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As mentioned in the post there's a _free_ API for non-commercial use that I maintain, and you can make commercial use of it by becoming a GitHub Sponsor:

http://github.com/sponsors/protomaps

But being "Google Maps compatible" will never be possible as long as the Google Maps client library and data are proprietary.

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That's awesome, just saw that myself! This is a super cool project.

Fwiw with "Google Maps compatible" I didn't mean showing Google's Maps, I was thinking more a drop-in replacement to (some subset of) Google's client library.

Hmm, I haven't heard of any open source projects re-implementing Google's client library, and I imagine it would be difficult to keep parity with a closed-source project.

Most open source efforts have consolidated around MapLibre GL https://maplibre.org which is a maintained fork of Mapbox GL before their switch to a source-available license.

Most Google Maps client library users use only a few basic features - "display slippy map here with a pin centered on here" type thing.

Then just stub out any other API call with "alert('Not implemented, but PR's welcome!')"

And as far as webmasters are concerned, switching from google maps to your maps involves just switching out the <script> tag for a different one.

An API is an API. The code behind it being closed is irrelevant.

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