A community-led fork of Organic Maps
121 comments
·May 12, 20250xbadcafebee
Stephen304
> If such a change happens in the future, they can fork then...
Did such a change not already happen with the addition of Kayak affiliate links without any community consultation? It seems to me that there has already been enough to justify a fork.
Not to mention, there was a promise of electing and changing boardmembers which has never happened, and hiding the use of OrganicMaps project donations for personal vacations as alleged by the initial open letter.
rafram
> hiding the use of OrganicMaps project donations for personal vacations as alleged by the initial open letter
Were those donations intended to support the core developers generally? Or were they specifically intended to pay for servers, equipment, etc.?
If it’s the former, a vacation seems like a totally legitimate use. If the latter, not so much.
Stephen304
> If it’s the former, a vacation seems like a totally legitimate use
Imo hiding that the funds were used even in a legitimate case makes it improper. If it was intended to be paid as a salary then they should have disclosed that $x were paid out as a salary. As I understand it, the only reason we know that the funds left the project was because one of the founders revealed the use of funds by the other founders, not through a planned, transparent, or regular process. In other words, the revelation that funds were being used seemed to be an anomaly as opposed to a regular practice.
The original open letter states essentially as much: "It's fine for developers to be reimbursed for their hard work, but it should be done in a fair, transparent and accountable way."
palata
> not because there is a change happening from Organic
They mention financial transparency. I don't know the details, but "we want to know what our donations are used for" is a reasonable request to have, I would say.
red_trumpet
There seems to be a bit of drama about part of the server software being closed source: https://github.com/orgs/organicmaps/discussions/9837
saubeidl
Again?
Wasn't the whole thing about Organic Maps to be a community-led fork of maps.me?
So now we're at a fork of a fork?
boramalper
> So now we're at a fork of a fork?
This history is full of such "forks of forks" (whatever you're trying to imply with that):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Unix#/media/File:Un...
saubeidl
I'm not trying to imply anything with that other than that it seems the original fork seems to have failed in its stated goals of being the community-led, non-commercialized version.
soperj
Neovim is a fork of VIM which was a fork of Stevie which was a fork of vi which was a fork of ed, and it's the piece of software I use probably more than anything.
przmk
I mean... Yeah, why not? That's one of the reasons FOSS is nice: people who are willing to maintain/contribute don't have to put up with a project going rogue.
ano-ther
What’s the backstory?
> There was no real progress in negotiations with Organic Maps shareholders.
> It appears that Viktor is only open to a guarantee not to sell the project, however besides that he wants to retain full control of Organic Maps.
> And Organic Maps future is uncertain still, as the disagreement between shareholders (Viktor and Roman) has not been resolved.
matteason
Looks like this is the backstory: https://www.comaps.app/news/2025-04-16/1/
netbioserror
I'm more partial to a BDFL than a committee, so I'm not sure why I'd prefer this fork. Community management is not a de facto improvement.
lolinder
I'd have agreed with you a year ago, but the WordPress debacle shows that the BDFL concept really hangs on the "benevolent" part of the job description. If your BDFL goes rancid your only option is to fork, and hostile forks are very difficult to pull off because it almost invariably forks the community.
The BDFL archetype is basically Plato's philosopher king. It's a nice and appealing idea in theory, and works well if you get a good one (Matz for Ruby, by all accounts). But it's risky, and it's hard to be sure yours is actually benevolent and will stay benevolent.
kortilla
The philosopher king analogy doesn’t hold water because forking is an option.
johannes1234321
BDFL is a good concept. As long as money stays out of it. If the DFL collects money in a for profit Organisation and isn't transparent about usage, this is unsatisfactory to other contributors.
I am not sure there is a huge market for selling the company, though, given the track record of the owners for taking the money and then forking away and trying to pull the users over.
protimewaster
It sounds like the problem is that they don't trust the BDFL to be B, since they're asking for more financial transparency and a bunch of other stuff.
ChrisMarshallNY
I could have been a BDFL for a project that I authored, but chose against that.
