If you are part of the CoMaps “team” I’d recommend you reach out to Privacy Guides staff so that your profile can reflect this.
You’re lying – the vast majority of people wanted the speed camera warning to remain an optional feature, but you chose to base your decision on just one person’s request. That’s ridiculous.
As a workaround, there was the option of leaving the speed camera warning disabled by default and letting users choose whether to enable it manually or not, for example – simple – but you didn’t do that; you chose to remove the option entirely.
If by your standards it is “perfectly fine” to have project leaders:
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introducing privacy-compromising “features” - like sharing geolocation data with Kayak (yeah, that booking.com Kayak privacy horror company) in exchange for cut of the profits, despite overwhelmingly heavy protest by many users and virtually no support for it,
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initially adding that Kayak feature to changelog (along with all other changes), but then removing (only) that changelog documenting that change (but still shipping the privacy-compromising code) just before release so users won’t know about it,
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refusing to make that privacy-compromising feature optional for a long time even after heavy user protests[1] and despite several people (disclaimer: myself including) offering to write code to make that privacy-compromising feature optional,
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actively lying about their own project license,
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closing down parts of the project’s source code, while at the same time claiming it is still open source,
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intentionally spreading FUD,
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engaging in libel, and then disappearing when asked to explain, and then repeating the process at other forums
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threatening to sue for people sharing code they themselves claim is “open source”
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threatening to permaban people who asked for clarification on license issues and refusing to answer, closing their question as “spam” (disclaimer: me - please read the issue yourself and see it that is acceptable way to deal with such requests by your own standards. That was a straw that broke this camel’s back and convinced me there is no way to have normal discussions with OrganicMaps folks anymore)
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etc.
All those are documented with proofs (among other places) in this OSM thread (if it is too long, feel free to search just for my posts), as well as their own github repo (search for issues and PRs with e.g. “kayak” and “license”).
Anyway, I’m really way too tired of discussion about what OM did and why. I’ve been trying for a long time to make OM become pro-users (including offering to make privacy-compromising features opt-in, or at least opt-out, instead of being forced on users; and working to help them remove antifeatures they got in F-droid), but I have finally given up some time ago.
Really, it was mostly one of the founders (Alexander) who seems to be trying to ruing OrganicMaps reputation as fast as possible – as one OSM user said eloquently noted in that OSM thread: “I’m not sure I’ve seen anyone intentionally alienate their core userbase like this since Elon Musk bought Twitter.”
So I stopped trying to help OrganicMaps. As did most of the unpaid community OrganicMaps developers left and founded CoMaps instead. I don’t really follow what OM do, as I don’t find them likeable anymore. YMMV, and I’m not trying to persuade you to switch. You do you.
But I’m mentioning those issues as I would’ve expected that at least here in PG forums some of them might raise at least few eyebrows (I wouldn’t expect much reaction in some random facebook group where people happily use GoogleMaps and don’t think about anything but pure utility and convenience. Privacy is not convenient, it is damn hard those days, and thus me not liking people who try to pretend they care about that, only to sell you out at first opportunity).
Here is fun experiment: join both the OM and CoMaps communication channels, and mention some feature you like in that other project.
And watch the hugely different outcome (beware: i.e. in OM you’d be banned and proclaimed enemy-of-the-state; in CoMaps you’d start healthy discussion how that feature can be implemented in CoMaps too and how it could be further improved)
All that being said, OrganicMaps is still privacy-wise better then, say, MAPS.ME it forked from (for, ironically, mostly the same reasons that CoMaps forked from OrganicMaps!), not to mention from Google Maps.
But so is CoMaps better then all three of them, IMHO.
TL;DR: there are privacy issues with OrganicMaps as well as general anti-users behaviour. If you’re aware of it and don’t care, it’s fine with me. But you should educate yourself and verify the claims above (don’t take my word for it!)
