Write Mission and Vision statement #70

oleg-rswll commented 2025年06月06日 06:11:06 +02:00

Currently the statements are drafts have been written by the team, would be great to have more people weigh in.

Mission
Provide easy navigating offline for drivers, hikers, and cyclists, with privacy-focus and open-source, made by and for the community.

Vision
A world in which the top choice for navigation software is free and developed through open collaboration.

Currently the statements are drafts have been written by the team, would be great to have more people weigh in. **Mission** Provide easy navigating offline for drivers, hikers, and cyclists, with privacy-focus and open-source, made by and for the community. **Vision** A world in which the top choice for navigation software is free and developed through open collaboration.

cregox commented 2025年06月13日 23:12:23 +02:00

i would really like to include the key term "free software" used by fsf and so deeply related to agpl3+. refer for instance to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software but don't pay too much attention to the first image around "foss". perhaps even add "libre" to the vision, as to re-enforce this idea.

and i will also enjoy a lot to remove all this focus on "offline", as i feel it stands as mostly detrimental to the "mission and vision", or slogan: technically it makes development of the app possible today. in practice, the maps needs constant update, probably from online sources. ideally, the updates would happen live! just to mention 1 simple way why "offline" ain't a good keyword here. "ofline first" might fit better, but do we really need to include "offline" at all on the mission?

comaps provides mapping and navigation even without any internet for drivers, hikers, and cyclists world wide, with fully transparent governance while respecting digital privacy. a free software made by and for the whole community.

with comaps, you will get there and enjoy all the way!

i would really like to include the key term "free software" used by fsf and so deeply related to agpl3+. refer for instance to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software but don't pay too much attention to the first image around "foss". *perhaps* even add "libre" to the vision, as to re-enforce this idea. and i will also enjoy a lot to remove all this focus on "offline", as i feel it stands as mostly detrimental to the "mission and vision", or slogan: technically it makes development of the app possible today. in practice, the maps needs constant update, probably from online sources. ideally, the updates would happen live! just to mention 1 simple way why "offline" ain't a good keyword here. "ofline first" might fit better, but do we really need to include "offline" at all on the mission? > comaps provides mapping and navigation even without any internet for drivers, hikers, and cyclists world wide, with fully transparent governance while respecting digital privacy. a free software made by and for the whole community. > with comaps, you will get there and enjoy all the way!

IXVG47QZ commented 2025年06月21日 05:02:20 +02:00

@cregox wrote in #70 (comment):

and i will also enjoy a lot to remove all this focus on "offline", as i feel it stands as mostly detrimental to the "mission and vision", or slogan: ... do we really need to include "offline" at all on the mission?

At first I was against this because being able to route offline is one of CoMaps biggest benefits over Google/Apple maps. But....

Most people have been trained to think of "online, always connected" as good and "offline, no connection" as bad. Also @cregox has a good point that live updates are not inherently bad. Maybe one day we will have live maps with CoMaps? So it might not make sense to include offline in the mission. Maybe focus more on the things that are more central to the project: open source, community, privacy.

Maybe either remove "offline", or use "online and off" instead. After all, the app works just as well when you're connected to the internet!

@cregox wrote in https://codeberg.org/comaps/Governance/issues/70#issuecomment-5244900: > and i will also enjoy a lot to remove all this focus on "offline", as i feel it stands as mostly detrimental to the "mission and vision", or slogan: ... do we really need to include "offline" at all on the mission? At first I was against this because being able to route offline is one of CoMaps biggest benefits over Google/Apple maps. But.... Most people have been trained to think of "online, always connected" as good and "offline, no connection" as bad. Also @cregox has a good point that live updates are not inherently bad. Maybe one day we will have live maps with CoMaps? So it might not make sense to include offline in the mission. Maybe focus more on the things that are more central to the project: open source, community, privacy. Maybe either remove "offline", or use "online and off" instead. After all, the app works just as well when you're connected to the internet!

zyphlar commented 2025年06月22日 09:25:33 +02:00

I think the ability to not depend on connected services is a major goal, because it also represents freedom (not relying on our servers etc.) Online services might be a possibility but as a secondary option I think