I often say that the best thing that I ever did for the project, was walk away from it. The team that took it over, has made it extremely successful.
kmarc
Sad to see the current state of mobile OSM-based apps. Maps.me becoming OrganicMaps, now this. Lot of development effort, great work going into it, but somehow, after years, the apps don't feel more user-friendly.
I was pushing hard to replace Google Maps, but eventually, I gave up. OsmAnd is great if you need that "swiss army knife of OSM apps" on your phone, but I rarely do. Same with Maps.me/Organic Maps, try to search for something, mistype only one letter (surprise, surprise, that happens a lot on mobile), and you have no chance to get results. Alternative path for your bike route? Forget about it. Rendering is awful, either ugly, or slow, or both.
I am trying to switch to Mapy.com (Mapy.cz before), it's a surprisingly user friendly app, however, not sure how they are going to monetize soon. So far the best on phone, I hope they will push and really become a Maps-replacement. They recently switched from a Czech-focused concept to a proper world-wide map (mapy.com); both web and mobile is great so far. (I am not Czech, and have no relation to mapy, simply really like their app)
If OsmAnd got a new rendering engine (no, not that "3D" sluggish thing it has for a couple years now), like streetcomplete has (or the Strava-built-in mapbox renderer), it would be possibly the best.
pbsurf
I'm working on https://github.com/styluslabs/maps/ including a new 3D map engine (based on Tangram-ES) and JS plugin support, so while there is no offline routing yet, support for additional online routing services can be added by users.
karussell
OSMAnd and OrganicMaps both have the limitation (and big advantage) of functioning offline by default. The routing will be much more powerful (with alternatives on by default) and faster if you enable an online routing service. For OSMAnd this is possible with e.g. GraphHopper: https://www.graphhopper.com/blog/2024/02/27/osmand-with-grap...
The same is true for address search. If you have an online address search like photon the search can be more user friendly. We've put together photon and GraphHopper routing on GraphHopper Maps: https://graphhopper.com/maps/ which you could self-host on your own (i.e. also use offline): https://github.com/karussell/local-maps
GraphHopper Maps is also available on fdroid store or you can install the website as PWA in iOS.
Disclaimer: I'm a co-founder of GraphHopper.
_fat_santa
> (and big advantage) of functioning offline by default.
I don't know about others but that's the main reason I use it. My day to day mapping app is still Google Maps but I always keep a copy of Organic Maps with downloaded maps of wherever I'm going as a backup. While I do not use it often, it's gotten me out of a couple of sticky situations while camping and roadtripping.
Organic Maps (and other offline mapping providers) are far from perfect and the UX is just not the same as it is on Google Maps for example. But with it being a backup app, if I need to open it I don't really care about the limitations, I just need an offline map.
gorfian_robot
same same. and I often find Organic Maps has hiking trails etc fairly well indicated where Google does not (even if I have cell service)
kmarc
Thanks for the input.
I happened to work for a car navigation software development company 15+y ago. Cool stuff, Windows CE / PDAs as devices, android and ios nowhere. These were totally offline devices (map updates through usb / sdcard).
Even then, this offline navigation was super fast, across countries. Today I managed to wait a whole minute for a 5km bike navigation in OsmAnd. Then I uninstalled (after years of hoping for improvement. Yes, I was regularly donating money.)
mcv
Offline navigation is really nice. The fact that I can use maps and find routes regardless of where I am and what connection I have, is great.
It would be nice to have slightly smarter search, though. That definitely requires improvement. Even just the ordering of the results is terrible sometimes.
onnimonni
Wow, thanks for mentioning https://streetcomplete.app! This looks very intuitive to use for edits on openstreetmaps.
Would someone here know a similiar tool for iOS or MacOS? Or any recommendations to edit roads.
We are currently driving with a 4.5 tonne motorhome in Europe and the road weight and height limits are usually marked properly in osmand+ but when they are not we waste multiple hours rerouting in the alps and I would really want to help the next person in similar situation.
kawsper
There’s been work put in to making this happen, but now EU have also given funding for it to making it Multiplatform: https://nlnet.nl/project/StreetComplete-multiplatform/
jraph
Mentioning it just in case, but openstreetmap.org's web editor (iD) is a good start on Desktop.
