#XMPP Summit

Listen in to our next topic "Encrypted profile/vCard".

The XMPP Summit:
xmpp.org/2025/11/xmpp-summit-2…

Meet us at #FOSDEM 2026, too!

#jabber #chat #opensource #messaging #federation #Brussels, #Belgium #opensource #rtc

Rachel Gilmore has found 9 Canadian companies profiting off ICE contracts, -- all but one of whom also have contracts with the Canadian government ... so our taxes at work for ICE. #cdnpoli

For those who decline to visit substack:
Garda, Hootsuite, JSI Telecom, Roshel, Thomson Reuters, Jim Pattison, Magnet Forensics, Icor Technology, and CGI Inc.
Only Roshel doesn't have a Canada gov contract.
Note ATCO Frontec is not one of them.
rachelgilmore.substack.com/p/a…

A list of Canadian companies profiting off of ICE and Trump's violent mass deportation regime

Watch now | Several Canadian companies appear to be pocketing profits as this horrific agenda rolls out.

^{Rachel Gilmore (Bubble Pop with Rachel Gilmore)}

Seeing some company-internal post about AI trainings and AI strategy kickoff makes me want to reply with “I really couldn’t care any less about this. I hope it goes nowhere. I can’t wait for the AI bubble to burst.” I don't dare, so instead I'll share some thoughts here.

1/n

#XMPP Summit

After a break with many interesting discussions we are now at "Pinned messages".

The XMPP Summit:
xmpp.org/2025/11/xmpp-summit-2…

Meet us at #FOSDEM 2026, too!

#jabber #chat #opensource #messaging #federation #Brussels, #Belgium #opensource #rtc

Indonesia’s Communications and Digital Ministry opened a job vacancy and invited the public to apply by dropping their resumes and other required documents into a publicly accessible Google Drive. Turns out you can access and download all of the documents submitted by everyone who applied.

Someone pointed it out in an Instagram video which went viral and soon after he’s had multiple and sustained phishing and hacking attempts of his social media and email accounts.

Learn about all the cool projects #GNOME contributors have been working on by watching some talks at #FOSDEM!

Here is a list for Saturday:

WebRTC support in #WebKitGTK and WPEWebKit with #GStreamer: Current status and plans fosdem.org/2026/schedule/event…

Funding Lessons Learned Panel fosdem.org/2026/schedule/event…

Machine Learning in GStreamer: Frameworks, Tensors, and Analytics fosdem.org/2026/schedule/event…

Running #GNOMEOS on mobile phones fosdem.org/2026/schedule/event…

FOSDEM 2026 - Running GNOME OS on mobile phones

^fosdem.org

🎉 Happy New Year! 🎉

Already in Brussels for FOSDEM? Or just around? Join us today for OSGeo.be’s New Year drink at **Cercle des Voyageurs**—kickoff at 18:30! Everyone is welcome to celebrate open geo, new projects, and good company. Let’s toast to 2026 together! 🥂

#OSGeo #FOSDEM

“Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.”

― Frank Herbert, _Dune_

Are there any open APIs left?

shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/01/are-t…
One of the dreams of Web 2.0 was that website would speak unto website. An "Application Programming Interface" (API) would give programmatic access to structured data, allowing services to seamlessly integrate content from each other. Users would be able to quickly grab data from multiple sources and use them for their own purposes. No registration or API keys, no tedious EULAs or meetings. Just pure synergy!

Is that dream dead? If so, what killed it?

A decade ago, I posted a plea looking for Easy APIs Without Authentication with a follow up post two years later. I wanted some resources that students could use with minimal fuss. Are any of the APIs from 10 years ago still alive?

Alive

These ones are still around:

• Wikipedia - Yes! Still going strong.
• Police.uk - Yes! After a brief dalliance with API registration, it is now back to being completely free and open.
• Google Books ISBN - Yes! Obviously Google have forgotten it exists; otherwise it would have been killed off by now!
• iTunes Lookup - Yes! Possibly the only thing Apple don't charge a premium for.
• Pokémon API - and still receiving frequent updates.
• MusicBrainz - this Internet stalwart will never die.
• Open Notify - a collection of space APIs, although the code hasn't been updated in ages.

Dead

These have shuffled off this mortal coil:

• BBC Radio 1 - No.
• Twitter URL statistics - LOLSOB No.
• Star Wars API - No.
• British National Bibliography - No. Dead due, I think to the British Library's cyber attack.
• Football Data - gone.

