GeoClue

GeoClue

GeoClue
Developer(s)	Zeeshan Ali
Stable release	2.4.0 / April 15, 2014 (2014-04-15)
Written in	C
Operating system	Linux
Type	Geospatial
License	GNU General Public License
Website	geoclue.freedesktop.org

Geoclue is a D-Bus service that provides location information. The primary goal of the Geoclue project is to make creating location-aware applications as simple as possible, while the secondary goal is to ensure that no application can access location information without explicit permission from user.

Geoclue is free software, licensed under GNU General Public License. It is developed for Linux.

The aim of project is to utilize all possible sources of geolocation to best find user's location:

• Wi-Fi-based geolocation (accuracy: in meters)
• GPS(A) receivers (accuracy: in centimeters)
• GPS of other devices on the local network, e.g smartphones (accuracy: in centimeters)
• 3G modems (accuracy: in kilometers, unless modem has GPS)
• GeoIP (accuracy: city-level)

Wi-Fi-based geolocation and GeoIP makes use of Mozilla Location Service. If geoclue is unable to find you, you can easily fix that by installing and running a simple app on your phone.

For making use of your phone's (currently only Android supported) GPS, you'll need to install the latest version of GeoclueShare app on your phone.

Geoclue used to also do (reverse-)geocoding but that functionality has been dropped in favor of geocode-glib library.

External links

• Project website