There is some serious crapitalist hate for organic maps. I never heard of it util is was taken off the play store for a bit. I side loaded it that day.
Organic Maps is not at feature parity with paid options but it is pretty damn good for FOSS. I use it almost daily for driving around city/suburban Australia and it very rarely gives me bad directions - certainly no more than the paid option i previously used (Sygic).
Its also a really great base project to build on top of. The routing system is a plug in library which can be easily replaced. That means if someone wants to build something that collects and utilizes live data for traffic/construction avoidance they can totally do that. Adding new map layers is also a big one that they made sure is going to be easy to do.
Has anyone actually created a traffic plugin yet? This is one of the main reasons I use Magic Earth still. I regularly bounce between that, Organic, and OsmAnd. They all have slightly different features.
Has anyone actually created a traffic plugin yet?
The organic team doesnt wanna deal with collecting user data so they wont do it. Getting live location data from millions of people basically requires using and feeding into google services and thats a no go.
Ofcourse someone else could do it, but thats just a waste of time, if google can cut you off from their API at any point.
Even if you start your own project, no matter what you do, there will always have to be some company that collects all the data. That company no matter how cool and FOSS will eventually be forced to cooperate with law enforcement and then you are back to what we have now with google.
Location data is just too sensitive and impossible to anonymize properly.
But isn’t there a possibility to fetch data from official websites (like https://stau.info/ in Germany) around your place? It won’t be as good as google, but better than nothing.
As long as it only pulls data and doesnt share any its not as bad. But each of these local services most likely use different APIs and formats, so implementing it wont be so easy. For just large highways its realistic imo, but if you want data for inside cities it becomes impossible.
If the database of traffic info become so large that it’s impossible to download it all at once it means you have to selectively download data for your location/route which makes it possible to infer user location again.
Well, now I know what will be my daily driver. Thanks!
Anything to reduce the advertising revenue of these jackasses
It works well, and I’m a huge fan and contributor to Open Street Maps (which it’s bassed on). But it doesn’t do traffic, which is unfortunately wha I need from my navigation apps 99% of the time.
If they had a paid option to cover the costs of using TomTom’s traffic API, I’d make the switch.
But it is one of the best when it comes to cycling or walking. I’ve been using it for years now.
Why would it get removed? Can’t have any competition for Google Maps or what? Well, it won’t get removed on F-droid
Boycott all US based services.
American here, please do this.
All of our companies are run by scumbags taking advantage of useful idiots. We need more options and legitimate competition.
Especially github. I thought all of you were supposed to leave that when microsoft bought it. I never used it but I definitely wouldn’t these days…
This is the way.
Everyone who is censored, everyone who abuses their mod powers; it just creates an opportunity for people to pick up the slack and create better communities.
You only have yourselves to blame, dickhead mods.
So why were they blocked?
One of their main contributors are in US sanctioned regions (Russia) so they can’t access it.
Really! Can’t believe them. Yeah fk microsoft.
Russia is being sanctioned because of its aggressive war against Ukraine.
Microsoft aren’t the bad guys for enforcing international sanctions.
So what about the organic map users. They should ban the contributor if they need to ban it soo bad.
that’s practically impossible. TOR is alive and well, as if any rando in any country sanctioned by the u.s. cares.
of course they could Great China Firewall the shit out of everything and still fail.
but we’re on the downward spiral, so be gleeful!
So a person that happens to be iving in a sanctioned country, makes them banned? Bullshit
Yes. That’s how sanctions work.
Part of the intention is to pressure citizens of the country for violating international law so they exert pressure on their governments to stop.
Another part is to remove the use of tooling to support the sanctioned nation.
Russia could stop the war and problem is solved. This isn’t Microsoft being the bad guy, this is Microsoft following international law.
Does that work?
Is it right to tell random people “hey you, it’s your job to break local laws and topple your dictator, we could invade you with actual trained military people but that would be inconvenient for us”?
“Is it right?” Are you kidding? Yes, it’s obviously a better alternative than invading another country and killing people. It’s one of the ways we have learned, as a species, to avoid massive wars and losses of life. If you’re advocating for war as an alternative then you should fuck off and die so you don’t get other people killed in the process.
