Montana and Wherigo

[+LZ33]

Email sent to Garmin:

 

I wanted to let Garmin know that I'm deeply disappointed with buying a Montana and not having all the functions of geocaching. While the Chirp made it to the Montana, Wherigo didn't.

 

With advertising the Montana, you might consider changing "The Montana supports geocaching", to The Montana, supports most of the geocaching features.

 

Reply:

While Wherigo™ support on all Garmin handhelds is something we would like to provide, It is important to understand that Wherigo™ is a combination of an engine provided by Groundspeak, a license agreement to use their patent, and a reliance of their Wherigo cartridge builder tools. The remainder of the system (the part people see as the “player” in their Oregon/Colorado device) is managed by Garmin, but is subject to the terms of use we have with Groundspeak. Unfortunately, while Garmin has contributed significant effort to Wherigo™ development in past years, Groundspeak’s efforts to improve the cartridge builder tools and associated developer utilities has not reached a level that gives us reason to further our development at this time.

 

Unless we see a significant change in Groundspeak’s priorities regarding Wherigo™, I do not foresee a change in Garmin’s plan going forward, which is to phase out Wherigo™ players from outdoor handhelds. If this feature is important to you or your members, be sure to have them contact Groundspeak regarding their desire to see this content become further developed. Without this support I am afraid this feature will eventually be phased out.

 

-Montana Software Team

[team tisri]

Sounds like a reasonable response.

 

Wherigo seems like a good idea in principle but it's almost as if Groundspeak created it, patented it, and then ignored it.

[+Walts Hunting]

I have never done a Wherigo and since there are only two or three in my area and since I have a Montana I probably won't so it isn't really missed. It doesn't seem that it ever caught on that much.

[team tisri]

I have never done a Wherigo and since there are only two or three in my area and since I have a Montana I probably won't so it isn't really missed. It doesn't seem that it ever caught on that much.

 

I've done two with a caching buddy. For the first one we used my Windows cellphone which worked - his Android player crashed part way through when he got an incoming phone call. For the second one we used my friend's Android phone which redeemed itself.

 

It's an interesting idea. I agree that it hasn't really caught on, which is a shame. I looked at the Wherigo builder a while back (which was still in alpha at the time), fiddled with it for a while and then decided I couldn't be bothered fussing with it.

[+coachstahly]

If you use one of the other two builders they're actually a bit easier to do. I built my first one back in Feb. and test ran it on my EVO since my Montana doesn't have the ability to do it. Since it was published on the 13th it's had 13 finds. Since this is one of 2 in the area it appears it's going to stick around a bit and attract some attention. I can't blame Garmin for dropping it from their offerings as it does appear that it's the family member of GS no one wants to talk about. There's one moderator, Ranger Fox, that is pretty passionate and knowledgeable about them, but it looks like it's going to remain a relatively underutilized platform.

[MtnHermit]

Sounds like a reasonable response.

 

Wherigo seems like a good idea in principle but it's almost as if Groundspeak created it, patented it, and then ignored it.

I agree with both of your points.

 

I tried to build some Wherigo applications and the builders tools were just dreadful. Too bad Garmin can't buy the technology from Groundspeak.

[jholly]

Sounds like a reasonable response.

 

Wherigo seems like a good idea in principle but it's almost as if Groundspeak created it, patented it, and then ignored it.

I agree with both of your points.

 

I tried to build some Wherigo applications and the builders tools were just dreadful. Too bad Garmin can't buy the technology from Groundspeak.

What's even worse Jeremy himself suggests using 3rd party builders.

[Jeremy]

We'd be happy to offer a free license to Garmin to add Wherigo to their Montana units. The specification for building cartridges is also pretty straightforward, which is why we fully support others creating builder tools. Personally I don't consider that "worse" since we have back-burnered the project and those options are actually quite strong.

 

The main reasons why we have not continued our development of Wherigo, specifically on Garmin devices:

 

• Limited resources - Geocaching needs more attention and we have limited resources to work on Wherigo
  
• Lack of control - Garmin limits their device updates and it was near impossible to make updates to Wherigo on Garmin devices
  

 

Evolving Wherigo on Garmin devices was a futile effort. To make updates we had to rely on Garmin being willing to release updates. We always had pushback on getting timely updates of Wherigo on Garmin devices, or updates at all. We finally gave up trying to make updates since it works in its current form.

 

After Garmin decided to go in the direction of Opencaching they have had no interest in doing anything with us, which seems to be the true reason for not incorporating Wherigo on Montana. They are more than welcome to add Wherigo to the Montana. They already have the code to do so and there should be no problem running it on the new device.

