[HN Gopher] A community-led fork of Organic Maps
___________________________________________________________________
A community-led fork of Organic Maps
Author : maelito
Score : 259 points
Date : 2025-05-12 11:40 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.comaps.app)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.comaps.app)
| ano-ther wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Looks like this is the backstory:
| https://www.comaps.app/news/2025-04-16/1/
| netbioserror wrote:
| 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.
| protimewaster wrote:
| 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.
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| 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.
| lolinder wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| The philosopher king analogy doesn't hold water because
| forking is an option.
| lolinder wrote:
| Where is the WordPress fork?
|
| There is none because forking the code doesn't
| automatically bring the community along with you, and so
| no one wants to risk the instability that would
| inevitably come from forking. When a project needs a fork
| it usually much more closely resembles a civil war than
| it does a succession, and the whole system becomes weaker
| because of it.
|
| Why would we start with a model that we know will
| permanently weaken our community when we inevitably need
| to trigger a succession?
| lioeters wrote:
| https://www.classicpress.net/
|
| https://whitelabelpress.org/
| hungryhobbit wrote:
| There's no fork because there's no need for a fork.
|
| If the WordPress idiot was like "I'm going to make
| WordPress worse, and I don't care what anyone thinks",
| there would be a fork. But that's not what's happening.
| What's happening is that one WordPress host (the official
| one) is miffed that other hosts aren't paying a tax for
| the use of (100% open source) software.
|
| That makes the guy in charge an idiot who doesn't
| understand OSS, and his idiocy is helping to destroy his
| entire company ... but he's just being a bully: he's not
| hurting anyone's use of the software.
|
| Ergo, no fork.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| 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.
| fsflover wrote:
| Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43705631
| conception wrote:
| Site still prompts to install organic maps app on mobile.
| HelloUsername wrote:
| Indeed no working download buttons on
| https://www.comaps.app/download/
| Ndymium wrote:
| It's mentioned in their code forge[0] that they're working on
| getting the first release out. So there's not yet anything to
| download.
|
| [0] https://codeberg.org/comaps/comaps
| will-bradley wrote:
| The "updates" link is for news and the "download" page has
| buttons that are inactive, are you seeing anything "Organic"
| remaining on the site? We've been trying to clean things up but
| may have missed something.
| sam_lowry_ wrote:
| 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.
| Freak_NL wrote:
| 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.
| SamWhited wrote:
| 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!)
| bondarchuk wrote:
| You cannot use OSM by itself for gps navigation on your phone,
| right?
| margalabargala wrote:
| OSMand works fine for navigation and has for a decade.
| bondarchuk wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| palata wrote:
| 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?
| maelito wrote:
| 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.
| RetroTechie wrote:
| 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.
| xigoi wrote:
| In fact, Organic already works like that.
| ihatehn wrote:
| 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.
| matkoniecz wrote:
| I would say that current situation is an example of some
| risks that would appear in case of officially endorsing
| specific project
| RetroTechie wrote:
| 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.
| pbmonster wrote:
| > 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...
| will-bradley wrote:
| I agree, the issue is that the map data is highly
| customized. I believe StreetComplete uses online map tiles
| so that's less of a concern, but i.e. with Organic Maps the
| map data is highly tied to the app version: support for a
| data entry needs both app/rendering/logic support and
| presence in the data structure, and full forwards/backwards
| compatibility isn't always possible. The map files also
| need to be optimized for Organic Maps' speed/usability
| improvements over apps like OsmAnd: pre-indexing, etc.
| Maybe someday there's one standard format for it, but for
| now each app makes its own map files.
|
| Also, mobile apps often have strict privacy lately around
| what files they can access: they're not just sitting on the
| filesystem, they're in access-controlled app-specific
| folders. That's good for privacy/security, but a
| dealbreaker for first-class sharing of information between
| apps.
| et-al wrote:
| > _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?
| nelgaard wrote:
| It it not just because of underlying OSM data.
|
| Navigation apps such as OrganicMaps and OsmAnd filter OSM
| data, and package it in way that takes up less space. I.e.,
| it will omit individual trees, manholes, etc. It also omits
| tags from OSM objects that it does keep.
