If I’m reading this correctly, the headline is…very inaccurate.
It looks like a dispute between two developers in Organic Maps, who both started out at Maps.me, specifically over whether their CDN redirector should be public or private.
It’s one of the reasons I linked the hn discussion. Lots of accusations going around right now. It’s unfortunate as I like that app, but this kind of splitting is important to know about.
My experience with HN is comments from out-of-touch engineers and me-too startup folks circle jerking with themselves. Can’t say they’re any better than the random discourse on social media.
Yea, the comments there are just, wrong.
People claiming since the repo wasn’t public the MIT license didn’t matter. But since admins contributed under that license, it 100% matters.
No reason to wait for the dust to settle. Roman noticed a removal of an MIT license he contributed to, also noticed the inclusion of user logging, so he released MIT work he contributed to. He’s in the right.
It’s a shame.
So, what’s the point of Organic Maps or maps.me? The latter’s website just say “download and prepare for adventure”, like some sort of app for route preparation?
It’s a mobile map and navigation app which uses OpenStreetMap data
Where i live, Organic Maps has way better walking directions than Google and Apple Maps, and it’s a lot more respectful of privacy than at least the former.
Looks like the dispute is with one of the devs who didn’t work on maps.me.
Regardless, it’s probably best to wait until the dust settles to see what the facts are.
Sad, but also funny to see someone revoke an MIT license. Presumably they think that is retroactive as why do it otherwise. Instead of preventing use they just un-invite themselves from any group that wishes to continue it’s open source development.
Wow, that’s an incredible misunderstanding of copyright. Screw 'em.
Organic Maps rocks. Maybe I’ll go donate.
Edit: Read a bit of the discussion and it seems this is 100% Organic Maps, Maps.me is unrelated. I’ll hold off until the drama revolves.
Seems like some spicy drama. I’ll check back in a few days to see how it resolves. I love Organic Maps and I hope the core team resolves this appropriately.
I used maps.me for many years, it’s sad what happened. At least we have organic maps.
