Should OsmAnd change its name already?

If you have talked with your friends, the name of OsmAnd is still a persistent source of confusion - as if it were an official OSM app. Maybe we should revisit this topic? Is there a solution that would not end up in OsmAnd changing its name?
Or, thinking even broader - how do we communicate what we are and aren’t when vertically integrated map platforms are the norm, and we’re an outlier? So far, we’ve been bad at this.

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Naturally this not actually something we (as in anybody not associated with producing the app) control.

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The trademarks, however, are. As far as trademarks go, many less obvious collisions were pursued successfully.

You mean the OSM as in OnlineSoccerManger or ?

PS: less tongue in cheek: I think you are confusing things here, the OSMF does not have a registered OSM trademark, and successfully registering one would have always been very very difficult, there could (have) been some potential avenues, but outside of being expensive, they would never have helped with OsmAnd. Sure there is some protection as trade dress in many countries, but again that would be difficult to utilize, in particular as it is not going to be possible to actually show damages.

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It’s thanks to OSMand that I (re-)discovered OSM.

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Who are “we” in that sentence? People participating in this thread (or just reading it)? Or participants of this https://c.osm.org forum generally? Or all OSM editors? Or all OsmAnd users? Or any OSM data consumers generally? Or OSMF full (or associate) members? Or CWG? Or DWG? Or OSMF Board? Or something/somebody else?

So far, we’ve been bad at this.

Haven’t really noticed. :man_shrugging:
Is there some actual problem I’m missing?

Look at all those open * map projects, OSMF claims they have to give permission for but also not really enforcing it. Neither saying they should nor that it is a problem. But you could come to the conclusion that OSMF is not doing well in this regards.

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2.1 of OSM Trademark Policy does seem to claim that “OpenSomethingMap” is covered by OSMF trademarks; but just saying so does not make it true / legally valid.

If contested, OSMF would need to prove in court that the allegedly infringing name is confusingly similar.

There is specific list of words which are registered trademarks (see 1.1.), but even they are not absolute, for example (non exclusive list):

One could come to that conclusion, agreed. I’m however not sure that it was the intent of the OP (e.g. asking that OSMF/LWG should be more stringent in enforcing OSMF trademarks*)?

Which is why I asked @RicoElectrico for clarification of what they perceive as an actual problem?

Judging by the thread title, I get the idea that they seem to think that using “OSM” as a part of the name for the “OsmAnd” app which navigates using OSM data is somehow a problem, because it is not “official”?


To address that original question (if that happens to be what was asked):

My explanation to people would be that OpenStreetMap is not a single app (like e.g. GoogleMaps), but an open and collaborative geospatial database and wide ecosystem, used by many hundreds of different unrelated third-party data consumers, some of which even chose to pay homage to the project they depend on in their own name (and not just buried away somewhere in credits/legalese, which they are legally required to do).
As such, there is no “offical OSM client” to consume OSM data, much like there is no “official” web browser to surf WWW or “official” client to read E-mail (although some might be more popular then the others).

As for the names themselves: just like e.g. popular Debian GNU/Linux is paying homage and promoting both GNU and Linux projects in its own name (and not trying to misrepresent themselves as “official” GNU or “official” Linux), so are “JOSM” or “OsmAnd” doing the same – IMHO, such symbiotic advertisements should be celebrated, not fought against, so I don’t see a “problem” there.


* (FWIW, I personally do not believe that going after data consumers which are not blatantly trying to mislead people for financial gains or supply chain attacks is good idea – the point of OSM was IMHO always to enable wide thriving ecosystem, and suing collaborators for minor details like having “Open” and “Map” in the name of some open map project would IMHO be much more damaging then useful. But others might disagree[1])


  1. e.g. due to risks of Trademark dillution etc. ↩︎

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Repeating something that is wrong does not make it true, and you know very well that it is enforced within the limits of the OSMFs resources.

Naturally, as I’ve pointed out before, it is extremely hypocritical that the same people that will get their knickers in a knot over just a hint that attribution might be missing in a reuse of OSM data, can’t recover from their Schadenfreude fits when they find an, arguably much more important for the project, misuse of the trademarks, instead of helping to stop it.

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Just for the record: that isn’t correct (the initial trademark registrations were in 2008, HOT wasn’t around then). But lets not delve in to HOTs very checkered beginnings, given that the longstanding issues have been resolved for a couple of years now (just as with OpenStreetMap-US).

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