There's also EveryDoor [1] which is very nice to edit OSM and they do seem to have an iOS version. Depending on what you want to edit, it can be very handy.
I have not tried the numerous other, more advanced options [2].
ihatehn
Go Map, or just make bookmarks in OsmAnd and go back later
agile-gift0262
Another alternative to mapy.com you could try is Here WeGo. I prefer it to any other Google Maps alternative I have tried. And there are some things, like the car navigation, that I prefer on it over Google Maps. I don't find their privacy policy creepy, and the most creepy parts are opt-in and the toggle clearly explains what you'd be opting into and what feature you are missing out on by not opting in. Mapy's privacy policy is less creepy than Here's in some aspects, but some of the creepiness that's opt-in in Here, like location data sharing for traffic, it's on with no opting-out on Mapy.
I'd prefer an open-source alternative, but as you said, there isn't any that currently fits my needs.
maelito
> try to search for something, mistype only one letter
Photon is quite good at this, coming with english/french/german plug-and-play. But it's online, so very hard to implement on each user's phone, which is the limitation of Organic and Osmand.
Once you're using Photon or an equivalent project, you need to do a lot more to provide Google's experience : - itinerary suggestions like "from london to winchester" - coordinates detection - handle abbreviations like blvd, in all the languages (Nominatim does it better than Photon, from what I know) - handle category search, e.g. typing "coffee in Marais" -> a full-text-search won't work taking only the features' name, you need to do some semantic separation of terms - etc.
> Alternative path for your bike route? Forget about it.
Same pb : offline routing is harder. BRouter is excellent, with lots of alternatives, but online (can be installed on OSMand but it's nerdy).
Disclaimer : I'm working on https://cartes.app, a Web map app. We're using Photon and Brouter, but lots need to be done, including i18n to english, soon I hope !
kmarc
this looks promising, thanks for sharing :-)
medfield
Agreed. I use organic maps for hiking, because its just simple offline trail mapping. I want a mapping program in my car to easily be offline, have map overlays that are easy to read like more pronounced lane/route arrows and can re route if there is a road shut down or a backup on the expressway and I go to get off.
But my biggest gripe with using organic maps with driving is its search function. I couldnt care if it doesnt have all the online social features like google maps and come up with the police/safety warnings and restaurant ratings. I just want its seach to actually find the place I want to go.
Most of the time I try and avoid using google maps, but then I go back and try organic maps. Notice it doesnt have where i want to go listed in its search, so i google the address to plug in. I can enter in the exact address and it wont find it and then go back to google maps.
palata
> Notice it doesnt have where i want to go listed in its search
I live in an area where OSM is really good with that (just because people contributed the data). If your area is less complete, it feels like it's a good opportunity to contribute!
There are many apps that will help you contribute to the map, or you can do it directly from the website: https://www.openstreetmap.org.
It doesn't mean you need to spend tons of time on it: I contribute data a few times a year. It's better than nothing :-).
jacekm
> map overlays that are easy to read like more pronounced lane/route arrows
Try Magic Earth https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.generalmag...
contrapunctus
Are you sure the address actually exists on OpenStreetMap? You can add it with StreetComplete (Android) or Go Map (iOS).
mnmalst
I started using osmand a lot more lately while biking and I agree route calculation on the phone (hi Pixel 4a :) ) are super slow but for that reason you can configure alternative (online) routing engines in the settings https://osmand.net/docs/user/navigation/routing/online-routi.... I use https://openrouteservice.org/ which generates long routes in seconds and works great in general.
rafram
I'm not that worried about Mapy.cz/.com becoming useless unless you pay, to be honest. (Maybe they'll make me look foolish for that.) The developer is Seznam, which is kind of like the Czech homegrown equivalent of Google/Craigslist/Zillow. I assume they monetize in pretty much the same way: ads, enterprise, API fees.
aembleton
They're monetising by requiring payment to download maps for more than one country at a time.
nicpottier
I've contributed a few trivial fixes to OrganicMaps and I found them to be pretty responsive and reasonable in their opinions. That doesn't mean I agreed with all the decisions or priorities they make but that's to be expected. Their leadership seemed sane enough to me. It certainly felt like close enough to a BDFL situation to me.
