Comment by neilv
6 months ago
Thank you, that's interesting and a concern.
Do you have pointers to information about the governance and legitimacy of CoMaps?
(I see a mention that it's non-profit, but no statement about what kind of non-profit, not even on the donate page where that info is customary and relevant for US tax reasons. Also, I see no mention of who's who, nor how they operate.)
The closest I find is this:
https://www.comaps.app/support/what-is-the-comaps-history/
> As a result of the issues not being resolved, in April 2025, the community of former Organic Maps contributors created the CoMaps project, based on the Organic Maps open-source code.
If what that sounds like is true (that it does represent the community of contributors), it still will be important to have safeguards against someone taking over the project.
Or, if what that sounds like isn't true, that could be bad.
One matter that will have to be resolved with governance (if it hasn't already), is that there's what looks like an allegation that the CoMaps project is already tainted with code to which is expressly doesn't have license:
https://codeberg.org/comaps/comaps/pulls/1039#issuecomment-6...
A concern is that a funded commercial competitor could bankrupt a less-funded volunteer project with lawyer fees just arguing the merits of that.
I think this is relevant:
https://github.com/orgs/organicmaps/discussions/9837
https://web.archive.org/web/20250815050441/https://github.co...
In the discussion you link, biodranik tries to say that it was illegal for those with access to the repo to dispose of the open-source code because that open-source code had not be published. I don't think this is right:
Open-source does not mean at all that the code has to be public. It can be private to a community. But whoever has access to that code is allowed, under the open-source licence, to dispose of it under the terms of the licence. My understanding is that this is what happened with the fork of Organic Maps. And it is pretty clearly explained in the codeberg discussion you linked.
> an allegation that the CoMaps project is already tainted with code to which is expressly doesn't have license
I don't think it says that CoMaps doesn't have the licence. It says that whoever forked the codebase did not have permission by some of the founders of Organic Maps. That's very different: the licence doesn't say that you must ask permission to the founders; it says that the code can be used under the terms of the licence. A fork part of those terms.
Very astute! Legally the code is owned by each contributor and licensed via the DCO. Financially the project is underneath the umbrella of the Platform 6 co-op (see OpenCollective)
This is temporary though and a permanent nonprofit home is a top priority.
Nope, all I know is what I picked up in the OpenStreetMap community, like that thread on the forums, and this open letter:
https://www.comaps.app/news/2025-04-16/1/
The claim about open-source is coming from the shareholder of Organic Maps, Alex, but there is no basis to it, as the code for that repository is licensed under the Apache 2.0 license.
It appears Alex is angry about the fork and doing anything possible to spread negativity.
The code used by the fork was never published. It was stolen from a private repository and a private server, and then published/used in the fork without the authors' approval. That's a serious legal issue.
The fork also took the new website design that was developed for Organic Maps even before the Organic Maps website was updated.
Don't believe everything on the internet; there are many lies spread around.
2 replies →
The code is open-source. biodranik is the main source of the governance issues.