But I think PG should (everything else being more or less the same, with some unshared improvements on both sides) prefer the CoMaps fork over OrganicMaps fork, as CoMaps does not have any of those problems.
- I heard that they finally admitted the problem and fixed it; but have not verified it personally, so caveat emptor
The original request suggests that disabled by default isn’t sufficient to abide by the law; but regardless this has been debated to death and you know it.
Popularity is not the same exact thing as being community-driven, and taking a temporary measure out of an abundance of caution to remove a feature isn’t the same as forcing a decision on people that could get them in trouble with police. If our goal is to make an app that brings privacy-respecting FOSS OSM maps to everyone, we might need to take minority voices into account to ensure that there is an app they can use; the fact that other OSM apps exist that are different is a good thing, that means everyone can choose the one best suited to them. Moreover, the worst-case scenario would be for a national government to decide “all open source map apps promote illegal speed cam avoidance” and take some action against all OSM options; that would be a huge disaster.
Inflammatory language and accusations are unnecessary.
So, will be CoMaps be added in the recommendations ?
Are their democratic governed Apps?
I thought that someone is always on top of it?
Yes, a lot of non-profits (especially in open source) are democratically governed which is what’s planned for CoMaps.
How do they have elections?
I often online, it would be easy to rig
So why is CoMaps still not on Privacy Guides? The project is over a year old, it is the default navigation app on CalyxOS and iodeOS, and about to join the Software Freedom Conservancy. I think that recommending CoMaps is long overdue.
You should make your own fork just for speed cameras and name it PragmaticMaps.
That’s kind of the point of FOSS. If you don’t like what they’re doing, you can fork it.
Organic maps clearly had issues. CoMaps improves upon it. Now you can use Organic maps with its problems or you can get the benefits of CoMaps and add speed cameras yourself with a fork.
The reason I think CoMaps is valuable as a fork is that it is 100% open source. Five years from now if Organic Maps is legally obligated to turn off speed cameras, or makes some other change that you don’t like, such as tracking users, there is nothing that you would be able to do about it. The source code for generating the maps is closed source, and the app is useless if you don’t have any map data. A lot of new Organic Maps features rely on proprietary updates that they have made to the generator, so it isn’t like you would be able to just substitute in map data made from CoMaps.
CoMaps on the other hand is 100% open source so if they make a decision that you don’t like, you can just fork it.
I’m color blind, and the navigation UI on Organic Maps was very difficult to use, and almost unusable at times (with any of the color correction modes on Android enabled). I still used it because it was the best open source maps app I was aware of. I tried CoMaps when it came out just because I was curious what changes they would make. I didn’t expect it to be significantly different, but their navigation UI is a massive improvement for me as a color blind person, and I’m sure also for other types of vision impairment. There are concrete reasons why CoMaps should be recommended.
I honestly find the dark mode on Organic maps unusable, it’s the main reason I switched over to CoMaps
So what exactly is the process for adding an app to the recommendation list?
Well, now that Comaps has been around for a while, I will look into adding it to the site, I give the app a few test runs this week to see how it compares to Organic maps.
I thought I used Organic Maps before for a while, but after CoMaps I never go back to Organic Maps even though they have bus route information. CoMaps team gradually improves the map especially the UI in dark mode, and I do appreciate their transparency on their website what to do.
Although it can’t totally replace Google Maps, I love to have this map especially when walking in the woods, and there are lots of control of my data where Google Maps can’t do. One year is sufficient to recommend here!
A privacy-oriented app is not just about privacy: they have to work as great as popular apps we get used to, and more options are better than less, or people will find those recommendations not useful and go back to Google. Even though I can’t get rid of Google Maps, CoMaps adds values to me in my life.
CoMaps doesn’t offer speed camera alerts or bus routes; it’s purely visual. There isn’t really any added value compared to Organic Maps, so there’s no need to switch.
In some countries, such as France, there are no speed camera warnings, because the developers at CoMaps have taken the unilateral decision to disable this feature for certain countries.