|
| This is all to to make it possible to fit enough maps on a
| phone and also there have code that can use that data (for
| searching and displaying)
|
| Take for example Motorhome stopovers (I have edited at lot
| of those). OsmAnd has name, opening, hours, power_supply,
| fees, dump_stations, toilets, showers, phone numbers,
| website, and a few more tags. But not water_point (although
| it has drinking_water which is not used much for
| stopovers).
|
| OrganicMap has much fewer tags for motorhome stopovers.
| will-bradley wrote:
| Keep a list of those missing tags, it's worth filing an
| issue for adding support in the future!
| et-al wrote:
| Thanks for clarifying!
| matkoniecz wrote:
| > I always assumed that Organic Maps was a sophisticated way to
| distribute OSM data, nothing more.
|
| sophisticated way to distribute OSM data also needs development
| efforts
|
| this is not an easy or trivial project
|
| there are also numerous other FOSS projects in OSM ecosystem
|
| mapping itself and improving map data is also very welcome,
| obviously!
| RetroTechie wrote:
| Sad how much good stuff gets destroyed by non-benevolent
| dictators and/or greed.
|
| Let's hope a community-led fork does so well that OM becomes a
| footnote in history. Or it causes OM owners to make a U-turn (but
| who cares @ this point. Just go ahead with community-led effort).
|
| Would need a new name though. How about a public-is-invited
| contest?
| Freak_NL wrote:
| > Would need a new name though. How about a public-is-invited
| contest?
|
| Like the one linked to in the article?
|
| https://codeberg.org/comaps/Governance/issues/34
| shark1 wrote:
| OrganicMaps is such a great app. I did not know it was owned by
| this type of organisation. I hope they sort it out.
| ForHackernews wrote:
| Wait, what, again? I thought Organic Maps was the "good"/BDFL-
| led/actually open fork of Maps.me that was bought and turned into
| malware?
| matkoniecz wrote:
| Yes, it is fork of a fork.
| saubeidl wrote:
| _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?
| przmk wrote:
| 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.
| boramalper wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| 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.
| will-bradley wrote:
| Yeah it's unfortunate. Allegedly Roman wrote those goals
| but the other co-founders never really went along with
| them.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| There is a Smile of Love And there is a Smile of
| Deceit And there is a Smile of Smiles In which
| these two Smiles meet And there is a Frown of
| Hate And there is a Frown of disdain And there
| is a Frown of Frowns Which you strive to forget in vain
| -- William Blake, The Smile of Smiles
|
| https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47468/the-smile
| soperj wrote:
| 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.
| whorleater wrote:
| A fork of a fork I guess, Organic Maps was originally `maps.me`,
| and I suppose we're forking it again
| palata wrote:
| 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.
| gray_charger wrote:
| What's the difference between Organic Maps/this and OSMAnd?
| dagw wrote:
| OSMAnd has more advanced features and settings and things you
| can configure, but at the expense of a nice user friendly out
| of the box experience. Organic Maps (and thus this project)
| aimed to produce a more user friendly and streamlined app
| focusing on usability over lots of features.
| atkirtland wrote:
| The thing that keeps on Organic Maps instead of OSMAnd is how
| slow it is.
| kmarc wrote:
| 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.
| saubeidl wrote:
| What do you think is the biggest UX issue with maps.me/organic
| maps/comaps/whatever?
| kmarc wrote:
| The biggest for me is definitely the lack of public
| transportation. This is something even gnome-maps support.
| Global search (eg. things that are not downloaded yet) only
| works for some bigger entities, that are part of the world
| map (although I understand that this would need some server-
| side support). Not having a satellite map is also a bummer.
|
| Point-to-point navigation at places where you already
| downloaded maps is alright (same with osmand), but for
| exploration, or public trasnport, I would need to use moovit,
| mapy, osmand (wikipedia overlay is awesome), or google maps.
| saubeidl wrote:
| Oh that's a great callout. I did some quick research and it
| appears Gnome's public transport feature is powered by
| https://transitous.org/ - I wonder how much work it would
| be to add this to Organic Maps?
| maelito wrote:
| Impossible in the medium term, unless Organic goes
| online.