 

If they have no interest in adding Wherigo to the Montana, that's fine, but indicating that there's a licensing issue is absurd.

[MtnHermit]

We'd be happy to offer a free license to Garmin to add Wherigo to their Montana units. The specification for building cartridges is also pretty straightforward, which is why we fully support others creating builder tools. Personally I don't consider that "worse" since we have back-burnered the project and those options are actually quite strong.

 

The main reasons why we have not continued our development of Wherigo, specifically on Garmin devices:

 

• Limited resources - Geocaching needs more attention and we have limited resources to work on Wherigo
  
• Lack of control - Garmin limits their device updates and it was near impossible to make updates to Wherigo on Garmin devices
  

 

Evolving Wherigo on Garmin devices was a futile effort. To make updates we had to rely on Garmin being willing to release updates. We always had pushback on getting timely updates of Wherigo on Garmin devices, or updates at all. We finally gave up trying to make updates since it works in its current form.

 

After Garmin decided to go in the direction of Opencaching they have had no interest in doing anything with us, which seems to be the true reason for not incorporating Wherigo on Montana. They are more than welcome to add Wherigo to the Montana. They already have the code to do so and there should be no problem running it on the new device.

 

If they have no interest in adding Wherigo to the Montana, that's fine, but indicating that there's a licensing issue is absurd.

 

Always two sides to every story. Thanks for sharing yours.

[team tisri]

We'd be happy to offer a free license to Garmin to add Wherigo to their Montana units. The specification for building cartridges is also pretty straightforward, which is why we fully support others creating builder tools. Personally I don't consider that "worse" since we have back-burnered the project and those options are actually quite strong.

 

The main reasons why we have not continued our development of Wherigo, specifically on Garmin devices:

 

• Limited resources - Geocaching needs more attention and we have limited resources to work on Wherigo
  
• Lack of control - Garmin limits their device updates and it was near impossible to make updates to Wherigo on Garmin devices
  

 

Evolving Wherigo on Garmin devices was a futile effort. To make updates we had to rely on Garmin being willing to release updates. We always had pushback on getting timely updates of Wherigo on Garmin devices, or updates at all. We finally gave up trying to make updates since it works in its current form.

 

After Garmin decided to go in the direction of Opencaching they have had no interest in doing anything with us, which seems to be the true reason for not incorporating Wherigo on Montana. They are more than welcome to add Wherigo to the Montana. They already have the code to do so and there should be no problem running it on the new device.

 

If they have no interest in adding Wherigo to the Montana, that's fine, but indicating that there's a licensing issue is absurd.

 

Always two sides to every story. Thanks for sharing yours.

 

Indeed... always good to hear the other side.

 

I'd be interested to see if there is a useable and reliable Wherigo builder these days. The one I tried to use a while back was so truly awful I gave up.

 

If there is I'll look at it, if not I'm still leaning towards a view that GS is at least somewhat disinterested in the project.

Edited April 28, 2012 by team tisri

[+coachstahly]

The one that I liked using for mine was Urwigo. As long as you save on a regular basis you shouldn't run into too many problems. The emulator worked pretty well and then I was able to compile into a format that I could load onto my Whereyougo app so I could test it myself. I've heard good things about Earwigo (web-based I believe) but you need "permission" of some sort and I wanted to build right away.

[+Atlas Cached]

We'd be happy to offer a free license to Garmin to add Wherigo to their Montana units. The specification for building cartridges is also pretty straightforward, which is why we fully support others creating builder tools. Personally I don't consider that "worse" since we have back-burnered the project and those options are actually quite strong.

 

The main reasons why we have not continued our development of Wherigo, specifically on Garmin devices:

 

• Limited resources - Geocaching needs more attention and we have limited resources to work on Wherigo
  
• Lack of control - Garmin limits their device updates and it was near impossible to make updates to Wherigo on Garmin devices
  

 

Evolving Wherigo on Garmin devices was a futile effort. To make updates we had to rely on Garmin being willing to release updates. We always had pushback on getting timely updates of Wherigo on Garmin devices, or updates at all. We finally gave up trying to make updates since it works in its current form.

 

After Garmin decided to go in the direction of Opencaching they have had no interest in doing anything with us, which seems to be the true reason for not incorporating Wherigo on Montana. They are more than welcome to add Wherigo to the Montana. They already have the code to do so and there should be no problem running it on the new device.

