Traveling OSM Salesgirl Problem ✊🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️🇺🇦🇵🇸

New main account of @contrapunctus@en.osm.town (Akkoma > Mastodon!)

A lonely anarchist living in fascist #Mumbai #India. Pan polyam pre-HRT transfem.

Writer/copy editor at @prav@venera.social ( https://prav.app )

Obsessive #OpenStreetMap contributor, teacher, mapping party organizer. Other #OpenData projects I contribute to are #BeaconDB, #MangroveReviews, and #WikimediaCommons.

#FreeSoftware contributor and #Privacy activist. Fighting centralization (WhatsApp, Discord, Telegram, ATProto/Bluesky, Signal, etc) in favor of federation - #XMPP, #Fediverse. I like #CommonLisp, living programs, and structural editing; I've also written some #EmacsLisp and #Scheme.

I'm unemployed and make less than $3/week for my contributions. Please support my work on Liberapay - even $5/month would help a lot!
https://liberapay.com/contrapunctus/
If you don't like PayPal, here are some more options -
https://contrapunctus.codeberg.page/support.html

Fan of #cooperatives, #PublicTransport, #Bicycles, #CargoBikes, and #Velomobiles. #FuckCars.

In a past life, I was
a classical guitarist (ATCL), operatic singer, and musical theatre artist (composer, actor, director).

Profile picture is a selfie of myself. I'm wearing a camel-colored traveler's hat, a grey OpenStreetMap India T-shirt, and a grey-and-turquoise 3M 6502QL reusable half-mask #elastomeric #respirator with grey-and-purple 3M P100 7093 enclosed filters.

Header image is a group photo of the participants from the 16th OSM Delhi Mapping Party in Rohini. It shows nine men and four women in a park, some sitting and some standing, smiling at the camera.

* #contraMaps - all OpenStreetMap stuff - edits, mapping party diaries (for party announcements and photos, see #OsmNcr, #OsmMumbai, and @OSMIndia@en.osm.town), talks, workshops, advocacy, etc
* #contraCam - photos - mostly of #trains - and #WikimediaCommons contributions
* #contraReviews - my Mangrove Reviews contributions
* #contraCodes - programming
* #contraXMPP - Jabber/XMPP stuff
* #contraLibre - software freedom stuff
* #contraCooks - food
* #contraPPE - respirators and stuff
* #contraPonders - miscellaneous thoughts

#nobot #noindex #noarchive #nosearch #nobridge

Public Key

npub1s3c58fsupl60j7kv2xvzapw2myy9rpuzckft6c39dcz326zx36kqj5alqa

NIP-05 Address

contrapunctus@fe-disroot-org.mostr.pub

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsggu2r5cwqla8e0tx9rxpwsh9djzz3s7pvty4avgjkupg4dprgatqpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0dsl9zw8x

Publishing to

nostr.wine

relay.damus.io

nos.lol

Author Public Key

npub1s3c58fsupl60j7kv2xvzapw2myy9rpuzckft6c39dcz326zx36kqj5alqa

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Published at

2026-10-20T01:54:25Z

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Event JSON

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Last Notes

2026-10-04 16:15:34 UTC

Contrapunctus’ Laws of #SoftwareFreedom Evangelism:
Monopolist [1] software will always backstab users.
Anti-monopolist [2] software will always be more trustworthy. [3]
Monopolist software will always get more investment, and therefore better features, better UX, and more marketing.
Users must always use and support anti-monopolist software, even when it is lacking features or has worse UX or has fewer users. (Features can be added, UX can be improved, users can be onboarded…but monopolist software hardly ever becomes anti-monopolist.)
If you don’t push for anti-monopolist software, others will push monopolist software onto you.
Monopolist software creates illegitimate power over its users. It must be eliminated from the world. [4]
[1] a.k.a. proprietary, closed-source, etc, but also including centralized services and anything run by a BDFL or hierarchical organization.
[2] a.k.a. #FreeSoftware, #libre, #OpenSource, #FOSS, etc, but also including #decentralization and #cooperative governance.
[3] freedom to study = trust what it’s doing; freedom to share = trust that it will remain available; freedom to modify = trust that development can always resume, that anti-features can be removed, that features can be added; freedom to use = trust that you cannot be restricted; decentralization = trust that you can migrate away with minimum penalties; cooperative governance = trust that you can meaningfully influence the governance.
[4] Yes, I’m an anarchist, why do you ask?
#contraLibre