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| There is a lot one could do offline. Highlight close by
| stations, have overlays/styles for transport focus (they
| got an overlay for "Subway", which in some areas includes
| commuter trains but not for bus/tram/light rail/...)
|
| And in theory one could add bundles of data based on GTFS
| data which many transport organisations these days
| publish and do routing at least based on schedule times.
| maelito wrote:
| Yes, but that would be miles behind G/A maps, on top of
| being hard to implement.
|
| E.g. Motis needs walk routing data that weights hundred
| of gigas.
| jraph wrote:
| They seem to have some sort of experimental support for
| GTFS [1], and one important part of Transitous is being a
| GTFS aggregator, so maybe they are not too far away from
| being able to use that part of Transitous.
|
| Although it'd probably be good to be able to query
| Transitous itself when online.
|
| [1] https://github.com/organicmaps/organicmaps/blob/maste
| r/docs/...
| palata wrote:
| > The biggest for me is definitely the lack of public
| transportation.
|
| I tend to use the official app of the public transports
| wherever I am. Turns out many of them actually use OSM as a
| backend :-).
| shafyy wrote:
| Not an UX thing, but I find myself going back to Google Maps
| to find restaurants, reviews and reliable opening hours all
| the time. Neither Apple Maps nor Organic Maps offers the same
| level of quality (not to say that Google Maps reviews can be
| problematic in themselves).
| kmarc wrote:
| The OsmAnd guys tried launching OpenPlaceReviews.
|
| https://2019.stateofthemap.org/sessions/LBGPCD/
|
| Unfortunately it didn't take off, was discountinued in
| 2023.
|
| https://github.com/OpenPlaceReviews
| stevage wrote:
| It's almost impossible for anything to compete with Google
| Maps on business information because they have built such a
| vast commercial ecosystem around it with advertising, Maps
| users etc.
| ravenstine wrote:
| Search. I've wanted to like Organic Maps, but the search
| function is the absolute pits and forces me to still use
| Google Maps. Without good search, there's next to no point in
| me using it.
| maelito wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| this looks promising, thanks for sharing :-)
| maelito wrote:
| > 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.
|
| What "3D sluggish thing" are talking about ? Streetcomplete,
| like most OSM vector 3D maps use MapLibre, for a few months now
| https://github.com/streetcomplete/StreetComplete/pull/5693
|
| Edit : sorry, I read Organic. Indeed OSMand is sluggish for me
| as well. I don't know why they went for something other than
| MapLibre. It's probably in-house and entangled in their code :/
| kmarc wrote:
| Yes :-)
|
| Streetcomplete is amazing; I understand it provides less
| polygons to render but it does an absolutely amazing job at
| it, even when there are thousands of quests.
| maelito wrote:
| Yes, zooming in is so fast. I'd love to have this
| experience on mobile Web, we're not quite there yet. I
| suppose WebGPU is needed ?
| ihatehn wrote:
| It also uses online tiles afaik.
| palata wrote:
| > I don't know why they went for something other than
| MapLibre.
|
| OSMAnd existed looong before MapLibre :-).
| maelito wrote:
| Sorry, what I wanted to say is I don't know why they stick
| with their stack, instead of doing like Streetcomplete.
| palata wrote:
| It most likely involves a lot more than "just swapping
| the maps engine". Everything is built on top of their
| stack. It would basically mean rewriting an app from
| scratch.
| medfield wrote:
| 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.
| contrapunctus wrote:
| Are you sure the address actually exists on OpenStreetMap?
| You can add it with StreetComplete (Android) or Go Map (iOS).
| jacekm wrote:
| > 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...
| palata wrote:
| > 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
| :-).