Is a strictly enforced economic sanction better than an all out regime change invasion/occupation of another sovereign country that costs the lives of millions… we’ll have to get back to you on that one.
No, it’s not right.
People on these forums have been conditioned to see the world through their fairytale-lens and nothing else, though.
A part of oppression is removing people’s ability to fight back. Anyone who holds the average Russian responsible for the war is just playing into the hands of the cabal. It’s like they never heard of Navalny, or any other Russian dissenters.
These people need our help. We shouldn’t victim-blame them and say they need to topple a dictator all on their own.
Same goes for North Korea.
I assume most Russian GitHub users use a VPN to avoid it. He has chosen not to in order to make a point.
The real worry is what happens when the US declares sanctions on random allies in their stupid “trade war”…
Once the US starts saying that nobody who trades with the US can deal with Canada, Denmark, Mexico, etc… then it starts to get interesting.
Or if the US fucks up enough for the rest of the world to put a UNO reverse card on the US. If China and the EU do that, the US is fucked within a few months. A “you can’t trade with either of these markets when you trade with the US” would be interesting.
And tbh, from what I gather it’s absolutely a option that is being discussed in diplomatic circles. The main reason it’s not on the table is the huge amount of debts the USA has in China. And the EU will use it as a backup arrow for “further escalation”. Maybe someone should tell Trump who actually delivers the machines for the factories he wants to “bring back”. Hint: It’s not the US.
yes, that is the purpose of sanction. to target the lowest rung of society for supporting and promoting the invasion of Ukraine.
Yes,you understand how sanctions work.
A person living in a sanctioned country can also no longer buy certain things, travel to certain countries or use certain services. You couldn’t buy a Boeing Plane during WW2 in Germany as well…
And considering that Russia is waging a fucking genocidal war and a hybrid war in Europe and a majority (according to relatively independent statistics) of the population stil supports that shit and has done so for a long time (when they still could have changed course) it’s god damn right these sanctions exist.
BTW: Cuba is being sanctioned by the US for simply nationalising US held companies (Fidel Castro wasn’t that much of a communist in the beginning) since 1960 and basically none gave or gives a rats ass.
a majority (according to relatively independent statistics) of the population stil supports that shit and has done so for a long time
Most Russians are afraid to talk about politics at all. Their responses when questioned are either “I agree with what the government is doing” or “I don’t talk politics.”
We should be strengthening our ties with these oppressed people in order to help them, and help Ukraine as a result. Instead we’re doing the “average intelligence” play of furthering their oppression while funneling money to the MIC.
This war has been a great example of how many useful idiots are around us.
It is bullshit, you’re right.
Sanctions are bullshit economic violence. This is a great example.
Probably better this economic violence than I dunno, the physical violence Russia has exerted on the Ukrainian populace?
Not sure why you’re arguing “better” when we have both.
I don’t think we’re currently doing both of those things to Russia.
K
Microsoft literally had no choice.
when you’re a corporation with billions of dollars and US politicians cost millions on the high end, you can choose to do whatever you want.
“Microsoft continues to work with Russians despite sanctions due to ongoing war in Ukraine” is probably not a headline they want to see.
Of course not, but can you say that it’s not convenient for them to stiffle foss alternatives to microsoft/apple/google software? many open source projects are at least partially made by russian developers.
It is still an unnecessary risk for them.
true, but let’s not pretend that they were without agency in this decision and in decisions leading up to the current context.
When the big tech guys showed up to the inauguration and sat in the front row to pay tribute it was such a clear example of how capital always yields to authoritarians.
Government and major corporations are the exact same entity in the US.
Exactly. The real issue is the sanctions against Russia. Why those sanctions involve FOSS projects, I’ll never understand.
they were blocked for supporting russia invasion of Ukraine.
Source?
I mean the owners of this “Estonian” company are Russian and Belarussian (company ownership is public record here in Estonia and foreigners can easily start companies), so I wouldn’t be surprised, but I also hate how easily unsubstantiated claims spread on the Internet.
can someone make a quick intro to what happends for microsoft to block organicmaps account ?
