Organic Maps Forked Over Governance Concerns: CoMaps is Born

You might know of Organic Maps, the open source app that's an alternative to Google Maps. Recently, concerns have been raised about its governance, with many contributors questioning the project's transparency and direction.

Despite being advertised as a community-driven project, key decisions, including financial management, partnerships (with Kayak, for instance), and the inclusion of proprietary components in the code were made by a small group of shareholders, often without input from the broader contributor community.

These shareholders have reportedly used the project’s donation funds for personal expenses, like holiday trips, raising serious concerns about financial transparency.

As a result, many contributors teamed up and forked the project, establishing CoMaps, a new alternative focused on openness and being not-for-profit.

CoMaps: To New Beginnings

Powered by OpenStreetMap data, CoMaps is an offline-focused navigation app that offers detailed maps and turn-by-turn directions without mining for user data. It offers the ability to download maps, find places, get directions for walking, biking, or driving, and has support for both Android Auto and Apple CarPlay.

So far, the developers have voted on the project’s name, chosen a new color scheme for branding, removed the Kayak affiliate links carried over from Organic Maps, and started moving away from several Google services.

I asked Oleg Risewell, a core contributor of the project, what sets CoMaps apart from Organic Maps. His answer was clear:

The major difference is about how the project will be run, as a community. The principles are at the core of how the project is run. A few examples already, the community voted on the project name, and selected CoMaps, they voted on the branding color, and next is creating and selecting the logo.

There is also now a thriving and active community, someone is already working on traffic data, others are working on design, translations and doing the release process for F-Droid. Within 2 months we have nearly 2k people subscribing to our social media channels.

All of that sounds promising, and if you're excited to try CoMaps, you'll have to wait just a little longer, as the developers are still busy ironing out the last bits before an official launch.

You can keep an eye on CoMaps' social handles or their Codeberg repo for any updates and announcements.