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| It's not only about being tagged in Openstreetmap, it's
| about the search algorithm finding the relevant entry from
| ambiguous entry. Dealing with cases where things are
| spelled slightly differently (abbreviations etc.) or
| finding the relevant entry when common terms are used in
| names or search just by category.
| jraph wrote:
| > Alternative path for your bike route? Forget about it.
|
| What do you mean? It's possible to add intermediate stops to
| shape your route. Or do you mean something else?
|
| With you on the search not being forgiving enough.
| kmarc wrote:
| Other map apps offer different routes between two points,
| showing the trade-off in time. Organic Maps calculates one
| route, and it doesn't matter if it's through a deadly car-
| congested highway.
|
| My example is going from Zurich West to Downtown. Here is my
| experience:
|
| * Organic maps: calculates fast, although through a street
| with a lot of traffic, no alternatives offered.
|
| * OsmAnd: takes 5 seconds on a flagship phone to RENDER the
| current view. I try to avoid zoom and pan. What the hell.
| Calculating the navigation is either a couple seconds or a
| minute. The whole UX is totally broken, however, at least you
| can select to prefer byways / bicycle routes.
|
| * Mapy: fast rendering, fast pathfinding, alternatives
| offered, configurable to use bike paths.
|
| * Google Maps: totally random what happens, it's a
| combination of the above (I guess it tries to use live
| traffic data, too?)
|
| Now the funny thing is that there is an actual signaled
| bicycle path (which I prefer, since it avoids traffic), and
| OSM does have this data. None of the app would prefer that
| path, unfortunately (it's maybe 20 minutes instead of 18
| minutes, but much safer).
|
| It feels like most of the apps are hyperfocused on one type
| of navigation / exploration / feature set (being offline is
| huge, though), and nothing comes close to Google Maps' "not
| the best, but delivers alright UX across all these features"
| approach.
| jraph wrote:
| Oh, ok, makes sense!
|
| Yeah, getting a nice bike route on OrganicMaps indeed
| involves some manual app convincing when an obvious bike
| route exists, I had the exact same thing last week, I agree
| this could be improved especially given the data is already
| present in OSM.
| david-gpu wrote:
| Inflexible routing is the reason I'm not using an Organic
| maps derivative. On OSMAnd I have tweaked the routing
| algorithm to my taste and it's hard to beat.
|
| There is often construction or other temporary issues, so
| having on-the-fly rerouting that I can trust is key.
| jraph wrote:
| > On OSMAnd I have tweaked the routing algorithm to my
| taste and it's hard to beat.
|
| How do you do this? Is there something I can read or
| watch about this? Are you using BRouter?
| david-gpu wrote:
| Here are two sources that you may find useful:
|
| [0] https://osmand.net/docs/technical/osmand-file-
| formats/osmand...
|
| [1] https://github.com/osmandapp/OsmAnd-
| resources/blob/master/ro...
| mnmalst wrote:
| How are you tweaking it? Would love to hear more about it
| since I am a have osmand user.
| david-gpu wrote:
| Here are two sources that you may find useful:
|
| [0] https://osmand.net/docs/technical/osmand-file-
| formats/osmand...
|
| [1] https://github.com/osmandapp/OsmAnd-
| resources/blob/master/ro...
| maelito wrote:
| Care to try brouter for this route ?
| kmarc wrote:
| I just did, and liked that there are alternatives.
| Doctor_Fegg wrote:
| Out of interest, can you share more accurate start/end
| points?
| kmarc wrote:
| Farbhof => Altstadt.
|
| Example: https://mapy.com/en/zakladni?planovani-
| trasy&rc=98FWsxKe1G98...
| Doctor_Fegg wrote:
| Thanks - that's really interesting. Which route would you
| personally recommend?
|
| (My interest is that I run cycle.travel, which currently
| finds this route: https://cycle.travel/map?from=&to=&from
| LL=47.390987,8.478737... . I'm not entirely happy with it
| in this case though - for example, it's not routing onto
| the cycle path south of the railway on Aargauerstrasse, I
| think perhaps some of the paths leading onto/off it are
| rather fussily mapped.)
| kmarc wrote:
| This would more or less follow the brown-signaled bike
| path at Letziground:
|
| https://cycle.travel/map?from=&to=&fromLL=47.390987,8.478
| 737...
|
| (I can't tell by heart how it is beyond that, I just
| follow the signs :-) )
|
| But cycle.travel seems truly amazing! It's super fast to
| add detours.