Going by their Mastodon account, seems they were erroneously detected as “from a US-sanctioned region” and it took too long for said error to be resolved, so they just made the switch.
“US sanctioned region” is russia. The developer team fully consist of russian citizens, some of them are still in russia.
The developer team fully consist of russian citizens
I dont think thats correct. Do you have a source? The predecessor that it was forked from
maps.memaybe, but the current dev team has nothing to do with that project anymore.I was wrong, not entirely, but 6-7 out of 10. Had to doublecheck. https://github.com/orgs/organicmaps/people
And there’s a wiki page on maps.me(founders are the same, they just sold it and forked a few years later to create organicmaps) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maps.me
The only person on this list that lives in Russia is Alexey Naumenko. So what are you yappin about? So far i also cant see that name on the new member list https://git.omaps.dev/org/organicmaps/members
mapsme: founded by Yury Melnichek, later joined by Alexander Borsuk and Viktor Govako
organicmaps: founded by Roman Tsisyk (completely unrelated to mapsme) and later joined by Alexander Borsuk and Viktor Govako
So the founders are not the same, but some devs from the old project joined organic maps.
Not really nice of you to edit the message after it was replied to.
Changing your github profile location does not mean neither factual relocation, nor changing citizenship.
yappin
Just adding context, because thir wording makes everyone think like “out of the blue, by some stupid coincidence one of the developers possibly seemed to be somewhere around some misteruous sanctioned region”
Not really nice of you to edit the message after it was replied to.
I didnt…
My last edit was at: Saturday, March 29th, 2025 at 9:34:06 AM GMT+01:00
Your comment was posted at: Saturday, March 29th, 2025 at 9:45:53 AM GMT+01:00
Changing your github profile location does not mean neither factual relocation, nor changing citizenship.
Then where are you getting 6-7 from? Those people could be Polish or Ukrainian or born somewhere completely different. They could have moved, changed citizenship, whatever. I dont know. You dont know.
Why aren’t russian people allowed to upload code. Why does the US get to dictate everything
Microsoft is a US based company. They cannot legally make business with sanctioned entities. And since it’s not profitable for them - they just made a geoblock geoblock
Could MS ignore the sanctions in that case? probably
Aren’t they now based in Estonia since when the company was established?
They can be de jure in Estonia and de facto wherever they want.
E.g OnlyOffice claim to be based in baltics too, but the development office is still in Nizhniy Novgorod(russia).
Shit. I live in Denmark. How do you download a whole github repository, commits, issues and all?
You can make git clone and get all the code and commits. Issues are a GitHub feature and they cannot be downloaded by a simple git command
You can import it on an alternative like gitlab. The process of moving something from github to gitlab is just as smooth as if everything was contained in the repo itself.
Personally, recommend forgejo, gitlab has a lot of features I didn’t need and I found the upgrade process if you didn’t keep on top of it annoying. Forgejo actions are pretty similar to github ones and setting up runners is super straightforward.
Good question. Commits are easy - they are part of git core functionalities so are included in every copy of the repository (for example developers’ local copies) but github specific contents like comments, issues, PRs…?
This should also be part of git repo (but maybe not downloaded through typical git clone as it might be too large though). Has developers of git ever considered doing this?
The original developer of Git is Linus Torvalds and he wrote it for the use of developing Linux. He handed off the project to Junio Hamano after a short while who still leads it. They use a process where you submit patches by mail, for Linux and for Git itself too.
To make this easier they have the commands
git format-patch,git send-emailandgit applymboxlater changed togit amto apply them. They also addedgit request-pullto generate a short plaintext email like message to request a pull.The Pull Request as a bigger concept of data and discussion that should be kept around came from GitHub and was put over top of Git. The concept has been rebuilt by various competitors separately. But it doesn’t match the Linux and Git development model so they never used GitHub Pull Request, even though there is a GitHub mirror of Linux and a GitHub mirror of Git. For them the discussions happens in the mailing list.
So it’s very unlikely they would start including the stuff that was added by others over top, that they don’t need.
