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Thanks for the reply.

Well, I am not quite sure what google *terms of use* would it violate -- am I violating "terms of use" by using ParanoidAndroid with the OpenPDroid patches in an important way? I think not.

The use cases for the idea are many. I love the combination of OSM maps and Locus, and I'd love em many times more if I could have it inside my jogging app, my tasker map controls and elsewhere.

Not reporting every map I look at to Google has an enormous value.

Anyhow, it is just one of those "what if" ideas.

Hi, Menion.

It has been a while since I touched android development, and I've never really looked at the maps APIs, so I don't know how crazy this sounds, but I've been wondering recently about something.

Is it thinkable to develop a layer that uses the Locus app engine as an alternative map provider for Android? That is, have locus load instead of gmaps in all apps that use gmaps to display maps, and use offline maps instead of staying connected? I expect this to involve modifying some android classes, patching a rom and whatnot, but what's your insight or guesstimate on how hard would that be?

Cheers,

I was away from network with the latest version, no issues. It revalidates the license on install, and then works as it should even when offline. Thanks a lot!

Hi magiva,
  hmm someone also wrote me similar comment on market. Have anyone same problem on SGS? You say other aps works fine, weird.

You may try to calibrate it by rotating about every axis 1 or 2times. This helps me when compass have some issue.

Ha! (flipping the phone once ... twice ... three times)

Ha! Thanks, that worked on a SGS 02B! Now I also know the answer to the question "why the compass sometimes works and sometimes doesn't".

BTW, eights (imaginary or real) are not necessary, just flip the phone three times along each axis and the magic happens.

Hehehe. No worries, we'll get the new version when it's out.

Excellent, thanks a lot.

Thanks for the reply and the quick response. As I said above, if the situation with the cracked copies is really bad, it is okay to insist on validations, it is no big deal really.

Naturally, I'll test any new version that comes out that has a fix of my issue. If helpful, I won't mind testing out the occasional development or beta build.

Why is the validation even needed? Isn't the app locked to the phone anyway, so that copying it to another phone is not possible?

not locked on rooted devices. like all devices I own.

ok, I'll probably do only one check after new version install and then nothing since new install. This licence think is whole weird. I'm fighting with this mainly because my stats, more then 85% of users, use stolen version. But all of them do not have these problems with licence. And you who payed have ... sorry for that, in next release will be improved version!!

85% of all users spend time to get a cracked version? Given that there's virtually no difference between the two? Geez. Well, if it is that bad, it is up to you how you deal with the license issues, I'll just shut up. As I said above, it isn't a big deal when offline, since the two versions are roughly identical, and the AR view isn't all that important.

BTW, with my install the license issue doesn't pop up on every three days (or other regular intervals), it is completely random. Sometimes I'll have no issues for days, sometimes almost right away. Of course, when I'm connected it works without trouble.

Yes, I am at the latest version. I got a licensing error three days ago, then connected, the thing got itself fixed, then got an error yesterday again. I've no idea if it was the device, the OS, Google's authentication services in my situation* (see below) or the software, but I'd find checks annoying and invasive even if they happen once a month. I'd much prefer if any app I buy would only check versions on initial install and version upgrade or something. Locus can throw fits at any time - after recovery from backup, after being away in the woods for a while, etc. I have not had licensing issues with other apps so far. Luckily nothing I use often (except the VR) that requires licensing is affected too much.

*My situation: bought a phone in a first-world country A, now traveling in some third-world countries, and using the device a lot in areas without mobile coverage, which screwed up all updates for me for a while, and made for a rather unpleasant and long exchange with Google. Maybe I am an edge use case or something, so they care for me less, despite me spending over 100 bucks on apps already.

I keep getting licensing errors (cannot connect to app store to validate or somesuch) if I am offline for a short period of time. This is pretty annoying - I don't see much need to report to Google where I am every couple of days.

