TLDR: much of the active contributors who aren’t Organic Maps OÜ shareholders are concerned about recent direction of the project, and if it is - despite repeated slogans - community-driven or actually driven by the profit of those 3 shareholders. There’s no transparency.
NB: on mobile, you can sign the letter and view list of the signatories by scrolling to the bottom.
It’s sad that it’s come to this, but we’d like to reassure people - we are committed to ensuring that the project survives and remains open, even if this last resort fails.
This sounds like a quintessential example of contributors/fundraisers, maintainers, and users being 3 separate circles in a venn diagram.
There also appears to be confusion about what a LLC is. I get not liking LLC structure, but if that’s what they chose, the users can’t force a change with a petition. Just as any other business. They can sue, if legal issues arise, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. OSM is simply a data provider for Organic Maps to my knowledge and we provide our data to companies (sometimes big ones) and nonprofits alike, without bias.
The issue is that the Organic Maps project was advertised and codified as an open not-for-profit community project, but this isn’t what’s happening in reality. It actually seems that the shareholders see the OM project as theirs, and have repeatedly used it in their own interest. This is the expected behaviour of an LLC, but that it even was an LLC was basically unmentioned until recently, while the “community-washing” and messages of OM as a Public Good are everywhere.
We (contributors) only found out about this recently, and are naturally unhappy that our work improving OM and building its brand/reputation is effectively being used to increase valuation of the company. As a result, we sent a first letter to the shareholders - they completely ignored this and stopped all interaction with the project. This open letter is a last-ditch effort at saving the OM project as it is, and if it fails, we will fork OM.
(i seem to have basically just written a TLDR of the letter, but please read the full letter for actual examples and more detail)
Forking sounds like a lot of work. Looking at the contribution history, those two shareholders are also pretty much also the most active contributors since OrganicMaps’ inception. (That is, at least until 2024-09 and 2024-12, respectively, don’t know what happened after that.)
So, I really hope you guys (OM contributors and maintainers) can come to a mutual understanding.
Sounds like the whole JOSM thing. Maintainer is controversial for actions they take and is by and large the only meaningful contributor but the community loves the product and can’t or won’t do it without the maintainer.
You can generate maps and I succeeded once in that. I think that’s referring to said Kayak extensions probably (check the letter). Not sure about what else is that non public generator version.
Not a Github expert, but a light OM contributor here: all the PRs are committed by the admins (until not long ago, only the shareholders). So naturally they appear to be the most active contributors (commit-wise) in those data.
Looking at the PRs (both closed and open), on a visual inspection, you can see that the vast majority of PRs in the last 2 years come from volunteers (and the occasional paid worker(s), which we actually don’t fully know who they are, since the lack of transparency). (Of course, the shareholders did a big job in reviewing all the PRs, I’m not forgetting that).
I truly hope OM doesn’t fade away, but after contributing there for the past 4 years, I don’t have a lot of hope. Some very controversial decisions (Kayak, for instance), too much resistance in applying changes largely asked and even provided by volunteers (reminds me of Carto here), too many unreviewed and stale PRs (lack of organization and direction), and too many public fights since a year at least, between 2 of the stakeholders.
A pity, because the app is probably the best OSM app for day-to-day navigation.
For the people wanting to fork (which I know from their contributions that they are capable of maintaining the software), please don’t forget the other aspects of a software like that: creating an org that can drive the project well, hosting the maps, maintaining the community etc.
I’m a massive fan of the OrganicMaps app, and use the bookmarks feature a lot for flagging locations I want to check and collecting notes to update OSM when I get back home. So I really hope something can be worked out here one way of the other.
Aside from administrative stuff, I’d have thought the biggest issue for a community fork to have to deal with is how to fund map download bandwidth when the user-base grows. Organic Maps currently has some sponsorship from Mythic Beasts for this: Improving the world bit by expensive bit - Mythic Beasts .
OK, so I asked “AI” to make a TL;DR with a who-did-what format, and refined it.
Concrete Issues Leading to the Open Letter
Misuse of Donations: Alexander Borsuk allegedly used project donations to cover personal holiday expenses, raising concerns about financial integrity.
Lack of Financial Transparency: Contributors were consistently denied access to financial information, including total donations received and expenditures.
Secret Hiring Practices: The hiring of the first full-time developer in January 2024 was kept secret from contributors, who only learned about it months later.
Closed Decision-Making: Key project decisions, such as agreements with external partners (e.g., Kayak.com), were made without informing or consulting contributors.
Shareholder Control: The governance structure allowed shareholders to make unilateral decisions, sidelining the input of long-term contributors.
Conflict Among Shareholders: A significant conflict between shareholders Roman Tsisyk and Alexander Borsuk has led to a breakdown in collaboration, jeopardizing project stability.
Lack of Accountability: The board, composed solely of shareholders, failed to rotate members or ensure accountability, leading to a stagnant governance model.
Potential for Profit Motives: Contributors expressed concerns that the project could be sold or monetized for shareholder profit, undermining its community-driven mission.
Inadequate Communication: Shareholders did not adequately communicate the role of Organic Maps OÜ as a for-profit entity, leaving contributors unaware of its implications.
Violation of Open Source Values: While the maps generator code is technically available, the version in production contains private changes that are not disclosed, and the server used for downloading maps operates with proprietary elements, contradicting the project’s stated commitment to Free and Open Source Software principles.
but if that’s what they chose, the users can’t force a change with a petition
OM itself is an example of a change being forced through from the community, maps.me became terrible and so OM was created, now OM seems to be repeating maps.me’s mistakes. Open Source projects can and will be forked if petitions are ignored. This is of course undesirable though as there are costs involved, both human costs and capital costs.
The majority of all expenses have been funded by founders of the project since its inception. The project is far from achieving any sort of financial sustainability. The current level of voluntary donations falls significantly short of covering efforts needed to sustain the app. Any new developments of features are beyond the scope of possibility due to the absence of the necessary financial resources.
We should brainstorm what other possibilities could improve their financial situation to improve the code and features. How do other open source projects do that? Signal and Wikipedia ask for donations every now and then. Osmand sells premium services. Linux has companies paying for development.
I am donating, but I seem to be the only one. Signal for example can afford several paid developers, they can’t.
if we fork, the plan is to make an actual non-profit.