Uh, are you actually aware of the history of the MAPS.ME ? AFAIK, it was sold by its “founding team” to big commercial entity, and (somewhat unsurprisingly) it was promptly intentionally #enshittified by said commercial entities to abuse its users in order to extract maximum profits.
So death of MAPS.ME was only possible due to intentional sell by its previous owners / original founders, so it is hard to see why one should feel bad for consequences of their own intentional choices of selling their brand and userbase (especially given that it really should not be a surprise to anybody that selling out to BigCorp will enshittify your ex-users lives. That is literally the only reason why they’re giving you the money - so they can extract even more money from your ex-users, by selling their data and making their lives worse).
The “original founders” or MAPS.ME (some of them at least) and newcomer Roman then forked the Organic Maps out of last FOSS MAPS.ME codebase.
Which may be somewhat fine, if it were BDFL. However, when said dictator stops being benevolent and turn anti-users in order to extract profit (e.g. OrganicMaps privacy compromising Kayak deal) even after extensive user complaints (just look at that issue likes/dislike ratio, but reading comments is even more informative), it is no longer cool to support such behaviour IMHO.
They closed parts of the OM project source code, see links above. Despite their doublespeak (and threats of perma-banning for daring to ask the clarification on the license, and closing the issue as “spam”), the code in question (without which mobile app[2] cannot be [re]used) is still not publicly available FOSS.
downhill from FOSS&privacy caring user perspective of course; from for-profit angle it was likely upward-looking. ↩︎
The mobile app code itself is still FOSS, to the best of my knowledge. Still, closing down rest of the code does not inspire good faith that the OM leadership cares about FOSS at all, except as flouting it as a marketing gimmick for misleading people. ↩︎
CoMaps is the worse product. They add ‘features’ like unilaterally blocking speed camera warnings in certain regions where even mainstream apps like Waze do not. They are also entertaining the idea of switching licenses so they can continue to use and benefit from Organic Maps code while excluding Organic Maps from using their code.
This began because OrganicMaps is commercial project. They are like registered like commercial.
They closed code from community, integrated ads and tracking [1]
They ignored community backlash, BANNED (!) some people (including me) for asking to remove that without warning and deleted dozens[2] of messages in their github and chats. What you see now is not all backlash.
Than they gaslighted [3]users for being “paranoid”[4] and had HUGE[5] argument with F-Droid team, threatening to ditch F-Droid[6]. Also they tried to pick a holy war[7]
How this can be better?
KAYAK link had a referral id, which i consider as tracking, because analytics scripts on websites like KAYAK can collect and put together even microscopic bit of information ↩︎
The idea why CoMaps is considering AGPLv3 or similar license is so that the code would be guaranteed to remain FOSS forever, even if CoMaps founders were to somehow become anti-user e.g. for reasons of increasing profits (like e.g. the OrganicMaps founders infamously did; or MAPS.ME before them).
Also, your claim about “excluding OM” is incorrect: even if that license change happened (which is not given - even if I personally would prefer it, for reasons explained above), the Organic Maps could continue picking CoMaps code just fine – they would just have to also legally promise their users that OM code would also remain Free and Open Source Software forever.
Now, one may argue that that OM founder would never agree to promise their users that OM code will remain FOSS forever, as their business model is based on fully[1] closing down source code eventually to prevent their userbase from escaping their iron grasp when they increase their enshittification efforts; but if that is the case, that choice would be on them, wouldn’t it?
and not just partially closing down source code, as is unfortunately currently happening in OM ↩︎
I don’t consider this to be privacy invasive as those links aren’t resolveable without user consent. Referral commissions are common amongst OSS projects. I think i even saw some here at PG?
Is it unethical to be mindful of your lifetime project sustainability when a copycat comes out and begins crushing everything while harassing you? Didn’t the decision to close parts of the backend code came later, when CoMaps came around?
It’s sad to see people downplaying the fact that F-Droid breaks the chain of trust. I’m honestly not sure whether the biblegate or this case was the worst from F-Droid thus far.
Wasn’t aware of that. Thanks for bringing this up.
Acting like he doesn’t know what developers at large mean by saying stealing is very reddit behavior. It’s even more reddit to be smug about it and begin citing laws and threaten to sue for libel/defamation as if they’re living in the UK. I’m somewhat surprised seeing PG members celebrate speech policing.
But hey, here’s another part of the story.
I don’t get how “FOSS” people get to claim to be the good guys while doing this:
I only see F-Droid taking over the apk in your citation. As far as i can remember, after the Wireguard debacle F-Droid tightened their moderation and refused to let any developers exit the platform without forcing their userbase to reinstall an app. I don’t see how F-Droid extorting the developers of Organic Maps, lying about the fact how location APIs function, lying about the “anti features” is a good thing. I disagree with them on a fundamental level. I think organic maps did great by coming up with an ethical sustainability revenue. But hey, this reaction actually makes sense as all means justify the end for an avid FOSS warrior.