And, naturally, this annoying check always happens in the worst possible moment. While there isn't much of a usability lost while I'm offline with the device, it would be better if the app assumed I'm a nice guy and wait for the next connection to validate itself instead of showing me the finger while I'm 10 hours away from the next wifi hotspot (and a week away from having any desire to connect to Google's validation server).

Well, just a maybe, we could do it in reverse -- instead of you learning about OSM editing, someone could learn about writing Locus plugins. While I added the post just so that the idea is on the list, I was seriously considering to write it. Unfortunately, I also don't have much time at the moment, and I have not read the information on the locus API and plugin development here, so I really cannot tell how much work a plugin would be. I may have some free time in the coming month and take a closer look at it, though, depending on the general direction Locus goes in.

If I were to start working on it, I suppose just authenticating (0auth) and uploading tracks to a user account will be a very useful first step, and won't be a very big challenge, given what Locus can do now.

As for editing, I suppose that will be harder, because the actual editor is manipulating the OSM internal map format. I imagine adapting the current path/mymap editor would be a major part of the work on such a plugin. Also, if I were to do it, I'd prefer the plugin to be open source. The OSM map editor is josm (http://josm.openstreetmap.de/), it is written in Java too, so a compatible license would speed things a lot.

Actually, that is bad news for everyone, and especially for the responsible users of locus.

I've tried to contribute in the past ot OSM, especially in areas with little data. The problem is when I'm there I usually have less than ideal environment - no computer, intermittent net access, etc.

I've grown to like the Locus interface to create POIs and paths on the map very much, and I think the google's mymaps integration is pretty useful. Something similar for OSM -- a plugin that would allow authentication against the OSM user database and have the ability to upload/download and edit OSM map fragments would be immensely useful.

It will be a win-win if I can have better OSM in Locus, and use Locus to improve OSM.

Well, here's my two cents:

Of course, using a map means the end user of the map data has obligation to abide by the terms of use of the map provider. At the same time, your application enables me to use maps in very useful ways. However, if some of these interesting and useful ways violate the terms of use, that is my problem.

I don't subscribe to the point of view of some developers on the openstreetmaps dev list that an application should police its users. What I think is that the application should make the users aware of the terms of use, and let them choose their behavior.

Of course, these largely philosophical points can be debated to no end. This is how lawyers make a living. In practice, I try to abide by the terms of usage of most maps most of the time, but I admit that the occasional (rare) violation of the terms of use does have its uses if it doesn't impact negatively on the experience of other users.

So, if I had to define the responsibility of you as a developer, I'd say it is twofold: first, you should warn the users of potential terms of violation. Second, your application should allow a choice that violates the ToS, but should do its best to mitigate the adverse effects of such behavior.

In my opinion, most locus users who violate the terms of service do so without realizing it most of the time. Just providing a warning will probably mitigate most of the problems.

Maybe a good temporary option will be for Locus to require the map provider XML file to have some extra terms for each provider (e.g., allowed zoom levels, allowed maximum download rate, number of open connections, max tiles to download at once etc.) and give a warning to the user if a download that is initiated is actually violating those terms. Then, it should be up to the user to proceed or not. That will squarely put the responsibility where it belongs -- in the hands of the user -- as well as provide the user with enough information to make their choice. Alternatively, using something like robots.txt designed specifically for tile servers may also do the job well.

Mitigating the irresponsible user behavior is trickier. In my opinion, rather than limiting the number of tiles, a strategy like forced tarpitting would work best. You could implement a small delay between the download of different tiles, and increase that for egregious violations of terms of service, limiting the rate of download to what the user would do with a browser. This will allow the server load that a single client creates to decrease significantly, while letting those of us who want to keep an offline cache for emergencies to do so.

Also, I think that you should allow the user to customize whatever user agent string you're supplying to the server.

Of course, in the long run there should be a solution that is both useful and legal, but in the meantime a temporary compromise that can let end users use the maps while not putting excessive loads on the providers' servers is a good thing.

thanks, I fixed it already the "hard" way, with chmod. i'll see if your link has a better solution.