2026-09-24 11:11:38 UTC

A reminder that Prāv is offering paid work to improve #XMPP clients and servers. We need app developers (mobile, desktop, and web), translators, and designers.
This way, you can make money working on #libre software and #decentralized networks. Even better, it’s a #cooperative (in the process of registration), not a company - so the users and developers call the shots.
As the cherry on top, LLM-generated contributions are not allowed, as per the recent policy vote (announcement pending). So everyone who’s sick of genAI permeating the industry is welcome 🙂
Interested contributors should join the Prāv development channel - https://invite.joinjabber.org/#prav-devel@groups.durare.org?join
#FOSS #OpenSource #FreeSoftware #contraLibre #GetFediHired

2026-09-05 07:35:53 UTC

Because some technical folks* like to complain about #XMPP...
Every single problem in XMPP can happen in any other decentralized protocol as well. Hype can die, funds can dry up, implementations can stagnate, walled gardens can restrict what the implementations can do, design decisions can turn out to be the wrong ones years down the line (necessitating possibly unaesthetic hacks)...
At some point we all have to put our foot down and support established standards, no matter how (temporarily) inconvenient. Users, testers, and developers must do everything they can to help.
*The non-geeks are somehow never affected by the geek issues...or they don't really care ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

2026-08-07 08:17:28 UTC

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@nprofile…5uqu Do I know that feeling. 😮‍💨 Happy to do it over Jitsi Meet or XMPP.

2026-08-02 19:40:13 UTC

How do people manage to shoot themselves with rm? I’ve done so with disk partitioning, I’ve done that with #Git, but I can’t think of any such cases with rm 🤔
(Maybe it’s because I’m doing most of my file management with #Emacs + Dired…)
#Linux #Unix

2026-07-22 13:28:46 UTC

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@nprofile…2eew What’s up?

2026-06-13 20:12:56 UTC

Me and some friends want to wear anti-AI, anti-surveillance, and anti-Google badges to IndiaFOSS. Anyone got any design recommendations? Libre-licensed, of course 🙂
#antiAI #Privacy #Surveillance

2026-06-01 03:52:38 UTC

I’ve been visiting some malls of late, mostly looking for makeup shops. Naturally, this means I was mapping them too 🙂
I was personally looking for brands not on the BDS list (e.g. e.l.f., Huda, NARS, Tarte, Milani, Lush, Laneige, Étude, Charlotte Tilbury, and loads of Indian brands like Nykaa, Swiss Beauty, MARS, ColorBar, …), but I usually map all of them anyway.
(This constantly reminds me of why diversity is important for OSM - not many men would add POIs like this in such detail. Hell, it took me quite some time to work up the courage to actually walk into these shops to observe the brands they sell 😅)
Of course, mapping in malls also means…indoor mapping 😇 I love seeing indoor maps on OSM, and I hope routers can start supporting them soon. I recently also learned that, in addition to OsmAPP.org, Cartes.app is another app that uses IndoorEqual to display indoor features…and it also displays 3D buildings in color!
Saket - add 12 shops, 5 amenities, 10 building details, corridors (Achavi)
DLF Mall of India - add 12 shops, 11 amenities, building details, corridors; fix duplicate building and POIs (Achavi)
Most of the indoor mapping in this post has been done by estimation + Vespucci’s indoor mode, without any actual measurement or published plans. The results can be surprisingly decent. But I also took photos of the floor plans…let’s map from them soon 🙂 These malls could make for good mapping party venues as the summer gets worse.
#contraMaps #OpenStreetMap #OSM #BDSIsrael #Makeup
https://fe.upload.disroot.org/media/0fe2fe081e9b2bc578b1f5365033e32564eeb5c415de9a5d35efdf85d3061c5b.png
https://fe.upload.disroot.org/media/f08539b8b7f90ac1f9d1164b369e181bce3b26d01d304952cf98f4c47dc98675.png

2026-04-23 11:48:29 UTC

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@nprofile…u7p7 Happy to help 🙂 This was the lowest-hanging fruit, but I’d love to work on it further…can I make a pull request somewhere? (This is something I often do for my friends’ blog posts.)