 

If they have no interest in adding Wherigo to the Montana, that's fine, but indicating that there's a licensing issue is absurd.

 

What exactly has Groundspeak done in the last two years to grow Wherigo? I haven't seen any movement on Groundspeaks part in at least that long to do anything with Wherigo other than ignore it.

 

I have tried several cartridges in the Seattle area and none of them run without crashing on my Garmin OR iPhone devices.

[+GeoLobo]

We'd be happy to offer a free license to Garmin to add Wherigo to their Montana units. The specification for building cartridges is also pretty straightforward, which is why we fully support others creating builder tools. Personally I don't consider that "worse" since we have back-burnered the project and those options are actually quite strong.

 

The main reasons why we have not continued our development of Wherigo, specifically on Garmin devices:

 

• Limited resources - Geocaching needs more attention and we have limited resources to work on Wherigo
  
• Lack of control - Garmin limits their device updates and it was near impossible to make updates to Wherigo on Garmin devices
  

 

Evolving Wherigo on Garmin devices was a futile effort. To make updates we had to rely on Garmin being willing to release updates. We always had pushback on getting timely updates of Wherigo on Garmin devices, or updates at all. We finally gave up trying to make updates since it works in its current form.

 

After Garmin decided to go in the direction of Opencaching they have had no interest in doing anything with us, which seems to be the true reason for not incorporating Wherigo on Montana. They are more than welcome to add Wherigo to the Montana. They already have the code to do so and there should be no problem running it on the new device.

 

If they have no interest in adding Wherigo to the Montana, that's fine, but indicating that there's a licensing issue is absurd.

 

What exactly has Groundspeak done in the last two years to grow Wherigo? I haven't seen any movement on Groundspeaks part in at least that long to do anything with Wherigo other than ignore it.

 

I have tried several cartridges in the Seattle area and none of them run without crashing on my Garmin OR iPhone devices.

 

The Wherigo cartridges that i have done in my area, where well done and all worked successfully on my Garmin Colorado.

[+Firefishe]

We'd be happy to offer a free license to Garmin to add Wherigo to their Montana units. The specification for building cartridges is also pretty straightforward, which is why we fully support others creating builder tools. Personally I don't consider that "worse" since we have back-burnered the project and those options are actually quite strong.

 

The main reasons why we have not continued our development of Wherigo, specifically on Garmin devices:

 

• Limited resources - Geocaching needs more attention and we have limited resources to work on Wherigo
  
• Lack of control - Garmin limits their device updates and it was near impossible to make updates to Wherigo on Garmin devices
  

 

Evolving Wherigo on Garmin devices was a futile effort. To make updates we had to rely on Garmin being willing to release updates. We always had pushback on getting timely updates of Wherigo on Garmin devices, or updates at all. We finally gave up trying to make updates since it works in its current form.

 

After Garmin decided to go in the direction of Opencaching they have had no interest in doing anything with us, which seems to be the true reason for not incorporating Wherigo on Montana. They are more than welcome to add Wherigo to the Montana. They already have the code to do so and there should be no problem running it on the new device.

 

If they have no interest in adding Wherigo to the Montana, that's fine, but indicating that there's a licensing issue is absurd.

 

Jeremy, here's an idea for Groundspeak,

 

If your capable team of 'lackeys' (I always chuckle when I read that) is too busy for the Wherigo project, might I suggest the code be open sourced and turned over to the geocaching developer community?

 

I don't know what kind of investment your team and company have in Wherigo, but it seems like this might be a good idea. There are already a lot of Wherigo users--and even a few firmware modders who might even try to get it to work on any number of gps units. (It would be nice if the program could just be placed directly in the Garmin/ folder, and have the 'button' appear on the screen after boot-up.)

 

Myself, I have a Nokia E71 running Symbian S60, and I use a Java (J2ME) application called OpenWIG (Open Wherigo), and it seems to work quite well. I have a fairly complex Cartridge installed, and I'm going to test it soon. It has multiple legs that must be run within a given time frame, or it starts you over. (Jefferson City, Missouri is full of a lot of those 'Evil Puzzle Cachers." ;-) (They know who they are!)

 

Just a suggestion from a fellow cacher and open source advocate.

 

Regardless of your decision on this, I encourage you and your team and company to continue to bring us more interesting gps games for us to enjoy. There are many imitators, there is only one geocaching.com! At least, that's my opinion. Good Fortunes To All Of You!

 

Warm Regards From,

 

Firefishe

Caching In On The Journey

Edited June 20, 2012 by Firefishe