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jbinbi · 09-03-2018, 16:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by boatman61

Save's utilizing that archaic process called thought..

Simple. I was in Marthas Vineyard, and wanted to get to Newport. I think that is about 50ish mi. There are about 4 different routes, 2 going thru cuts that are fairly narrow and have pretty heavy currents. So depending upon routes maybe this is a 7 hour trip or a 9 hour trip.

I was asking a boat tied up to me who cruised the waters more than I do for his suggestions, and he said, "let's just put it into my plotter (a garmin)." And assuming I was leaving then, which I was, he came up with times for the routes. Kind of like using google maps on your phone, it gives you various routes based on traffic.

Why wouldn't I look at google maps before taking a long drive to see the best route. Why wouldn't I use technology available to make things easier.

Sailmonkey · 09-03-2018, 16:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by jbinbi

Nope. Not allowed in either the US or maybe it is NA markets. If you are in Europe, you got dock to dock. Not for me in the US. I have Navionics. This is from the website. Look at the latest greatest firmware upgrades, it states this explicitly.

Navionics on IPad does dock to dock routing.

I find it next to useless.

jbinbi · 09-03-2018, 16:14

Maybe I am not understanding something. Didn't Garmin give a bunch of money to the guys who made AC? If so, and we don't know what it cost them, isn't it reasonable that they would need to a)get their money back, and b)actually make money from their investment?

Why crap on Garmin for this? Or maybe there is something I am missing.

Franziska · 09-03-2018, 16:16

Talking about moral.

I think if the crowd supplies info in the good faith to benefit from sharing the info its in my eyes morally wrong to sell the info/data gathered by the crowd.

Selling the brand, Interface design and data and keeping all crowd sourced content/data in parallel fully and indefinitely accessible to the creators of this content (=the crowd) would be ok.
Of course there has to be an option to also keep that info up to date.

So if Garmin would want to build stuff on that data and enhance their products, thats ok in my eyes as long as they keep the data in parallel available to the crowd and the interfaces the crowd uses.

Mike OReilly · 09-03-2018, 16:24

There seems to be multiple threads on this general topic. As I’ve said in the others, there exists an excellent alternative to AC for cruisers in the Great Lakes, Great Loop, NA east coast, Bahamas/Caribbean/Cuba area:

http://waterwayguide.com/

It is both a crowd-sourced and human vetted (old school) online database and tool. Users can send in their reports or info, but they also pay actual cruisers to cover specific areas. This ensures that stuff that gets posted has at least been examined by a human that knows something about the area.

Disclosure: I am one of these Cruising Editors.

Stu Jackson · 09-03-2018, 17:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Franziska

Talking about moral.

I think if the crowd supplies info in the good faith to benefit from sharing the info its in my eyes morally wrong to sell the info/data gathered by the crowd.

Selling the brand, Interface design and data and keeping all crowd sourced content/data in parallel fully and indefinitely accessible to the creators of this content (=the crowd) would be ok.
Of course there has to be an option to also keep that info up to date.

So if Garmin would want to build stuff on that data and enhance their products, thats ok in my eyes as long as they keep the data in parallel available to the crowd and the interfaces the crowd uses.

I'm a little confused.

Active Captain (AC) developed their "model" which was the overlay of input from sailors/boaters onto noaa (free in the USA) charts.

The "product" AC created the the overlaid easy-to-use database of the contributors. My experience was that it was used extensively in the east and south coasts of the US, but not so much in the west. I contributed a few anchorages in Northern California, and was one of very few.

The contributors data was only part of the story. The product that AC developed was meshing the contributions and the charts. Free contributions, free charts, but the product was the software that merged them.

Garmin bought AC. As a "valuable asset" either they would keep it the same and continue to grow or would look at it as part of their "business model" and try to make $$ from it whether this was from trying to recoup their initial investment or to make more $$ as time went on, or both. Now, though, it is their product, their choice.

Many folks came to depend on it for information, and are disappointed that they are now being excluded from access for a variety of reasons.

On the other hand, those who contributed and use(d) it have no control over how a product that is under new ownership is offered. And "controlled."

The difficult part is that in recognizing these two possible paths is the reality of Garmin itself: a company that continually, regularly and repeatedly screws its purchasers (i.e., supporters) left and right by obsoleting and eliminating support for many if not all of its products well before their use-by date.

Scott Berg · 09-03-2018, 19:55

I still think it's much ado about nothing; Garmin is making the AC database free to all, just requiring that they access it in a legal manner. In May 2018 the laws in the EU (where they are based) change and the current AC isn't compliant. Jeff wrote about this a year ago and said it would require changes. Now that Garmin is investing in those changes people are bitching? Why aren't you bitching at Polar Navy/etc for not updating their product to the new (legally required) API's? I've spent a lifetime in IT and this happens all the time. It's up to the companies like Polar Navy (who charge for an application) to make the changes if they want to get the free data stream.

ranger58sb · 10-03-2018, 05:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by Franziska

I think if the crowd supplies info in the good faith to benefit from sharing the info its in my eyes morally wrong to sell the info/data gathered by the crowd.

Individual contributors did not do the gathering of the info/data.

-Chris

Lake-Effect · 10-03-2018, 06:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by ranger42c

Individual contributors did not do the gathering of the info/data.