2026-04-23 11:30:00 UTC

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@nprofile…u7p7 “it clouds more that it explains” -> “it clouds more than it explains”

2026-04-08 19:30:32 UTC

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@nprofile…2eew Ah…take care.

2026-04-08 18:59:19 UTC

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@nprofile…2eew What’s up? 👀

2026-01-16 04:31:05 UTC

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Another one - @nprofile…ap7t https://nicecrew.digital/objects/57063fc5-ed39-41f8-9f72-f023f51819b8 #FediBlock

2026-01-16 04:24:25 UTC

The trash is certainly out in full force today. #FediBlock
Here’s one. @nprofile…qdrv
And here’s another! @nprofile…e3w8
Racist, calls for killing people of color - https://nekosat.work/objects/f3516577-13aa-4c7b-9be3-21d96ffbe074 And killing transgender people - https://nekosat.work/objects/a939b608-1bd8-4793-9bd0-39fcd1a1672f And coordinated bullying. https://nekosat.work/objects/8aa4c9cf-836b-4029-9db5-51ed4a7b5827

2026-01-10 10:49:17 UTC

As an addendum to my earlier post…a lot of people from the free software community could stand to be more gentle and more patient with others.
There’s a lot of anger there, but harboring and expressing anger or irritation at your audience is a great way to alienate them.
Someone doesn’t have the same knowledge as you?
If you have an expectation that “they ought to know!”, your response will make you (and others) miserable grumps.
But if you see it as a gift, an opportunity to help someone…you will automatically be gentle, patient, and happy to help.
Obviously, such an attitude will also lead to more success at introducing others to alternative software.
#FreeSoftware #OpenSource #FOSS #Privacy #Linux #contraLibre

2026-01-05 12:18:18 UTC

#Fediblock recommendation - @nprofile…n8q3
A single glance at the profile ought to be reason enough. 😅

2025-11-22 06:42:44 UTC

Just wanted to point out a few #FreedomRespecting / #libre apps* which are paid on the Play Store/App Store, and gratis on F-Droid.
They enable their developers to make a living. Yes, some aren’t solo projects, they have small paid teams -
The XMPP clients #Conversations, #Cheogram, and #MonoclesChat
#OsmAnd, the very powerful offline-first map which uses #OpenStreetMap for map data, #WikimediaCommons for photos, #Wikipedia for information, and #Wikivoyage for travel guides.
Hopefully this proves that it’s very much possible to make money writing anti-monopolist software…so people can stop making bullshit claims to the contrary.
Do you know of other examples?
*Sometimes known by the misleading terms #OpenSource or #FOSS
#contraLibre

2025-11-20 11:25:01 UTC

Software freedom activism is like telling passengers that the cruise ship they are on is sinking, and it’s high time they got to the lifeboats.
The lifeboats might not have all the creature comforts of the cruise ship, and there might be some unfamiliar nautical lingo and hard rowing involved, but they are the only ones which can be counted upon for the important job of keeping you afloat.
And next time, maybe don’t board a leaky ship, no matter how shiny it looks or how many luxuries it has or how many others are on it? 🤭
#FreeSoftware #SoftwareFreedom #Libre “ #FOSS “ “ #OpenSource “

2025-11-15 23:19:04 UTC

If you have a public-facing web service and you use #CloudFlare…
Fuck you.
Double fuck you.
Triple fuck you, just for good measure.
— signed on behalf of all #Tor users.
(Did I mention that everyone should be using #TorBrowser by default, and servers like yours make it unnecessarily difficult?)