I can’t really argue with fans of the GPLv3, the least popular license amongst open source developers.
The world has never witnessed true communism nor commercially successful GPLv3 projects. And before you say anything, living off government funding programs from the EU/USAID doesn’t count as being sustainable.
If you have some ideological opposition to free market capitalism, then that’s your prerogative, but it’s not relevant to whether Organic Maps should be replaced with CoMaps. If anything, it’s a positive that Organic Maps has a sustainable business model so they can continue developing their app.
The app is and remains fully free and open source. Much more free than CoMaps will be if they switch to the AGPLv3 license.
You are wrong about them adding ads. They added referral links to Kayak when you clicked on a hotel with a Kayak listing. That’s a great way to generate some revenue for Organic Maps at no cost to the user. There was also no tracking beyond whatever trackers Kayak has on their site (like all modern websites). The referral code is just so Kayak knows who to pay for the referral.
So, like what CoMaps did when removing speed camera warnings, which you conveniently failed to address.
That’s a good thing. F-Droid is an insecure mess that should never be used, not to mention the ideological virtue signalling. +1 in my book.
You are seriously misinformed about what the AGPLv3 license accomplishes. It does absolutely nothing to ensure the code remains FOSS. What it does do is allows CoMaps to continue taking Organic Maps code while strong arming Organic Maps into also using the AGPLv3 license if they want to do the exact same thing CoMaps is doing to them. GPL and AGPL licenses are like a disease and actively hurting the FOSS ecosystem.
The developers of CoMaps will still be able to relicense their code at any point, and it all but guarantees that the project will not last since no company will be willing to take it on to maintain it.
If you are just going to make shit up, then there is no point trying to have a nuanced discussion. Organic Maps has been developed for years and continues to be open source, when by your logic they should have gone closed source the second they took over development. Again, I think it’s absurd to blame Organic Maps for trying to create a sustainable business around a FOSS product at no cost to the user, but I’m not going to argue with you over an ideological opposition to free market capitalism.
Many super cool projects live without business model. For example UBlockOrigin or LibreWolf. Others like Wikipedia relies on donations. There is no even single excuse to start adding even single, even external, link to website that is FULL OF TRAKERS
Also there is no excuse to BAN (!) people and remove comments [1]
There no reason to hide code, when claiming “fully open source”.
There is no excuse to call users any kinds of “names” (eg paranoid, hating etc)
On the one hand, there is the proposal to add CoMaps, which I don’t think is especially controversial.
On the other hand, there is the proposal to remove OrganicMaps.
The removal should be its own thread, where we can discuss the reasoning on why.
I don’t necessarily think Co Maps has to be necessarily be better than Organic Maps to be listed alongside Organic Maps.It meets all the criterias Organic Maps does.
I agree, as it it feels much of the discussion of removing Organic Maps has gotten in the way, and off topic from the discussion of the potential merits of adding CoMaps.
The one issue I see with splitting these threads is that many of those most in favor of adding CoMaps seem intent on delisting Organic Maps, so there is no guarantee that these discussions would not naturally overlap again.
Further, I don’t know what the Privacy Guides team stance on this is, but I could see an argument made that listing both Organic Maps and CoMaps without any major distinguishing features or functions could lead to confusion for visitors of the site.
I totally agree. Somehow, this thread has seemingly added an additional requirement for CoMaps to be universally accepted as better than Organic Maps, which seems completely unfair
It would be extremely confusing to list both CoMaps and Organic Maps. Privacy Guides has (from my perception) also never been about listing every option under the sun simply because they meet the requirements.
Why is OrganicMaps, their history, their capabilities, or their business practices relevant whatsoever in the CoMaps tool recommendation thread?
CoMaps is independently developed. It is not tied to OrganicMaps in any way except historically. It should be evaluated on its own capabilites, against the PG criteria. Imo debating OrganicMaps is an off topic discussion for a different thread
I have no horse in this race, I am an OSMAnd+ truther
I tested CoMaps for a while and really liked it, but I’m fully supporting @phnx stance that Organic maps should stay a recommendation and that it would be confusing to recommend CoMaps when it’s a “better fork” of Organic Maps while there is no real reason to prefer it.
I might be biased since I followed and contributed to Organic Maps since the beginning and even got it listed at ptio at that time, but I can hardly see why CoMaps would be a better recommendation for people trying to get away from google maps than Organic maps. I see the kayak link situation more of a plus for adoption since “normal” people expect to see such hotel info on maps. Also Privacy Guides core team stated multiple times that not recommending an app ≠ recommending not to use that app, so people who are really into privacy will find CoMaps as an alternative and they will be savvy enough to judge if it fits their use case better.
This thread linked below seems to be the ongoing discussion. I don’t gather that it is a permanent solution, but there is a vocal group who wish for the feature to be not available by default due to perceived legal risk in some jurisdictions.