| JCattheATM wrote:
| > it's maybe 20 minutes instead of 18 minutes, but much
| safer).
|
| I can't see how a bike would ever be safer than a car when
| looking at stats.
| kmarc wrote:
| Choosing the bike path for bike navigation would be,
| although slower, much safer than what the apps propose
| mongol wrote:
| For Android, I have used Locus Maps for many years. It has a
| somewhat confusing, but very powerful, interface. And I feel
| the team behind it is committed and engaged. Very worthwhile to
| try if you haven't.
| yread wrote:
| > 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
|
| They now sell premium. Presumably some features (offline maps?
| or offline navigation? suggest a hike?) will be locked behind
| premium :-/ They do have great UX though
| onnimonni wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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].
|
| [1] https://every-door.app/
|
| [2] https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Editors
| ihatehn wrote:
| Go Map, or just make bookmarks in OsmAnd and go back later
| onnimonni wrote:
| "Go Map!!" was indeed pretty easy to use. Thanks!
| karussell wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > (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 wrote:
| 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)
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| I think this is less Organic vs Google than
| OpenStreetMap's data set vs Google's. I don't know why
| Google does so much worse with trails than OSM, but it
| really does.
| mcv wrote:
| 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.
| kmarc wrote:
| 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.)
| karussell wrote:
| I'm not saying that they cannot improve :)
|
| Just that comparing Google and OSMAnd/OrganicMaps in terms
| of routing alternatives & speed and powerful address search
| is not 100% fair (even when they'd use the same data source
| which they don't)
| nelgaard wrote:
| In my experience, OsmAnd is mostly slow for very long
| routes.
|
| Maybe it is a matter of quality. Because of course you can
| find routes fast if they are not the fastest or best
| routes.
|
| But there is room for improvement. brouter could be
| integrated even better. Or a router like that could be used
| directly in OsmAnd.
|
| And long routes could be handled more flexible. E.g., when
| I go from Copenhagen to Barcelona, it is not super
| important at first to find the optimal way into Barcelona,
| or shortcuts in France using regional roads. It will take
| several days, but I would like to start with a reasonable
| route giving me an estimate of distance and time. At first
| I just need a good route to the Great Belt Bridge or the
| Rodby ferry -- Copenhagen is on an island.
|
| When I drive long distances, I sometimes use several
| devices. The Xzent system is much faster for longer
| distances, but the map is not as good, especially it is
| missing may POI's.
|
| Often they disagree, especially if one is optimizing for
| distance and other for fuel or time. Then if there is an
| obstacle or a bad road, I instantly have a good alternative
| at an intersection.
| tomsmeding wrote:
| > The routing will be much more powerful (with alternatives
| on by default) and faster if you enable an online routing
| service.
|
| What is the essential reason that _online_ routing has an
| advantage over local routing, if the data is all available
| locally anyway? Is it that you need an index, and that index
| is large and /or very time-consuming to produce, and hence
| not viable to store/generate on-device after each map data
| update?
| danhor wrote:
| At least for bycicle routing, Brouter also runs offline and
| is much more performant than both OSMAnd and OrganicMaps (and
| can be integrated into OSMAnd).
|
| To me it feels like OSMAnd heavily prioritizes feature
| develompent over performance, which is fair enough but still
| annoying.
| agile-gift0262 wrote:
| 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.
| mnmalst wrote:
| 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.
| PufPufPuf wrote:
| I'm Czech, and a long time user of Mapy.cz / Mapy.com.
| Monetization of Mapy.com has been a question for some time.
| It's part of the Seznam conglomerate, which makes most of its
| money through various news sites (including a TV channel) and
| an ad platform. Other "side projects" of Seznam, like their
| e-mail service, serve as drivers for their homepage and stay
| completely free. Mapy.cz contained affiliate Booking.com links
| for some time, but recently they added a paid subscription and
| moved the ability to download offline maps for more than two
| countries at a time behind a paywall. It seems that they are
| just now trying to figure out a more sustainable way to
| monetize, and everyone is hoping they won't destroy the great
| app in the process.
