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zeenix / gps-share

Utility to share your GPS device on local network
GNU General Public License v2.0
67 stars 9 forks source link

Galileo and GLONASS support? #5

Closed da2x closed 6 years ago

da2x commented 6 years ago

Are Galileo and GLONASS location sources supported? Should be documented. Shouldn’t also the project be renamed “gnss-share” for global navigation satellite systems or “satloc-share” for satellite location share?

zeenix commented 6 years ago

Are those GPS devices?

About the name, I don't think so? Anything wrong with the current name?

da2x commented 6 years ago

No, they’re competing/complimentary location-triangulating satellite networks. GPS is a network of satellites operated by the US government. Galileo is the European Union’s network of satellites, and GLONASS is Russia’s version. These are semi-military assets, so there is little cooperation, unfortunately.

Modern satnavs chips will report GPS, GLONASS, and Galileo data separately. There are actually more networks out there than these three, most notably the BDS from China, but I don’t know anything about these and have never had a device that supports anyone but Galileo, GLONASS, and GPS.

A USB test device that supports BDS, Galileo, GLONASS, and GPS costs 7,40 USD with free shipping. 🛰

The only thing wrong with the name is that it’s associated with one satellite network operated by the US government. GLONASS has higher accuracy in the enormous geographical area that is Russia, and Galileo has accuracy down to a few centimeters in Europe.

Ideally, the program should share the most accurate location data – regardless of which satellite network provides the most accurate location for the user. Or possibly look at all available satellite networks and work out the center point as reported by all networks? I don’t know enough about how all of this works to provide more details on what is possible, or indeed desirable.

hadess commented 6 years ago

I don't think the name is something interesting to focus on. It's been genericised to mean "satellite location technology", and you won't see any mentions of "GLONASS" or "Galileo" anywhere except in tech specs.

The specifics of hardware support stand, even though I'm fairly certain that there's no GPS-specifics in the NMEA protocol. Something to test out.

da2x commented 6 years ago

Pull request #7 adds support for Galieo, BeiDou, GLONASS, and GNSS (generic/mixed).

da2x commented 6 years ago

This issue now only tracks documentation and naming.

The naming discussing can be closed at @zeenix’s discretion.

The name gps-share falsely leaves the impression that the utility only support the GPS network. Which was almost true prior to pull request #7 (SBAS and QZSS were also supported.) The utility really should be called either nmea-share (after the protocol and information being shared, and how its advertised in service broadcast messages) or gnss-share (generic term for any satellite position system).

zeenix commented 6 years ago

@da2x Thanks for the PR, I'll look at it shortly. Most folks don't know the difference and calls them all GPS. While I would have named it like you suggested from the start if I had thought of the difference, but I don't see the compelling need to change the name.