| ▲ | Yacoby 4 hours ago |
| There is also CoMaps (https://www.comaps.app/) which is a fork of Organic Maps, after concern over the governance of Organic Maps https://itsfoss.com/news/organic-maps-fork-comaps/ |
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| ▲ | random3 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| Thank you! This is highly relavant. I wish OPs would put a bit more research into what they post https://itsfoss.com/news/organic-maps-fork-comaps/ > Despite being advertised as a community-driven project, key decisions, including financial management, partnerships (with Kayak, for instance), and the inclusion of proprietary components in the code were made by a small group of shareholders, often without input from the broader contributor community. |
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| ▲ | JumpCrisscross an hour ago | parent [-] | | > a small group of shareholders This is sketchy. The entity at the bottom of the page is Organic Maps OÜ, which is an Estonian private limited company. Estonia has non-profits (MTÜs). The fact that this isn't organised as one makes it a commercial venture, except one that asks for donations. | | |
| ▲ | pastk 33 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Indeed and this is one of the key reasons we have started CoMaps. The main OM shareholder made it clear to us that interests of the company and the shareholders are at the forefront. |
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| ▲ | hirako2000 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| what are the concerns over governance of organics maps ? |
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| ▲ | hellcow 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | They tried to put ads into Organic Maps, and they only backed down because CoMaps sprung up in response. Others in the thread highlighted other issues, like Organic Maps' proprietary license for some parts of the repo: https://github.com/organicmaps/organicmaps/blob/master/DATA_.... | |
| ▲ | physicalecon 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Some parts of the server were closed source for a bit. No longer the case. Also people got upset that the developers used the product funding to pay for their personal expenses. The idea is folks want the developers to isolate all the money they make from this project and use it to only pay expenses directly related to this project. If they need to eat or something they should get a job, presumably. https://www.comaps.app/news/2025-04-16/1/?ref=itsfoss.com | | |
| ▲ | beart 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > If they need to eat or something they should get a job, presumably. The tone of this comment is quite different from the text of the open letter to which you refer. Specifically this section. I don't have any personal knowledge either way, but this stood out to me. > As it was revealed by Roman @rtsisyk it wasn't unusual for the Shareholders to use project's donations as their own money e.g. Alexander @biodranik paid for his personal holiday trip expenses this way. At the same time all other contributors were consistently denied any access to any financial information (even to the totals of money donated/spent). (It's fine for developers to be reimbursed for their hard work, but it should be done in a fair, transparent and accountable way.) | | | |
| ▲ | pastk 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Some parts of the server were closed source for a bit. No longer the case. In fact, nowadays there are many more closed parts in OM's map generator - many OM's bigger new features like hiking, cycling and bus routes depend on closed source improvements to the map generator. And some binary files required to build the app (e.g. packed_polygons.bin) are nowadays distributed under a custom non-FOSS data license.
I.e. nowadays its basically impossible to fork OM as is with all its features - and the "right to fork" is a cornerstone of FOSS. Also ref to: https://isitreallyfoss.com/projects/organic-maps/ | | |
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| ▲ | meta_ai_x 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [flagged] |
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| ▲ | b112 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| So sad. I imagine 99.9% of organic maps users will never know. |
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| ▲ | hypercube33 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | I was hoping for an offline open map with specifically tracking (My tracks from Google or now 3rd party) so I can log my adventures. bonus if I can save a printable thing for my wall or something...guess I know what this weekends project is. | | |
| ▲ | TFNA 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | OSMAnd is similarly OSM-based, offline, and FOSS (available from F-Droid) and does tracking. It is not typically recommended in posts like these because its wealth of options is daunting to the general public, while Organic Maps and CoMaps are more streamlined. | |
| ▲ | jraph 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Comaps can record tracks if that's what you need :-) |
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