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All these apps rely on the data provided by OpenStreetMap (OSM). It is a Wikipedia-like project where anybody can contribute edits.

https://www.openstreetmap.org/

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do these damn projects even push the proposed edits up back to openstreetmap?

insanely shameful if not

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Yes, CoMaps lets users submit basic data that updates OSM for addresses and POIs. It's a harder problem than you may initially think too, quite often the delivery format of OSM data differs in schema from the DB format. In the case of OrganicMaps and CoMaps, they both generate offline-optimized map formats for distribution.
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They can’t do so automatically. Osm Editors must approve. Apparantly OSM fears legislation when people copy info from google maps. They like to see evidence, like street sign photos. In my limited experience anyway.
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I assume they all do, it's nigh impossible to maintain your own data fork and keep reconciling your users' edits and the updates from OSM.
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Of course they do.
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yeah, so were LibreOffice and OpenOffice relying on the .odt format

CoMaps forked out of OrganicMaps after a row about money

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Always the rows about some kind of BS that fragments, fractures, and defuses the efforts into pet projects instead of ever actually being a viable alternative for the majority of people to corporate offerings.

The hardest thing about any effort that is two or more people is the interpersonal, coordination, consensus, and organization aspects. Everything else is easy in comparison.

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It makes sense. People generally want at least one of: money or decision-making power.

If they have to negotiate, constantly settle, and get no money, that's a hard sell.

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“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty”
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I have used OsmAnd+ for well over 15 years by now, which also uses OSM data, just like these. And I have used JOSM on my PC to fix the OSM data myself.

Does Organic maps / CoMaps offer anything OsmAnd+ doesn't for someone who uses it for car navigation (especially on back roads in the wilderness) as well as hiking? (All in the Nordic countries.) I also record tracks with it.

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Any recommendations for an OSS maps app that provides tracks like Strava,l and Komoot?
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I'm working on something that is best described as Komoot meets Mastodon. Self hostable and federated. It's pretty early, and the UX is pretty bare bones still.

If you're keen on checking it out you should be able to find it in my recent Github contributions, following the link in my profile.

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There is a federated application called Endurain [0] that can be self-hosted, and is compatible with Strava and Garmin Connect. Not a phone app, but a web front-end. I don't know how well that works on mobile.

[0] https://docs.endurain.com/gallery/

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Do you mean tracking your workout? If so there's Fitotrack on Android.
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What do you mean by "scene lifecycle support"? In general, I like cleaning up old code bases. But I don't see how that relates to testing?
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Any ones which tries to avoid realtime traffic, especially in India? Also ones which detects some shortcuts as narrow, meandering roads that will be extremely slow.
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There’s actually work ongoing on live traffic support from various public sources!

https://codeberg.org/comaps/comaps/projects/21877

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This looks really solid. It's the thing that would make me switch over. 90% of the time I know exactly where I'm going but need Google Maps to tell me what's unexpectedly in the way while I'm trying to get there.
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My problem is that more often than not the road or business name I'm trying to find us just not in the database. If I'm at home I'll try to add it but if I'm driving that is not going to happen and I'll just use something else.
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Yeah, that's a great call-out. While I can reckon my way most places, memorizing cross streets isn't my strength. Not having at least decent recency on top of traffic makes it tough.
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Thank you for contributing! The task of mapping every street and business in the world sounds impossible, but openstreetmap.org does really well.
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I'll preface this by saying I can't speak for India. I live in the US. Use your own discretion to decide what here might apply to you.

I've been using Organic Maps for almost 3 years. I lived in Chicago during this time, as well as some smaller American cities. I go back and forth between Organic Maps and GMaps depending on the situation.

I've found that Organic Maps' lack of traffic data isn't a big deal for me. It doesn't always give you an accurate ETA, sure, but it isn't any worse at actually getting you to your destination.

The thing with GMaps is that everyone has traffic data, so nobody has an advantage. Google's alternative routes end up equally saturated as the main routes, meaning a "dumb" maps app that always takes the main route will get you to your destination in basically the same amount of time. This is backed up by my own personal experience, and some academic research [1].

Now, when I do need an accurate ETA, I go back to GMaps. I'll also use GMaps to route to businesses sometimes, because OSM doesn't have up-to-date info about businesses throughout most of middle America.

[1]: https://trid.trb.org/view/1495267

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> I've found that Organic Maps' lack of traffic data isn't a big deal for me. It doesn't always give you an accurate ETA, sure, but it isn't any worse at actually getting you to your destination.

Some places live traffic information gives you a choice between a 10 minute way and 40 minute way though, if you get stuck in the wrong spots it really truly sucks, and for us who live in these places, being able to easily route around those spots saves us a bunch of time and energy.

I want to use any client app that uses OSM for car navigation, as I contribute both money and map fixes, but currently nothing seems to come close to either Wave or Google Maps when it comes to traffic information, which ends up being pretty important (for some), so I end up using Organic Maps only for when I walk on foot.

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In Europe you could use NUNAV, which does collaborative routing to avoid this scenario (I work for the company that develops it).
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I prefer Google Maps cause they'll tell you where pigs camp out.

Saved me a lot of speeding tickets on the interstate.

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Comaps can display your current speed and (if it's in the data) the speed limit for the road you're on - everything you need to avoid speeding tickets!
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It would be really cool to see the social situational awareness sharing feature be implemented in an open client over an open censorship resistant protocol. Because to me Google maps is just mass surveillance by the pigs even if it does happen to help you today, the long term incentive for big tech is to erode user freedom and collude with corrupt governments.
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Waze is way better for that and where Google gets its data, but delayed it seems, because they’re both Alphabet.
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There’s Magic Earth which uses OSM map data but also integrates live traffic information. Not sure whether it works in India, though.

https://www.magicearth.com/

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Have they tried/are there any plans of upstreaming that somehow? While I rely on proprietary services for car navigation today, if I move to a OSM-based services next, I'd want it to be similarly structured to actual OSM, not some proprietary bolted-on-top-of-OSM startup that will disappear/enshittificate within years.
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