person who worked there, the fault was always operator error, lol. Thankfully another company got tired of that company's shenanigans and bought the company, straightened it out and made it better. But in the interim many lives were messed up due to their shoddy business practices.

Now can any consumer control what a company markets and states as fact? Of course not. Since we can NOT believe them by their design, what other choice is there?

The only real solution is to stop purchasing their products until they have established a more customer friendly business practice over a period of years. That way you are relying on their ACTIONS, period. Their words, their marketing, their FUD, no longer matters. The question is how many years is an appropriate punishment and more importantly how many years constitutes an effective positive track record? If the company has been misleading consumers for 20 years or more, 7 years might be appropriate. Newer companies a minimum of 3 years should do it.

After 3 years of working to regain your TRUST, it is highly unlikely they would allow a poor manager to burn that TRUST that would take them an additional 3 years to earn. It becomes a business incentive. Stop being afraid that hardware vendors will not release products for Linux because people are NOT buying. This is more FUD. They want, no they need sales for operating systems other than Microsoft. And Microsoft keeps burning their bridges with key hardware providers, so trust me these hardware manufacturers are dying for more markets to sell their products to other than Microsoft.

The sales of Linux enabled netbooks, really opened many eyes over the last two years. And Microsoft does not have a solution for under 512 MB of RAM other than XP, which they are discontinuing.

How do you think they should be treated? Should they earn your TRUST? Of course they should.

And once they have abused your TRUST? What then?

Should the average person be required to research every nuance of every piece of their computer, including the BIOS and how it functions with that combination of hardware, of course not, but that is where we stand today.

If you want to be sure your PC will run Linux, buy from a Linux vendor, make sure video, audio, USB, WiFi, 10/100/1000 Ethernet, etc all work out of the box. Because if they work on day one, they will work 3, 7 and 10 years later.

Best of all, you can always purchase the Windows Operating System stand alone if you love it that much, with the guarantee that it will simply work on your Linux designed hardware. The opposite scenario most certainly is NOT true.

And when you consider that the netbook computers (Asus Eee PC 701, Surf, 901 and up) are more powerful than the power user development PCs we used when they first came out, why not repurpose the hardware when Microsoft stops supporting it. As they always do eventually, that much we can all COUNT ON. Why fill up the dumps, please before you do that find a charity to donate it to.

For home use, what about your own customized DVD Player/Recorder. (The cable and satellite companies DVD/DVRs are a joke technologically. A router/Firewall with full logging information and better security. Your own home WiFi Access point. Heck, just a home file server for your own personal use. I am sure you can think of other purposes, real time monitoring and device controlling of your home, the list is huge. Anything is better than putting it in the dump.

Only Linux and Unix give you an option to repurpose your machine, once other companies have stopped supporting it. So why not do yourself a favor and buy your PC from a Linux vendor, even if you want to install Windows. At least down the road you will have options that would otherwise be denied to you.

Isn't that what freedom of choice is all about anyway.

First of all, let me applaud the efforts you took to find out why Tomtom only uses Free Software while not supporting free software. You're one of the only persons not only complaining but also trying to find a solution. And you're right TomTom are leechers (I didn't expect anything else, but I understand their patent issues might have risen some expectations). Also, it's sad they don't support Linux, short sighted, and what more. I couldn't agree more. However, I have certain doubts about your conclusions:

Quoting:and I will do all in my power to dissuade people not to buy you (sic) products.

Well, that's fine, and sounds like a logical thing to do. But, how about this situation:

I'm some Linux-user willing to buy a PND. Better, in fact I am, I'm looking for some replacement of my 2005 sluggish Chinese-brand unit. I'm a supporter of Free Software (true also!), and I'll ask you what PND I should buy. Especially, I rather won't have my "hard earned money" (some came from an allowance, but anyway) end up at Microsoft (true also!)

What are you going to tell me, I should buy a Garmin, Mio or Lenco instead? Do those offer Linux support? Well, as far as I know, they don't.

Here's what the Garmin site tells:

Quoting:Compatible computers and Internet browsers: IBM-compatible PCs running Windows® XP or Vista operating systems with Internet Explorer 6+ or Firefox 1.5+ Intel-based or PowerPC G3 or later Mac OS 10.4 or later with Firefox 2.0+ or Safari 2.0+

Mio - well, I cannot find out. As far as I know (I own one), Lenco doesn't work with Linux either.

Yes, there's a way around which doesn't involve Wine or Windows (hell, I should be payed for this advice, because I can give you TomTom / Linux support which even the company itself doesn't seem to deliver):

-Install torrent client (I prefer KTorrent, but anything else will do also), -Goto torrent site (I prefer BTJunkie), -Find out the name of the file that's on your SD-card; one big img file several 100 megs big, -Search for the file in combination with "2010" (for some reason, all proprietary software products of 2009 are called "2010") -Download it (this part may be illegal depending on your country), -Crack it if necessary (this part will probably be illegal in about any country), -Put the SD card in your SD card reader (most SD card readers are supported by Linux), and copy your img-file. -Put the SD back in the PND and pray.

