[HN Gopher] Maps.me co-founder tries to close down Organic Maps ...
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       Maps.me co-founder tries to close down Organic Maps open-source
       fork
        
       Author : 0x457
       Score  : 173 points
       Date   : 2024-12-06 19:11 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (github.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
        
       | ikesau wrote:
       | Do I have this right?
       | 
       | Organic Maps had a private (but MIT-licensed) Cloudflare Worker
       | in a repo called meta. Alexander Borsuk (an Organic Maps
       | maintainer, and co-founder of maps.me) surreptitiously removed
       | the license and added logging to the worker.
       | 
       | Roman Tsisyk, another maintainer of Organic Maps, noticed this.
       | He undid the changes, made this post, and has now been booted
       | from the organization?
        
         | LikeAnElephant wrote:
         | That's my understanding as well.
         | 
         | Definitely will follow this, I was really disappointed when
         | Maps.Me started getting enshittified. Hope it doesn't happen to
         | Organic Maps as well.
        
         | itake wrote:
         | "from the organization"? which organization?
         | 
         | The https://github.com/organicmaps/meta 404s for me now. I
         | still see Roman listed as a member of organicmaps:
         | https://github.com/orgs/organicmaps/people
         | 
         | I guess he was in both maps.me and organic maps? Which seems
         | odd.. I thought these were completely separate organizations
         | with different priorities and goals. That seems odd they would
         | have leaders contributing in both products.
        
         | resoluteteeth wrote:
         | I don't understand this at all. Can someone explain how/why
         | this conflict is happening within organic maps?
        
           | bradly wrote:
           | > On November 23, Mr. Borsuk quietly made a change, removing
           | the MIT license while keeping his copyright. The change with
           | the flagrant comment "No MIT yet, sorry." was discovered by
           | me only today. A few non-significant commits were made on top
           | of it.
        
         | Vegenoid wrote:
         | > has now been booted from the organization
         | 
         | To clarify, Roman claims that he has had some permissions
         | revoked from the Organic Maps organization on Github in
         | response to this. Alexander Borsuk stated that he "will return
         | access if we solve the problem of Roma making decisions alone".
        
         | pastk wrote:
         | Some facts: Alexander Borsuk, Roman Tsisyk and Viktor Havaka
         | are co-founders of Organic Maps which is a fork of Maps.Me.
         | Alexander and Viktor were co-founders of Maps.Me as well. All
         | of them are not working for Maps.Me anymore and Organic Maps
         | (OM) is independent project since its inception.
         | 
         | Now, the current situation: OM's map server (CF worker) albeit
         | under MIT license was de-facto closed source all this time.
         | Roman opened the repo for public access. Alexander revoked
         | Roman's GH permissions and closed the repo again.
         | 
         | (I've been actively contributing to OM for 3 years and I
         | thought that all parts are open source. Until very recently..)
        
       | vr46 wrote:
       | Opportunity to give Organic Maps a shout for being brilliant and
       | wonderful.
        
         | benatkin wrote:
         | Indeed. It should be the default to have a full map of your
         | area downloaded. But no, Google wants everyone to be dependent
         | upon them on a second-to-second level. (Yes I know Google has
         | offline maps and unlike YouTube the offline support is free as
         | in beer, but it's in an untransparent and a much less powerful
         | manner, and if you're online it will use the network heavily)
        
           | vr46 wrote:
           | I was in a chunk of the world where roaming was prohibitive
           | this summer, and Organic Maps took us everywhere, found us
           | incredible viewing spots to photograph from, and basically
           | gave us a real connection to the landscape around us. The UI
           | was slightly confusing, but forgivable, and if I had any
           | money I would give it to them.
        
             | nathancahill wrote:
             | > found us incredible viewing spots to photograph from
             | 
             | Curious to hear more about this? Something specific to
             | Organic Maps? I spend a lot of time studying maps when I'm
             | on a trip for this purpose.
        
               | vr46 wrote:
               | Just easy to see on the map, I guess - look for the
               | binoculars!
        
               | Fauntleroy wrote:
               | Depending on where you are, Organic Maps can have far far
               | finer detail, especially when it comes to walking paths.
               | I used this a couple times in Japan and Korea to find my
               | way through densely packed shrine complexes, or over
               | less-traveled hiking paths in the mountains.
        
               | pedrogpimenta wrote:
               | I once saw "sneaky entrance" near a temple/park in Bali
               | and we got in for free :)
        
         | dade_ wrote:
         | And it is accurate in the Caribbean, unlike Google Maps that
         | insists on sending me over cliffs to my death, people's back
         | yards, non existent or dead end roads, as well as other areas
         | best avoided.
        
       | Mr_Bees69 wrote:
       | ****, i use organic maps, we need to get more eyes on this.
        
       | fnfjfk wrote:
       | I've used this app as an offline maps tool for travel for a long
       | time, when I got it I thought it was just a fine OSM client.
       | 
       | Then years later I hear it was running crypto nonsense (what) and
       | was involved in FTX ( _what_ ), but out of laziness I'm still
       | using the thing because it can't do any upsells when I am offline
       | anyways.
       | 
       | Any recommendations for a good iOS offline map app that's just a
       | map app?
        
         | itake wrote:
         | Not exactly sure what you mean. My understanding is Maps.me
         | started trying to extract value from users (via the mentioned
         | means) and that Organic Maps [0], took an old open-licensed
         | fork of maps.me from before Maps.me went bad.
         | 
         | I currently use organicmaps.app as a nice offline back up for
         | my traveling. I don't know how this current drama impacts
         | organicmaps. I didn't realize that maps.me was also a
         | contributor to organicmaps.
         | 
         | [0] - https://organicmaps.app/
        
         | fizwidget wrote:
         | By "this app" I assume you're referring to Maps.me.
         | 
         | I can recommend Organic Maps. It has none of those crypto
         | shenanigans and is a great offline OSM-based app.
        
           | fnfjfk wrote:
           | Yes maps.me
        
       | metalman wrote:
       | downloading from fdroid as I type this how did I not know? awsome
       | what contreversy can do! exactly the oposite thanks
        
       | L29Ah wrote:
       | osmand is better anyway :>
        
       | sandbx wrote:
       | Organic Maps is great
        
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