In the research I did, OrganicMaps was the only viable open alternative to something like Gaia and it wasn't particularly close. It does a pretty good job of that, though their map styles leave some things to be desired and meter only topo lines is a bummer.
My limited experience playing around with the codebase made me appreciate that this isn't a small or simple project. It is a huge mixed codebase of C/Java/etc to share rendering across platforms and even just the map file generation is no small thing.
Color me skeptical that a fork will get off the ground, this seems more likely to me that both projects will struggle for a good while longer. Announcing a fork is easy, delivering something with enough value beyond rhetoric that will draw users over is another.
ihatehn
The good news is that the fork team is a majority of the top contributors outside of the owners, and the owners have been burnt out and embroiled in conflict for months, so I expect the experience to be roughly the same or better going forward. Drawing users is a gradual process no matter what, but isn't really the #1 metric of a FOSS project... active contribution by diverse contributors is, next to usability and popularity.
palata
> Color me skeptical that a fork will get off the ground
Could be, time will tell us. But it works as expected: people can fork if they want to, users can choose which app they use. Users can even use both OrganicMaps and CoMaps if that's better for them!
I currently use OrganicMaps and OSMAnd in parallel, depending on what I do. Works great!
sam_lowry_
Why do people contribute to Organic Maps and not to OSM?
I always assumed that Organic Maps was a sophisticated way to distribute OSM data, nothing more.
SamWhited
Organic Maps is a way to distribute OSM data, but it also has a lot more than just the OSM maps it uses (code to curate and collect those maps into downloadable packs, code to display them, code to do routing, design assets and resources for the app, documentation, etc.)
You're correct that the maps are OSM though, you can always contribute to OSM and that will also help Organic Maps (or whatever new community based map project comes out!)
RetroTechie
You need both: the map data (OSM project), and software for viewing/using it.
Ideally any app using OSM data would enable contributing to the underlaying map data. But that's probably not how it works.
For what it's worth: I like Organic Maps for being more lightweight, quicker rendering & simpler configuration than OSMand. But it (still? haven't used in a while) does lack some useful features like points of interest (supermarkets, gas stations & such).
Would be nice if it were easy to share (offline) map data between apps. Download in app A, backup on sd card , use from app B, C, D, or on other device by swap/copy sd card. Maybe it's possible, but I haven't figured out how (on Android). At least it's not easy/obvious/automatic.
et-al
> For what it's worth: I like Organic Maps for being more lightweight, quicker rendering & simpler configuration than OSMand. But it (still? haven't used in a while) does lack some useful features like points of interest (supermarkets, gas stations & such).
Am I misinterpreting something? This is because of the underlying OSM data. So one should add these places to OSM so downstream apps will show the places you want, right?
pbmonster
> Would be nice if it were easy to share (offline) map data between apps. Download in app A, backup on sd card , use from app B, C, D, or on other device by swap/copy sd card. Maybe it's possible, but I haven't figured out how (on Android).
I'm also really hoping for that. Some kind of local OSM map server that all apps in the ecosystem call to provide geodata.
I run OSMand, StreetComplete, Organic Maps and Magic Earth on my phone. I need all of them to download the exact same geo data. And for convenience reasons, I usually load entire countries. It's so annoying having to download a country in app #3...
maelito
OSM-the-database needs a general public app where contribution is possible to finally be popular.
Organic was seen by many as this app, despite its specific choices like being offline.
Contributing to this app is hence very important for OSM to exist given Google & Apple Maps.
ihatehn
FYI the OSM foundation will probably always be reluctant to sponsor or appear to prefer a certain end-user app. I don't know exactly why, but they really do see themselves as a vendor agnostic database, and don't want to make a popular website or mobile app that actually gets traction any time soon.
But yes I agree with you.