If images of maps of the region where you live are not on torrents / newssites, well, you're out of luck, no Linux-support for you.

But anyway, I figure this is what would happen if I ask you which PND I should buy, I guess you'd say:

"Don't buy TomTom, because they're leechers who don't support Linux and Free Software". Then I'd say "OK, then what should I buy"?

And you could only say "Well, I advise you not to buy a PND at all because none of them work with Linux."

In fact, if I bought one of the competitors product, I might end up paying for Windows Embedded, while when buying a TomTom, I'll probably only end up paying for some (indirect) patent licenses.

So I wonder, if company 1,2,3...n are the set of all the companies selling PND's, and none of companies 1,2,3...n offer Linux support, then -Is it fair to tell people not to buy from company 1? -Does it make sense to tell people not to buy from company 1?

Let me stress it's not your fault there's not a company offering Linux support and I really applaud your efforts. I'm thankful for this information as I'm contemplating buying a new PND-system (if there's money left after the holiday). You confirmed certain aspects of TomTom I already was assuming.

But I'm afraid it's not going to be of much help when I'm in the (e-)store, because I still don't know what I should buy?

So what I'll probably do is bug Navigon (they're German, after all, maybe they care about Linux?) Garmin / Mio about this and point them to this story, and ask them what they can do for me.

If tomtom wants to ignore Linux at their own peril that is their choice, a wrong one I might add. But there are solutions to this travesty for us Linux users:

Maemo, Any handheld device that runs Maemo and has a spot for a GPS module will work, almost full hackable Linux. See the N770, N800, N880 and recently released N900. My favorite is the N800 as it has the FM chip in it. In addition to a the ability to add a GPS, you can have two MIcro SSD cards (on internal, one external for more storage), microphone, video cam (built in), headset port, WiFi. All it is missing IMO is a fully functioning USB port and 10/100/1000 ethernet port. Though the WiFi works out of the box. There is a mini USB port that requires a special cable to use.

As for Amazon's Kindle, who needs it. That same Nokia N770, N800, N880, N900 (new release this month) will allow you not only to have a full web browser to surf the web with the built-in WiFi, but you can install any application you want to read books, pdf files, whatever. So one device, fully Linux ready (you have to load the Maemo software), takes care of it all. And if the content (book, movie, song, album) is not sold in an open data format I simply do NOT purchase it. If they want my business, they will provide the content in an open data format, the only format that I care to consume (i.e purchase) anymore.

I wonder how many books I could fit on a 15 GB Micro SD cards, recently on sale on Amazon for under $16.00 per. Probably more than I could read in my lifetime. I know that one 4 GB Micro SD card in my Cannon 12X camera lets me take pictures all day long without stopping. And I can just stick these Micro SD cards (w/ adapter) into my Nokia N800 and manipulate the images. I do not even need a netbook or laptop unless I want to do something fancy with the images. While the Nokia might be able to do it, the limited screen size of any handheld or cell phone would be simply too small for editing. You could do it with Maemo, but why would I want too. The fact that I could do it, if I wanted to is amazing when you think about it.

Best of all, any WiFi enabled hand held has no tethering issues, take that "customer no service wireless / cellular companies" (pound sand). My Nokia not only functions as a viable phone when connected (WiFi, not cellular, thus < $9.00 per month with Skype-In + free North American calling) to the internet, it can play H.264 formatted movies and videos. The sound and the picture are exceptional. All in a hand held.

Since you can run Linux, you can run PHP, MySQL and more, so any PIM software you need that is written for PHP and MySQL would be 100% customizable for you. If you can program in C like I can, you have even more options available to you, its good to be and using open source.

Anymore for me, since I know a Linux solution has existed for about 4 years now (the 770 was released in both Europe and the US in November 2005), I know I can get Linux on a handheld, tablet, netbook, desktop or server. So its a quick simple test, will this new hardware run Linux? If No, next.

How many people reading this were unaware that there was a viable Linux (now called Maemo) for hand helds since 2005? Well now you know, go forth and sin no more.

I do not waste my time with non Linux hand helds anymore, where you are trapped, end of life-d and support is dropped. No thank you. Why waste money, its called throwing good money after bad, we all need to stop doing that.

So if TomTom wants to ignore Linux, their loss, a superior solution exists and has existed for 4 years, get the superior solution. Later Tom Tom.

And now with Google's Android available, for most of us its only a decision between either Android or Maemo.

For the Nokia's the GPS module is a hardware ad in at an extra cost. Just FYI.

Oh and just this year a Chinese company was considering releasing a new hand held that was Maemo compatible, so you will have yet more options, all that run Linux, isn't that the most important thing?

It is for me. Give me Linux or you will not get my money (purchase).