No, it they didn’t change anything add new git remote to the new address
deleted by creator
you can set up a repo mirror with forgejo
Given now that the US has a russian president, maybe the US should sanction itself lol
We need something like Forgejo, but decentralized and federated, like Lemmy. I don’t want to create a new account for every Forgejo instance, just to be able to report a bug…
Edit: Added “and federated”
Forgejo is in fact working on being decentralized, just like the underlying git structure is. There are some first federation things in there, but the full implementation is still pretty far out.
Git is decentralized itself… You don’t even need forgejo to host your changes
Git is already decentralized, nothing is stopping you from adding multiple remotes to your repo.
The issue tracker is usually the concern
Yeah, that was my point in the first comment… But not only that…
The development with multiple people is decentralized, yes…
But even, if I add 3 remotes to my repo (1 to GitHub, 1 to Forgejo instance A and 1 to Forgejo instance B), guess what happens, if you don’t have an account on each of these… Try pushing code or making a pull request and see how it fails, because you are not authenticated…
SourceHut encourages an e-mail–based workflow that does not require anyone but the repository owner to have an account. In fact, that’s how Git originally worked before GitHub enshittified it.
How would decentralization work for an issue tracker? The issues have to be stored somewhere.
naturally on the instance that hosts the repo
The issues should be central, but it would be nice for my reputation as a contributor to migrate between instances.
Federation is on their roadmap
You know, git initially was that kind of thing where people would send diff commits on mailing lists. Git is perfectly decentralized already. And there’s no need for federation.
Forgejo is already decentralized too. You could host your own instance right now, if you’d want.
There is this, havent tried
Gitea has basic federation, I believe
Gitea is where Forgejo forked from.
if you are looking for decentralised vcs you can try radicle, I tried a while ago pretty good. FYI Forgejo supports mastodon login
FYI Forgejo supports mastodon login
That’s interesting. Did not even know, Mastodon supported doing something like this…
There is still a difference: There is no profile in the end. I might create 2 bug reports, bit they won’t be linked to each other.
Have you heard of … Git?
:-)
Edit: I was jesting, got interesting responses!
There is no command
git issue create [hostname] [title] [description]and if there was such a command, it’d require authentication on the specific instance to prevent spam.You still need to create an account on each Forgejo instance to report a bug there…
And even, if you commit code or make a pull request… Git might be decentralized (you can develop with your friend independently from each other and merge it), but try to commit code to a GitHub project, GitLab instance or Forgejo instance without having an account there to authenticate yourself… It won’t work.
You mean git inherently requires you to identify yourself?
Huh, shock
I’m not sure what you are trying to say.
My point was from the beginning that I don’t want to create 2 accounts when I report a bug a bug on Forgejo instance 1 and on instance 2.
The suggestion whether I have heard about git does not solve anything about that…
Some one else here mentioned that it’s possible to login with Mastodon on each of the instance, which is the correct direction (allows to report a bug on both instances via an external account). Disadvantage is still: My 2 bug reports are not linked to each other, because there is no shared Forgejo profile, which would actually require something like federation.
git identification has nothing to do with authentication, as any sane person with git experience knows
I think that’s bad (for my personal use) because if I accidentally commit a secret key, how do I claw it back? Basically, how would I claw anything back if it’s on a blockchain aka on thousands/millions of computers already (you can’t).
If you push a secret key you should definitely generate a new one. Way to many bots out there that scan new commits for exactly that reason
Yeah please just rotate the secret if that happens. Doesn’t matter what platform it is, this is true of GitHub as well. Secrets that are accidentally published are no longer secret.
Yeah it’s not an insurmountable problem but it has happened to me where I push some commits and I realize “oh lemme remove this code because it leaks a little info about me personally” etc
Obviously you go and change the key instead?
that’s already a concern. what if someone just cloned your repo? there’s also plenty of people that mirror public repos to their personal forgejo server. forgejo makes it very easy.
the only solution to mitigate such a mistake is to
1) invalidate the token
2) remove the commitIn that order.
I did not mean decentralized hosting of the projects (e.g. your project will be on all instances).
I meant decentralized account usage (e.g. you can use your example.com forgejo account to create an issue on otherexample.org)… Just like Lemmy… I could use my reddthat.com lemmy account to create a post on your instance lemmy.world without having to register there.