RetroTechie
Option to contribute & offline-first is not mutually exclusive:
Use map data offline, user makes a correction/addition, upload that when app has internet access.
bondarchuk
You cannot use OSM by itself for gps navigation on your phone, right?
palata
OSM is the database containing all the data. Navigation is not exactly "data" that is stored in a database, it's the result of computing a path between two locations based on the data stored in OSM.
Maybe a comparison would be this: if you want to hike somewhere the "old school" way, with a compass and a paper map. You will buy a paper map made by someone else, you will localise yourself on this map, and then you will trace a path between where you are and where you want to go. As you hike, you will update your location on the map (by using e.g. your compass) and choose your next steps accordingly.
In this example, the paper map is not doing any navigation. It doesn't know what GPS is, it doesn't have a compass. It's just map data printed on paper. You are the one making the navigation, right?
- OSM is the paper map.
- Organic Maps, or OSMAnd, or whatever app you use as a frontend to OSM is "the navigator" (you).
Does that help?
margalabargala
OSMand works fine for navigation and has for a decade.
bondarchuk
Thanks for the rec, I had somehow never really considered osmand being content with organicmaps. But it "is an independent app not endorsed by the OpenStreetMap Foundation" so not really relevant to the GPs point, right?
Doctor_Fegg
OSMand isn't an official OSM app any more than Organic Maps is. It's just that they founded the app before the OSM Foundation got round to thinking about a trademark policy.
Freak_NL
Do you mean 'contribute' or 'donate'? Contributing fixes, bug reports, and code to FOSS projects using OpenStreetMap data makes sense to me, if they do something you appreciate.
lolinder
I'm increasingly disaffected by the idea of BDFL-run projects.
The concept is appealing—it's essentially Plato's philosopher king. The BDFL can unstick decision making and ensure the project moves forward without having to litigate every decision in committee, they maintain context and vision throughout the life of the project, and because they're not accountable to anyone they can make the right call for the project rather than having to make complicated political trade-offs. It's all the perks of a monarchy.
Unfortunately, we've seen over and over again that the BDFL model also has all the problems of monarchy. If you get a good one it's the most effective form of government, but people are fickle things. Frequently we see things like this, where the BDFL turns out to have been malevolent after all or decided that they are the project and are entitled to the sole profit from it. WordPress comes to mind.
A good BDFL is worth keeping, but I think we'll find that drawing inspiration for our community structures from real-world democracies/republics will be more stable and reliable in the long term and more generalizable across new projects. Democracies aren't perfect, but by design they smooth out the variance of the individual humans in the community, giving you much more predictable results over time than monarchies do.
gus_massa
You can't fork a country, but you can fork a open source project. Remember to not sign an CLA that gives superpowers to the current BDFL.
So it's more like herding cats instead of nuking everyone that decides to ignore the presidencial orders or not paying taxes.
lolinder
Forks introduce chaos and are sometimes impossible. If WordPress had a different government structure from the beginning Matt would not be in power anymore, but because it's a dictator for life he's still there and the community has decided to put up with him rather than risk the chaos of a fork.
No one is happy about it, but collective action is hard when it's not baked into the system.
0xbadcafebee
Worth noting the distinction between a BDFL-project and a community project.
A community project's aim is loosey-goosey. The mission, values, governance, ownership/control, etc can change. While there is input from the community, they are often led by one or two dominant personalities. The project can often be pressured into making changes that are actually worse, or don't reflect the views of a collective of contributors and users. (I don't personally know of any community projects that are required to do what a majority opinion from the community asks for. In this sense it is more like a typical "democratic" government where a few powerful leaders are really in charge, rather than "the masses")
A BDFL project is, by definition, one person's project. There is no secret agenda, because there's no need for it to be secret. There's no pressure from anyone, the project just does what the leader wants. This means there usually isn't "controversy" because if you don't like it you can lump it.
Organic Maps is, apparently, not a BDFL project. It is a project represented by a corporation with 3 shareholders: Roman (project founder), Viktor, and Alexander (who is not a shareholder but Viktor supposedly holds his share). The concern in this case is that since it's not a BDFL project, the contributors don't know wtf is going to happen when the shareholders disagree and the "majority" decides to sell the company or something. If it were a BDFL project, the owner could still decide to sell it, but in this case, the project founder actually is on the side of the community.