API Key Required

These are still alive, but you either need to pay or register to use them:

• Google Location
• Spotify
• OpenMovieDB
• Open Air Quality

What Happened?

Something something … enshittification … blah blah … zero interest rate phenomenon … yadda yadda our incredible journey …

But back in the land of rationality, I've had a lots of experiences running APIs and helping people who run them. The closure and lockdown of APIs usually comes down to one or more of the following.

APIs cost money to run. Yes, even the static ones have a non-zero cost. That's fine if you're prepared to endless subsidise them - but it is hard to justify if there's no return on investment. Anyway, who is using all this bandwidth? Which leads on to:

Lack of analytics. Yes, I know tracking is the devil, but it is hard to build a service if you don't know who is using it. Sure, you can see traffic, but you can't tell if it is useful to the end consumer, or what value you can share. There's no way to communicate with an anonymous consumer. Which, of course, takes us to the next barrier:

Communication is key. If you need to change your API, there's no way to tell users that a change is coming. That might be the announcement of a deprecation, an outage, or an enhancement. You can try smuggling error messages into your responses and hoping someone notices a failing service somewhere - but it's much easier to email everyone who has an API key. And you know what else keys are good for?

Stopping abuse. It'd be nice if everyone played nice online; but some people are raging arseholes. Being able to throttle bad actors (figuratively or literally) is a desirable feature. On a resource constrained service, you sometimes have to put rules in place.

Still, if you know of any good open APIs which don't require registration, and that you think will survive until 2036, please drop a link in the comments.
#api #coding

PokéAPI

An open RESTful API for Pokémon data

^pokeapi.co

#XMPP Summit

Continuing after the lunch break with #XEP-0503: #Server-side #spaces. xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0503.h…

The XMPP Summit:
xmpp.org/2025/11/xmpp-summit-2…

Meet us at #FOSDEM 2026, too!

#jabber #chat #opensource #messaging #federation #Brussels, #Belgium #opensource

#Rezension

"Die mutige Rebellin: Rosa Parks – Ihr unnachgiebiger Kampf gegen die Unterdrückung wurde zur weltverändernden Bewegung" (biografischer historischer Roman) von James A. Sullivan und Patricia Eckermann

1/🧵
#Lesen #Buch #RosaParks

#Reading
Apparently, in the wider bookish community, there is this idea that listening to audiobooks doesn't count as reading. This idea is ableist af.
I mean, what about blind people?

And besides, what about people who can focus better and longer when listening (audio), instead of reading (visual)?

What about people who can better focus on listening to stories while doing something, for instance going for a walk, doing sports, crocheting, knitting, or arts and crafts?

#audiobooks #books

My 1st talk for #EUOpenSourceWeek is done. Great to present on #a11y #WAD & #EAA at the #Drupal4Gov

I'm enjoying the great talks. Recurring focus on #procurement & drive to #DigitalSovereignty

Looking forward to #FOSDEM on the weekend.

Photo isn't me.

A warm thank you to our sponsors Element and Famedly for enabling us to set up Hackathon tomorrow, in Brussels! Can't make it? We will livestream the results at 17:00 CET!

Element is sponsoring the video stream, and the dinner, while Famedly sponsors the lunch and drinks. Thanks to them both we can keep our community fed and refreshed to tackle the important challenges ahead of them!

matrix.org/blog/2025/12/fosdem…

Find us at FOSDEM

Matrix, the open protocol for secure decentralised communications

^{Thib (matrix.org)}

Digital Independence Day is coming up this Sunday - and we at Tuta are proud to be part of it!

Never heard about #DIDay? It comes from Germany 🇩🇪 🥨 but it's time to go global!

🎉➡️ tuta.com/blog/digital-independ…

Tonight's the night to remember - let's honour and celebrate the individuals and communities that re-defined open source in Europe!

Who will be taking home the Special Recognition Awards, and the prestigious Prize for Excellence in Open Source?

@Amandine @nightrose @bagder @astornc
#EOSA26 #EOSAcademy

#XMPP Summit

Being an unconference, every participant will raise agenda points and then those will be prioritized by interest. The first topic is "XMPP 2.0".
xmpp.org/2025/11/xmpp-summit-2…

Meet us at #FOSDEM 2026, too!

#jabber #chat #opensource #messaging #federation #Brussels, #Belgium #opensource

Save the date: Our FOSDEM social event takes place on Saturday 31st

1. Pizza🍕: pommodorobxl.be/fr
7.30-9.30pm

2. Drinks🍻 at garden bar: deliriumvillage.com/bar/floris…
9.30pm onwards