You are correct in principle, but Lemmy isn’t on a blockchain. It’s much less permanent.
You can make commits on your system without pushing them to the remote server, and that’s the default behavior.
Wouldn’t it be the other way around, having someone centralized so with one account you can report bugs in any public project?
Do you know how lemmy works?
I do, what I don’t know is how Forgejo works. Doesn’t having to make an account for every project mean it’s already decentraliced, but just doesn’t communicate between instances?
I agree that it’s already kind of decentralized, so I also added the word “federated” to my original post.
Okay, that makes it way more clear ;b
deleted by creator
Rather have it on IPFS or something like OrbitDB, so no one can just lock/delete stuff.
Codeberg is a non-profit that has no fees, but accepts donations. They only allow FOSS projects.
Why would I move away from git if I could just move away from github/lab and keep git?
Are you talking about Fossil ? Fossil’s commands are just like git’s & with the added benefit of having Github’s stuff like wiki & even a forum built into it
That’s a gimmick that doesn’t justify the costs of switching from Git (IMO)
If you want decentralized collaboration features in git without using forge software, you can use mailing lists like the Linux kernel does.
By what standard is GitLab not a “capitalist platform”? It feels even more corporatey than GitHub. From their homepage:
GitLab is the most comprehensive AI-powered DevSecOps Platform.
Yeah but it’s not Microsoft-controlled
Gitlab was created by a Ukrainian, and Microsoft is blocking Organic maps Russian developer due to sanctions due to war on ukraine, which is why what you’re suggesting is pretty cursed
Ok then use CodeBerg or SourceHut. Just anything that’s not GitHub
Anyone have the story behind this? Fuck Microsoft and all that, but Github has historically been pretty good when it comes to not banning people for stupid reasons. Usually, it’s a DMCA thing or a valid security threat.
Recently, there was some controversy about closed source code powering a component of the project (https://github.com/orgs/organicmaps/discussions/9837) but I didn’t keep up with that. Could this ban be related to that?
Some contributer got flagged by US sanctions based on their IP, I think
That’s weird. Russians and Americans aren’t sanctioned from working on projects together. The sanctions are mostly targeted towards industry and defense. Tucker Carlson works for Russian media and freely travels between the two countries. There has to be something more to this, like the IP came from a known state actor.
They got unbanned, but it eroded trust that it won’t happen again
Ironically the US is more likely to drop the sanctions before Germany, where Codeberg is based.
Edit: They’ve gone self hosted. That makes more sense.
Viva la self-hosting!
Power to the people!
Welcome to the “free world”.
Russia is free to fuck off out of Ukraine, simple as.
I’m sure there is a lot that the random developer who happened to be born in Russia can do about that.
“Bro, just overthrow your government”. ~ random redditor, probably.
conservative: says a racial slur
Online Platform: bans user
conservative: “sO mUcH fOr tHe tOlEraNt lEfT 😡”
Removed by mod
Eh, you don’t really have a point when people get banned for saying men aren’t women.
Please elaborate? What exactly do you mean?
Removed by mod
Let me give you an analogy.
I was born in the People’s Republic of China. I immigrated to the United States of America when I was not even 10. I grew up in America, I grew attached to the principles of Freedom and Democracy. I went through the proper channels and I obtained Citizenship through the proper way. I am an American.
If someone were to tell me that I’m “not American”, and that because I was “born Chinese, I must be Chinese for the rest of my life”; or, in your phrasing: “A Chinese person cannot become American” you’d be a xenophobe.
Gender is a social contruct. If a man wants to be a woman, or a woman wants to be a man, just let them. Its not denying that they have XX or XY chromosomes, that is what their biology says. But being a “Man” or “Woman” are labels society attributes to those chromosomes, just like the concept of Nationality.
TLDR: Please just let people be whoever they want to be. If you start attacking people’s identity, nobody is gonna wanna talk to you. If you want to spread transphobia, you can go to twitter. Enjoy your nazi bar.
Censored for saying:
“People get banned for saying men aren’t women. You don’t have a point when mods abuse their power. Looks like my comment was censored for even pointing that out.”
