MAPS.ME to Organic Maps/Rise of OM

On December 20, 2020, version 2.0 of the app was released. It was a complete rebuild based on the MapBox SDK. The design and architecture had changed significantly, and many long-time users were disappointed with the new direction. In response, one user posted a message titled "MAPS.ME is gone. We must bring it back," linking to a Telegram group. That message led to discussions among users and developers who were interested in creating a new version of the app—one that would be fully community-driven and transparent. Several forks appeared in the first days. Among them was the foundation of what would become Organic Maps. The new project started with a voice call between Roman Tsisyk and Alexey Naumenko, who decided to organize the initial structure of a proper open-source alternative. Within two days, from December 27 to 28, 2020, they laid out the first GitHub issues, drafted the project plan, set up development infrastructure, and defined guidelines for governance and community participation. Roman was named interim project manager, and Alexey took charge of community coordination. The project adopted the Developer Certificate of Origin (DCO) instead of a Contributor License Agreement, giving contributors more control over their work. Ads and proprietary services were removed from the codebase. A name was chosen—initially "OMaps"—before eventually settling on Organic Maps. The first Android release using the app.omaps identifier was approved on January 3, 2021. The app initially used data from an existing fork and gradually developed its own identity and direction. The first bug report was received on January 5. Since then, Organic Maps has grown through volunteer contributions. As of late 2024, the project had more than 10,000 stars on GitHub and over 100 contributors. It continues to offer a privacy-focused, ad-free, community-maintained navigation app built on OpenStreetMap. This is how Organic Maps began: not as a new invention, but as a continuation of ideas, shaped by changing ownership, user expectations, and the potential of open collaboration.