I think the ability to not depend on connected services is a major goal, because it also represents freedom (not relying on our servers etc.) Online services might be a possibility but as a secondary option I think

IXVG47QZ commented 2025年06月22日 23:51:01 +02:00

@zyphlar wrote in #70 (comment):

I think the ability to not depend on connected services is a major goal, because it also represents freedom (not relying on our servers etc.) Online services might be a possibility but as a secondary option I think

I don't disagree, but I'm not sure that offline or online, either one, is central to the mission of the app. And you're right, freedom is the benefit of offline routing. So instead of offline, maybe replace that with freedom and privacy, and that gets more to the heart of the project IMO.

@zyphlar wrote in https://codeberg.org/comaps/Governance/issues/70#issuecomment-5523461: > I think the ability to not depend on connected services is a major goal, because it also represents freedom (not relying on our servers etc.) Online services might be a possibility but as a secondary option I think I don't disagree, but I'm not sure that offline or online, either one, is central to the mission of the app. And you're right, freedom is the benefit of offline routing. So instead of offline, maybe replace that with freedom and privacy, and that gets more to the heart of the project IMO.

cregox commented 2025年06月23日 14:22:41 +02:00

forget online vs offline.

we need to get the map data from somewhere.

and we need to keep it updated.

the ideal scenario will be: get as much data as possible, intelligently and automatically, and keep it always updated ("live"), without affecting the cellphone battery (ie, only auto check and update while charging and fully charged).

for that, it needs to check for every source, whenever possible, and update the data as often as available (given the optimal scenario).

the app even already do try to do all of this! but the current process ain't so automated (from the app perspective), nor intelligent (for instance, i need to download a few gb if i want to be more confident i won't miss anything and have to wait for it to download the missing blocks), and the data only gets updated once in a while. also, it doesn't download just a small diff of updates (as it could potentially do) but the whole thing all over again, every time.

in fact, i think mentioning "offline first" and "privacy oriented" in marketing and basically everywhere stands as good practice. but when we get to the very short core of the maps, it ain't about any of that.

on a second thought, i noticed now i did put "privacy" there on my own suggestion for the mission. even though i have the same feelings for using the word and concepts of "privacy" as i do for "offline".

and, right now anyway, the app does work primarily as a user would expect of an offline app...

so perhaps i can suggest a new mission with all this in mind, which i feel still begs for a lot of improvement:

comaps provides mapping and easy navigation for drivers, hikers, and cyclists world wide. built with fully transparent governance and free software practices: it respects digital privacy and also works fully offline. made by and for the whole community.

forget online vs offline. we need to get the map data from *somewhere*. and we need to keep it updated. the ideal scenario will be: get as much data as possible, intelligently and automatically, and keep it always updated ("live"), without affecting the cellphone battery (ie, only auto check and update while charging and fully charged). for that, it needs to check for every source, whenever possible, and update the data as often as available (given the optimal scenario). the app even already do try to do all of this! but the current process ain't so automated (from the app perspective), nor intelligent (for instance, i need to download a few gb if i want to be more confident i won't miss anything and have to wait for it to download the missing blocks), and the data only gets updated once in a while. also, it doesn't download just a small diff of updates (as it could potentially do) but the whole thing all over again, every time. in fact, i think mentioning "offline first" and "privacy oriented" in marketing and basically everywhere stands as good practice. but when we get to the very short core of the maps, it ain't about any of that. on a second thought, i noticed now i did put "privacy" there on my own suggestion for the mission. even though i have the same feelings for using the word and concepts of "privacy" as i do for "offline". and, right now anyway, the app does work primarily as a user would expect of an offline app... so perhaps i can suggest a new mission with all this in mind, which i feel still begs for a lot of improvement: comaps provides mapping and easy navigation for drivers, hikers, and cyclists world wide. built with fully transparent governance and free software practices: it respects digital privacy and also works fully offline. made by and for the whole community.

pastk commented 2025年06月24日 12:53:43 +02:00

A PR to update the mission and vision statements: #94

A PR to update the mission and vision statements: https://codeberg.org/comaps/Governance/pulls/94