Literally just proving me right and the original commenter wrong every time mods abuse their power here.
Person: *makes map app for everyone to use*
Twitter baby: “Racial slurs! Racial slurs!”
why is Organic Street Maps better than the other ones, that claim to be Open Street Maps derived?
bandwidth is not disposable ya’ll.
Two reasons:
- interface rocks
- maps are downloaded for offline use
I’ve been using OsmAnd for years, and offline maps has always been one of their main things.
OsmAnd is okay, but I really like the interface of Organic Maps better.
Organic Maps is definitely easier to use, especially for new users but OsmAnd is more powerful. I have both and they’re awesome.
that’s enough for me, except are the other ones not good?
downloading maps for offline – you nuts? how does anyone profit from the clicks?
They don’t - but at the same time it saves a ton of money on bandwidth
that is an extra plus feature i always wanted from a “smart” phone - offline maps. i spent money on some of those apps back when it was kicking off and a very few of them were actually helpful, like showing me actual USGS topo maps.
would not have helped me that much for survival on my Hawaiian big island fuckabout, because even the big island is not big enough to get truly lost. i tried!
eventually I went downhill on the volcano towards the ocean for a day or two until cell reception and called my girlfriend and told her I hit my head pretty hard and she should come get me.
still the maps would have been super interesting. also, Red River Gorge, and all the southwestern N. America desert.
I tried a lot of them and i like the interface of Organic the best.
Who could have ever anticipated Git hub going to shoot after Microsoft bought it
you can say shit on here. also fuck and cock and ass. it’s the internet
Could you like, stop policing other peoples speech? I am sure they know they can say shit on the internet, they just choose not to.
Some people just like swearing, it seems. Like it makes them feel like an adult or something, I dunno. Duck it.
how about you police my policing, and then i will police my whole ass
AssCopsAreBastards
you can’t just let them do whatever they want
BANG BANG BANG ASS POLICE OPEN UP
FUCK
don’t worry more ai slop in github will fix it
Microsoft products definitely gets worse over time lol
ai driven anti-spam is destroying the internet and deleting legitimate businesses every day. there is usually no customer support, and there are no humans in charge. there is nothing you can do.
Plausibly deniable attacks on political opposition.
This was always going to jappen datahoarders we have to mirror all of github!
You don’t even have to be a datahoarder to help. Run ArchiveTeam warrior on a computer
Easiest way if you’re already someone who needs to use Docker, is to throw this compose file somewhere and run it: Docker Compose file for Warrior
Why did they get removed? I feel like I’m missing a whole backstory here.
Seemingly one of the contributors has visited a disputed region and logged into GitHub from there. By law (export controls) Microsoft must not provide service to that place. So some automatism flagged the account and also the organic maps repo. So far so normal. But either Microsoft dragged it’s feet in communicating and resolving the issue or the organic maps team was not doing their part in the process. Doesn’t matter, the outcome is still worth it.
By law (export controls) Microsoft must not provide service to that place. So some automatism flagged the account and also the organic maps repo. So far so normal.
not normal at all! don’t serve the website. that is normal. but ban anyone logging in seemingly from there, on sight? that’s literally “shoot first, ask later” in tech! totally abnormal, if this is the reason
Don’t shoot the messenger. The regulations are pretty draconic. I have to ensure the training for that every year.
What are we, North Korea? We can’t accept information from certain countries? I can understand being wary of state-sponsored information terrorism, but “Hey, here’s a Cuban road? A good place for a guava and cheese pastry?”
Come on. This was really the trigger?
Apparently, one of the contributors did a push while visiting Cuba and since Cuba in sanctioned by US they just blocked the entire repo. Insane.
Source?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43492578
Other places mentioned ‘U.S. sanctioned region’.
Probably.
No self-respecting DEV would update README.md…
They’re a direct competitor to one of microsoft’s products, and a better one at that.
I love organic maps, sometimes I practice navigation by turning location off and using a compass with the downloaded map on my phone.
Nice! It even supports the same RSS feed format. For anyone who also wants FOSS releases injected straight into their veins https://git.omaps.dev/organicmaps/organicmaps/releases.atom
