• Luke@lemmy.mlEnglish
    15·
    3 days ago

    A consequence of the concerns raised here, probably: https://openletter.earth/open-letter-to-organic-maps-shareholders-a0bf770c

    Community contributors to Organic Maps have expressed serious concerns about the project’s governance, transparency, and the potential for shareholder profit at the expense of the community. They are calling for a shift to a nonprofit structure, greater inclusivity in decision-making, and financial transparency, and are considering starting a new project if these issues are not addressed.

    The Organic Maps project has been built and promoted under the premise of being an open community project, so it’s troubling to discover that the majority of shareholders consider it to be their sole property. More concerns include lack of transparency and accountability in project governance and violation of stated Free and Open Source Software values.

    There is apparently a community fork of Organic Maps over on codeberg: https://codeberg.org/comaps

    • Luffy@lemmy.mlEnglish
      11·
      3 days ago

      Wait, organic is a forprofit publicly traded company?

      Well fuck them, good I havent given a dollar to them

      • starshipwinepineappleEnglish
        3·
        3 days ago

        Wait, organic is a forprofit publicly traded company?

        Yeah, this is a surprise. And its even called out in the open letter

        The Organic Maps project has been built and promoted under the premise of being an open community project, so it’s troubling to discover that the majority of shareholders consider it to be their sole property. […] (see Addendum for the details)

        Then in Addendum:

        The role of Organic Maps OÜ

        It’s a for-profit company (an LLC basically) registered in Estonia:

        ariregister.rik.ee/eng/company/16225385/Organic-Ma…

        The company holds key project assets, e.g. the trademark and the app store accounts. git.omaps.dev/organicmaps/organicmaps/src/branch/m… states that “The primary purpose of the entity is to shield the project’s members from personal liability and to ensure the legal protection of the project’s assets.”

        Until recently there was never a mention that the shareholders treat their shares as their personal investment. Even that explanation document was only added to project’s repository 4 months ago - before that the only brief mention of Organic Maps OÜ’s existence was in the footer of the https://organicmaps.app/ website, so the most of users and contributors had no idea about its role and ownership structure.

        Roman @rtsisyk holds 1/3 (33%) of shares, Viktor @vng holds 2/3 (66%). Alexander @biodranik is not a registered shareholder, but allegedly Viktor holds his 1/3 (33%) nominally.

      • d_k_bo@feddit.orgEnglish
        1·
        3 days ago

        Wait, organic is a forprofit publicly traded company?

        As far as I can tell from the open letter, it is legally a for-profit company, but it has only 2 (maybe 3) shareholders and isn’t publicly traded.