2025-10-11 11:35:59 UTC

I feel for this user - I’m a fellow ADHD sufferer and their distress is all too clear to me - and I tried to help them in the replies.
But on the other hand, I’m utterly enraged at the broader problem, and all the people who aren’t taking action today, choosing instead to wait until the water is past their neck.
This is the latest example of why we shouldn’t use #nonfree / #proprietary / #restricted and #centralized platforms like #Telegram, #Discord, #WhatsApp, #Signal, #Instagram, #Facebook, #Twitter, #LinkedIn, #Bluesky, #GitHub, and others.
There’s a whole-ass history of centralized platforms having the same class of issues. When are y’all gonna stop ignoring the problem and start exercising the power you have?
It’s as simple as quitting centralized platforms, switching to #FreedomRespecting #decentralized platforms like #ActivityPub and #XMPP, and telling others to do the same.
Create your communities there, and tell others about them. Move all your activity there. Onboard your friends and family. When there’s no other way to reach you, they will move.
Keep up the social pressure, and never relent.
Here’s a user’s guide to XMPP, for whoever needs it.
And developers? Get involved, improve the protocols, the clients, the servers…heck, I’m pretty sure a lot of features and fixes are popular/longstanding enough to make it feasible to crowdfund your patches!
#FreeSoftware #Libre #OpenSource
https://fe.upload.disroot.org/media/d25905b343c95d519f932782d3e50fe8db7de529484b67ee0e886c252899d0a3.png

2025-06-07 11:55:30 UTC

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@nprofile…vklh @nprofile…j2ky I think Prāv (which is a fork of Quicksy) was interested in working on that.
But you’re missing the point - XMPP gives you freedom of service providers. You don’t have to use Quicksy or Prāv, not even to talk to Quicksy or Prāv users. You could use any of the many public servers, or host your own to have even stronger guarantees than Signal.

2025-06-07 10:14:26 UTC

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@nprofile…j2ky @nprofile…vklh Look into #XMPP.
Projects like Quicksy and Prāv use phone numbers and allow easy onboarding and contact discovery. Unlike Signal, there’s no lock-in - you can choose other servers which don’t need a phone number, or host your own server (for which see Snikket, which allows for easy hosting of a private server, and provides rebranded clients and easy invitation-based onboarding), and still talk to Quicksy/Prāv users.
Servers on the XMPP network are also smaller and less convenient targets for backdoors, corporate takeovers, lawsuits, DDoS attacks, etc than the centralized servers of Signal etc. And since you can self-host it, you can actually trust that the server is running the code it has published.
For more information, please read The Quick and Easy Guide to XMPP. And if anybody is thinking of sharing any OMEMO FUD from a certain Signal fanboy…read this first.
http://moparisthebest.com/against-silos-signal/

2025-06-05 14:04:51 UTC

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@nprofile…vqps @nprofile…a24x @nprofile…r8eu @nprofile…pltp Why the scare quotes around male pregnancy and skin tones?

2025-06-04 08:42:15 UTC

Oooor maybe #Mastodon could finally implement emoji reactions? The issue for it has been open since 2017 and has 131 positive reactions…
https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/4106

2025-06-04 04:13:25 UTC

Begging all #Mastodon users to please move to #Pleroma, #Akkoma, #Misskey, #Sharkey…anything that supports emoji reactions. 🙏
I want to 😆 at your jokes. But all I can do is “like”.
I want to 🫂 you when you need it. But all I can do is “like”.
I want to express sadness. 😢 But all I can do is “like”.
I want to go beyond “like”, and say that I ❤️ something. But all I can do is “like”.
(I could always reply with the emoji, but that’s so noisy and intrusive…let’s use replies for actual replies, and reactions for the reactions, shall we?)
#Fediverse

2025-06-04 00:36:26 UTC

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@nprofile…uhjq I asked in the Cheogram/jmp.chat channel; quoting the response -
sounds like they are on Librem5? Chatty may work, but dino or https://app.cheogram.com is probably better especially if they want voice calls which I don’t think Chatty has

2025-06-04 00:26:13 UTC

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@nprofile…uhjq Ah 😆 Cheogram is an XMPP client for Android - a much-enhanced fork of the popular Android client Conversations.

2025-06-04 00:22:13 UTC

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@nprofile…uhjq You may be interested in https://jmp.chat/ 🤔 (run by the developers of Cheogram)

2025-06-03 15:39:02 UTC

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@nprofile…uhjq I only have XMPP clients installed. I can join any IRC channel from XMPP, thanks to Biboumi. Most Telegram rooms I’m in are bridged to Matrix, and I can join any Matrix room with Bifröst. I’m also in an XMPP channel bridged to Discord.
https://contrapunctus.codeberg.page/the-quick-and-easy-guide-to-xmpp.html#using-bridges
That said, I focus my activity on native XMPP channels…
https://contrapunctus.codeberg.page/the-quick-and-easy-guide-to-xmpp.html#onboarding-and-advocacy