Contributors provided the info/data. That's what contributing means. But yes, AC created the site and system for facilitating the input, housing and distribution of that user-contributed info.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stu Jackson

The "product" AC created the the overlaid easy-to-use database of the contributors. ...

The contributors data was only part of the story. The product that AC developed was meshing the contributions and the charts. Free contributions, free charts, but the product was the software that merged them.

Garmin bought AC. As a "valuable asset" either they would keep it the same and continue to grow or would look at it as part of their "business model" and try to make $$ from it

The really valuable parts of AC are the data, and the brand. For the AC website and the apps, the maps, and the technology for putting a pin on a map are all from Google, and free or licensable.

But yes, AC created a very attractive and easy to use presentation of that data, and the NOAA integration is nifty too.

Lake-Effect · 10-03-2018, 06:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scott Berg

I still think it's much ado about nothing; Garmin is making the AC database free to all, just requiring that they access it in a legal manner. In May 2018 the laws in the EU (where they are based) change and the current AC isn't compliant. Jeff wrote about this a year ago and said it would require changes. Now that Garmin is investing in those changes people are bitching? Why aren't you bitching at Polar Navy/etc for not updating their product to the new (legally required) API's? I've spent a lifetime in IT and this happens all the time. It's up to the companies like Polar Navy (who charge for an application) to make the changes if they want to get the free data stream.

People are b1tching because the only recent info they've received is that confusing notification from Polar Navy. Garmin has kind of botched the PR around all this; it's up to them to sort out the confusion.

I'm in IT too, and it's clear that someone at Garmin is asleep at the switch. Their developer/API page is empty. If they want developers to cut over to the new API by late May, you'd think the roadmap and the details of the new API would be available by now... not to mention a sandbox for trying it.

Auspicious · 11-03-2018, 11:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

People are b1tching because the only recent info they've received is that confusing notification from Polar Navy. Garmin has kind of botched the PR around all this; it's up to them to sort out the confusion.

The Polar Navy announcement isn't confusing at all. GDPR is a big deal in international data. Polar Navy--at least--dropped the ball. Maybe--MAYBE--you can point a finger at Garmin for not being sufficiently creative to come up with a way to solve other people's problems (like those of Polar Navy) for them.

It's possible that we'll learn that there is no creative way to be compliant with GDPR for crowd-sourced data. I don't expect that to be the case. Facebook surely has a plan. I think there is greater risk to Cruisers' Forum....

It seems to me that the big problem with sharing crowd-sourced data collected by someone else (Polar Navy sharing AC data) is tying to the internal data protections of AC.

I suspect we'll see a bunch of apps disappear because the authors can't be bothered to be compliant.

Lake-Effect · 11-03-2018, 11:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Auspicious

The Polar Navy announcement isn't confusing at all. GDPR is a big deal in international data. Polar Navy--at least--dropped the ball. Maybe--MAYBE--you can point a finger at Garmin for not being sufficiently creative to come up with a way to solve other people's problems (like those of Polar Navy) for them.

According to the linked article on Panbo (with an interview with 2 Garmin folks), the Polar Navy announcement implied that they were being cut off from AC, and didn't mention the other part of the info they received which stated that a new GPDR-compliant API was coming for late May. That's created a lot of confusion; just look at this thread's title.

Most important, there's been ZERO public info from Garmin coinciding with their notification of sites using AC data - no info page on the API change, and their API page has been and still is a big fat blank. How can anyone plan for an API that is not yet available... not even a provisional spec?

A comment in the Panbo article states that the new API will be available around Apr 1... I guess we'll see. Kind of an inauspicious date choice

.

AJ_n_Audrey · 18-03-2018, 06:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by atmartin

I don't fault Garmin for making savvy business decisions.

But when you mix ethics, someone gets the short end. Users give data for free on AC or CruisersForum, presumably to help other boaters. This is not something a good business would do. No pay, no play.

When Garmin is seen to be sticking it to their unpaid labor (users), I think it's reasonable for people to register a little moral outrage. To me, it's similar to college athletes or other scenarios where some people are playing by business ethics and making mounds of cash, while others are supposed to be motivated by non-market values.

Yes, I think Garmin missed a big opportunity to reach out to the boating community that contributed to AC and offer a few minor concessions to those who helped build the data in AC. It wouldn't have cost them much, and they could have generated some goodwill and trust and brand loyalty by doing that. Too bad they didn't. I just purchased the smallest Garmin device I could find, at 50% off, in order to retain access to Bluecharts (which I had on my iPad). I invested a fair amount of time in setting up routes, learning the software, etc, and a few hundred $ is a price I can pay to not have to re-do all that. Bluecharts is a good secondary (sometimes primary) navigation tool and I don't want to lose the investment of my time in it. That said, the action by Garmin still pisses me off, and it stings to give them more money (even if it's not that much), but business is business, and technology and tools will change over time.

BlackHeron · 18-03-2018, 07:20

So when is Garmin going to buy CruisersForum?

I made a decision to stay away from Garmin products a long time ago and it has been pretty hard to do. I didn't even know they owned Fusion radio when I got one

Now they own AC and Navionics, as well as DeLorme. Just keep feeding the beast until they own everything and everyone must pay to play. Next they will buy the alphabet and nobody will be allowed write anything without paying them a license fee.