Personally I'm not aware of true BDFL projects working against the aims of its own community, and BDFLs don't really change what they do. The exception is when money is involved. If somebody's just getting paid to write open source, the project is safe; if somebody's selling the project as a Product, beware. "Money is a motive with a universal adaptor on it."
neilv
Something I often wonder about forks, just as good practice...
Is anyone from the Organic Maps and OSM contributor communities familiar with the people forking this, and can vouch for their intentions and the necessity of forking?
How do we get confidence in that?
ihatehn
Most of the activity is public, so look at the usernames of the fork leaders vs their activity on the upstream project... It's most of the recent top contributors who've been around for a long time and made their perspectives pretty clear.
shark1
OrganicMaps is such a great app. I did not know it was owned by this type of organisation. I hope they sort it out.
whorleater
A fork of a fork I guess, Organic Maps was originally `maps.me`, and I suppose we're forking it again
palata
Yep... but I don't see it as a problem. Maybe CoMaps become the new thing, maybe Organic Maps changes and stays...
The very fact that a fork can be made is good for the users. It doesn't mean that users have to follow the latest fork, though.
throw738384
I would add a few points:
* Organic Maps devs are from Belarus, company is registered in Estonia. This is very difficult setup already, and I can imagine authors just want simplest setup possible. Perhaps they do not want to waste energy on nonprofit that is very very difficult and expensive to do internationally!
* If they sell the company so what? Create another fork and move on. It is opensource, but that does not mean authors can not get some money!
* Biggest expense for Organic Maps is hosting and mirroring map data. Is this fork going to use (and pay) their own servers?
* Is there list of developers and contributors behind this fork? I only found "us" and "we" and "community"!
wertik12
The thing is that there is an ongoing conflict between owners of Organic Maps OU itself. Due to ownership structure this leads to block of development etc for a long time already, so some existing contributors (that are not a part of OM OU business entity) started a fork.
ihatehn
Hi biodranik! Hope you're well.
palata
> If they sell the company so what? Create another fork and move on. It is opensource, but that does not mean authors can not get some money!
Sure, but I think this is what's happening now. Not because they are selling the company, but apparently one issue is that nobody in the community knows where the donations are going.
They (CoMaps) complain about transparency regarding finances. I believe this would be a good reason to fork.
throw738384
Donations are going to Organic Maps company. They have 10+ years of history. Most likely to pay for map server traffic.
Non-profit does not guarantee transparency, look at Mozilla as an example.
This fork is just a bunch of anonymous dudes on internet, who setup PayPal and replaced donate button. Until they do map data hosting, there is not much credibility!
Edit: there are 3th party mirrors for manual download, so I guess they can use those.
palata
Sure, that's all fine.
What I am saying is that CoMaps seem to believe that Organic-Maps-the-Company is not transparent about what they do with the donations. They have a bunch of other reasons, but this is the one that I can understand.
I can understand that they don't want to donate money to Organic-Maps-the-Company if it then uses it to write proprietary code and later sell it. Not that they necessarily do that, but that's apparently a criticism from the CoMaps dudes.
evolve2k
A few people are talking about multiple issues in the open mapping space.
Today (bear with me), I was looking at a tool called SwiftWave it lets you run your own Platform as a Service. The only reason I mention it is that I found interesting how they’ve really broken the problem domain into a series of smaller open source projects.
https://swiftwave.org/docs/contribution_guideline
I’d love some folk riffing on how this may help, surely nice interfaces for cycling vs driving vs public transport don’t need to be reinvented across projects. How can diff apps work as an ecosystem to allow the brining together of more sophisticated apps that mirror the feature set of the large funded maps apps?
The concern seems to be they want a bunch of guarantees about what will be done with the project - not because there is a change happening from Organic, but because they're afraid of a change happening in the future. If such a change happens in the future, they can fork then. I mean, hell, this already happened; they had Maps.ME, it was sold, Roman forked it to Organic. If it gets sold again they can fork again. This seems like it'll hurt the community more than if they'd waited until it was necessary.