| throw738384 wrote:
| Mapy.cz was profitable before, they have practical monopoly
| on Czech market due shop data (opening hours, menus, user
| reviews). Recent monetization is just squeeze.
|
| Btw hiking data are a bit obsolete for other countries. They
| have fork from OSM that is a few years behind.
| PufPufPuf wrote:
| That's not my experience at all, for shops and restaurants
| (opening hours, menus, photos, ratings) I always need to
| use Google Maps. And even then, a "practical monopoly" does
| not mean anything unless you monetize it...
| rafram wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| They're monetising by requiring payment to download maps for
| more than one country at a time.
| pbsurf wrote:
| 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.
| JCattheATM wrote:
| I've been using a do-googled LineagoOS fan for the last few
| months with Organic maps, and not only do I find it super user
| friendly, I actively like it more than Google Maps. It works
| offline so much better.
| onnimonni wrote:
| Slightly off topic but I would really want to see DuckDB based
| alternative of https://pgrouting.org.
|
| It's so easy to embed duckdb anywhere. Current smartphones
| already have enough CPU juice to handle almost anything and
| duckdb can query and cache geoparquet files eg from the
| Overture maps.
| will-bradley wrote:
| There's a lot of discussion about bicycle routing improvements,
| as well as displaying alternate routes. I expect these
| conversations to be continued in CoMaps, so your input is
| valued and welcome there!
| https://github.com/organicmaps/organicmaps/issues/9748
| lolinder wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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."
| throw738384 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| palata wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| will-bradley wrote:
| Also with mobile apps, app store users are the most
| "valuable" thing -- much like Maps.Me, the "app" could be
| sold tomorrow and what really happens is the FOSS code is
| thrown away or sunsetted and the users wake up to an
| update where their map app is now a crypto scam, or
| whatever. The source code can be forked, but Organic Maps
| "owns" millions of app store users, and can "sell" that,
| in a way that violates users' trust. Us volunteer
| developers are very against that, but unable to stop it
| besides protesting.
| throw8393499 wrote:
| Happened with Firefox. Mozilla now has unlimited rights
| to use and publish, anything you see, type or upload in
| Firefox. And it is still marketed as "privacy" friendly.
| Even Micro$ft has better license in their browser!
| ihatehn wrote:
| Hi biodranik! Hope you're well.
| nicpottier wrote:
| 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.
| palata wrote:
| > 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!
| ihatehn wrote:
| 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.
| neilv wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| neilv wrote:
| Good point. I wonder whether it would be good for forks to
| come with a page that makes a case for the legitimacy of the
| fork and who will be controlling it and/or setting the
| founding rules for the governance. With links back to
| supporting raw evidence in repos and forums, so people can
| verify.
|
| The thing being forked could also respond to these clear
| assertion, which could be a check against confusing forks
| that are bad-faith, ill-conceived, not necessarily aligned,
| etc.
|
| (Of course, when I hear of a fork, I instantly assume that
| there was probably a good reason, and there usually is, but
| always assuming that is a mistake, which exposes us another
| way to bad actor risk.)
| will-bradley wrote:
| Most of the top 16 signers of the open letter are well-
| known names in Organic Maps, and the Updates to the letter
| try to fairly characterize the (lack of) response from OM.
| It's hard to link directly to raw evidence for the general
| public to review, since the most concerning topics (what
| will owners do in the future, what have they done with
| donation money) were in chat rooms that don't have public
| links and are exactly what the letter is asking for OM
| "owners" to provide. https://openletter.earth/open-letter-
| to-organic-maps-shareho...
|
| Here's the CoMaps governance repo for deciding on
| decisionmaking: https://codeberg.org/comaps/Governance/ and
| the leadership here https://codeberg.org/org/comaps/members
| vs top contributors to OM since the Maps.me fork: https://g
| ithub.com/organicmaps/organicmaps/graphs/contributo...
|
| We've got some FAQs up about legitimacy and plans but the
| website was literally coming together over the weekend, so
| there's more work to be done for sure.
| https://www.comaps.app/support/ -- one thing we're also
| trying to do is focus on the future rather than rehash
| issues that haven't seen resolution in chat channels in
| over a month and don't seem to be getting resolved any time
| soon. The community and users deserve an actively-developed
| app, and the CoMaps founders don't want to continue
| contributing to a for-profit app, so in absence of a timely
| satisfactory resolution all our energy is going into the
| fork!
| neilv wrote:
| I don't know why your comment was dead, so I vouched and
| upvoted it.
|
| Thanks for those helpful comments about this particular
| fork. It's a good example for a question about best
| practices for our field.
| evolve2k wrote:
| 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?
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| 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.
| palata wrote:
| > 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.
| Stephen304 wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| > 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."
| red_trumpet wrote:
| There seems to be a bit of drama about part of the server
| software being closed source:
| https://github.com/orgs/organicmaps/discussions/9837
| lolinder wrote:
| I think that the open source community is too quick to make
| "just fork it later" the answer to all our governance woes.
|
| Look at the state of WordPress: the (B?)DFL actively bans
| people from the community for critiquing his self-described
| "nuclear war" waged against his biggest competitor in the
| hosting space, which "nuclear war" has caught thousands of
| members of the community in the crossfire. And yet we see no
| fork. Why? Because forking is hard and fragments the community,
| so people would rather put up with a tyrant than deal with the
| risk of instability. This is no different than tyrants in any
| other environment.
|
| If a project has good governance established from the
| beginning, including a reasonably democratic process for
| contributors to elect the executive function, then the
| community can be reasonably sure that they won't feel the need
| to fork in the future because they have recourse if things go
| sour.
| apitman wrote:
| Forkability is an underused metric when evaluating an open
| source tool.
| mpol wrote:
| If I understand correctly, there is work going in inside the
| WordPress community. Not sure if and when things will happen,
| I am not involved personally.
| tomsmeding wrote:
| A difference between Wordpress and Organic Maps, though, is
| that Wordpress is a framework whereas Organic Maps is an
| application. Switching to a fork of Wordpress means a
| different extension marketplace, various config files that
| may need to be changed, etc. Switching to a fork of Organic
| Maps is just downloading a different app that does the same
| thing.
|
| Completely irrespective of the governance structure of
| Organic Maps, by its nature it is much more easily forkable
| than something like Wordpress.
| maxerickson wrote:
| There needs to be a server generating up to date map files.
| Which isn't complicated in comparison, but it's a decent
| bit of resources.
| aucisson_masque wrote:
| > Apes Together Strong
|
| Absolutely 100% agree with your statement, Linux desktop is
| the perfect example of that. You get a billion different
| distribution that all comes from debian, arch and maybe
| fedora but that's all.
|
| In my opinion, there should be 3 Linux distribution. That's
| all.
|
| For instance Ubuntu: Yeah Ubuntu gnome suck, yeah canonical
| push snap package when flappack are better but do you really
| need a new distribution because of that ?
|
| Perfection is the enemy of progress. And when things go all
| bad and you have used all other alternative, then and only
| then forking should be considered. Like a nuclear button.
|
| Currently i feel like it's more often used by newcomer that
| want to get to the lead position of a project they are
| passionate about but didn't start, so they fork and get a
| fraction of the community behind. It's not much but it's
| still a bit.
| wltr wrote:
| So, I guess that's a pretty awesome business plan. Establish
| some open source entity, let the community develop everything
| for you, sell the entity, then fork it, let the community
| develop everything for you, sell again, then fork it, let the
| community ...
| Mr_Bees69 wrote:
| this appears to be an offshoot of the hidden MIT code snafu
| from a bit back
| metalman wrote:
| funny, I had to abandon open maps,yesterday, for a fork, as they
| no longer have an english language version, that used to be
| hidden under "tranport",which is now reduced to purple and green
| andessentialy no map info.
| smcleod wrote:
| I'm not sure I understand why an open source maps app needs
| shareholders in the first place?
| will-bradley wrote:
| Originally Alexander said that it was just too hard to register
| a nonprofit. I think the real answer is that he always intended
| to use it as an investment and sell it off (open source, but
| basically selling the userbase, just like Maps.ME.) Hopefully
| we can prove all that wrong and get a not-for-profit
| organization assembled and sustainable!
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