21. Augsburger Linux-Infotag (26. April 2025)Augsburger Linux-Infotag 2025
In 2024, LibreOffice celebrated its fourteenth birthday. Two new major versions of the suite introduced a variety of new features, while minor releases helped to improve stability as well (This is part of The Document Foundation’s Annual Report for 2…Mike Saunders (The Document Foundation)
END OF 10
"Support for Windows 10 ends on October 14, 2025.
Microsoft wants you to buy a new computer.
But what if you could make your current one fast and secure again?
If you bought your computer after 2010, there's most likely no reason to throw it out. By just installing an up-to-date GNU/Linux operating system you can keep using it for years to come.
Installing an OS may sound difficult, but you don't have to go it alone! With any luck, there are people in your area ready to help!"
#Microsoft #Windows #Windows10 #Windows11 #Linux #FOSS
Just #donate 'd to 11 #foss projects, despite my irregular income ( #artist #life ). Besides money it also did cost some time due to so many different #donation platforms, unfortunately. 😬
I'll try to list the projects as accounts or at least a tag (not all are on Mastodon, unfortunately). ❤️
#aveslibre @davx5app @kde #keepass #keepasdx @ShareX @silverbulletmd #stratum #authenticator #tasksorg @termux
NVDA 2025.1 Beta 2 is now available for testing. As well as all the amazing updates in NVDA 2025.1 (from Beta 1), this new beta includes updates to some translations, as well as a minor bug fix for SAPI 5 voices using rate boost. Read the full release notes (including all the 2025.1 features & fixes) and download from: nvaccess.org/post/nvda-2025-1b…
#NVDA #NVDAsr #Update #Beta #FLOSS #FOSS #PreRelease #News #Testing #Test #FreeSoftware #ScreenReader
Beta2 of NVDA 2025.1 is now available for download and testing. For anyone who is interested in trying out what the next version of NVDA has to offer before it is officially released, we welcome yo…NV Access
We ❤️ #opensource - as much as we dislike #Google
Break free from Big Tech tracking, go secure! 💪 🔒
👉 tuta.com/blog/open-source-emai…
#foss #fdroid #android #email #calendar
We're here to stop surveillance by corporations like Google and Apple. That's why we replaced Google's FCM with our own notification system and keep Apple Notification Data at a minimum. Learn here why this is important.Tuta
Hi Robert, good question & one I don't know offhand (if anyone does, please share!) Looking on reactos.org/faq/#can-i-install… I found "Can I install ReactOS and run any software compatible with Windows on it?
Probably yes. However we highly recommend to check first if your favourite app runs in ReactOS. ReactOS is still an on-going project and not all the apps and drivers runs perfect on it."
Are any of our #FOSS / #Linux friends involved in #ReactOS able to share experiences please?
📢 Connaissez-vous le dépôt d'applis #Android nommé #FDroid 📦 et son appli éponyme ?
💡 Ajoutez-y le dépôt #IzzyOnDroid 📦 (apt.izzysoft.de/fdroid/) ! Il enrichira votre catalogue.
ℹ️ Certaines applis sont présentes dans les 2 dépôts. Celles d'IzzyOnDroid sont en principe dans des versions plus récentes. IzzyOnDroid fournit les APK les plus récents ⚠️🐞 tandis que F-Droid compile lui-même les sources après contrôles 🔎🛡️
#️⃣ #OpenSource #LogicielsLibres #FreeSoftware #FOSS #FLOSS #LibreTips #smartphone
This is a repository of apps to be used with your F-Droid client. Applications in this repository are official binaries built by the original application developers, taken from their resp. repositories (mostly Github, GitLab, Codeberg).IzzyOnDroid App Repo
🇹🇹 
The brand-new national #OSPO in #TrinidadAndTobago is spinning up, and we're hiring its first on-site staff member to support its launch. Spread the word and apply by April 30!
estm.fa.em2.oraclecloud.com/hc…
#getFediHired #OpenSource #FreeSoftware #FLOSS #FOSS #TT #Trinidad #Tobago
1. Assumption of direct responsibility for establishing and managing the project; 2. Stakeholder Management 3. Capacity Development and Partnership for the Open Source Programme Office 4.UNDP
The Document Foundation is the non-profit entity that coordinates the LibreOffice project and community.Mike Saunders (The Document Foundation)
TLDR; Multiple countries in Europe are critically dependent on services provided by Microsoft. Querying mail-servers teaches that in some countries, over 70% of all public services rely on this American provider. Europe needs to build its own infrastructure, and open source is the most robust solution.
Insight 1: Every self-respecting municipality has a website and online services.
Insight 2: DNS records show us how mail is being sent for a domain.
Using these two simple concepts (which in the end weren’t always that simple, but that’s a different rabbit hole), we started a small project collecting the municipal website of as much local governments in Europe as we could collect. For that domain name, we then looked for the MX-servers (mail exchange-servers, that are responsible for sending mail). Next we started mapping those MX-servers into a few categories. First off, we gave the two biggest global players its own place on the stage. For the other servers, we grouped them per continent and for Europe made a distinction between EU-servers and non-EU servers (as this is relevant for GDPR). In a final step, we tried to visualize these records in such a way that they were easily inspectable. The result is this map.
If you’re interested in further examining the method used, or looking into the CSV files containing the MX-records for a specific country, you can find these in the git repository.
Europe has been promoting interoperability and open standards for decades. They have also been encouraging the use of local services and products. For e-mail for example there is a gigantic difference between the priorities countries choose. Yet, in practice a lot of cities and governmental services got persuaded to use zero-hassle, zero-insight solutions like the ones Microsoft and Google seem to offer.
This means that many public services rely on Microsoft for their daily operations – going from document storage to automation and integration with the office tools. For this research, we’re focusing on e-mail. Especially in Scandinavia and the Benelux, Microsoft has established a strong prevalence. Purely based on the MX-records, we learn that 72% of Belgian municipalities run Microsoft mail servers and 60% of the Dutch municipalities. For Scandinavia, it’s 64% in Norway and 57% in Sweden. In Finland, it’s a whopping 77% if the cities that are being served by Microsoft.
At the same time, countries like Germany – known for its strong hacker culture and cybersecurity awareness – land at mearly 4% running Microsoft. In Hungary too, they land on hardly 3% and in Bulgaria they are surpassed by Google, together only having 4% of the mail-share.
In research conducted by Binnenlands Bestuur, published on February 13, 2025, we can read growing concerns among Dutch municipalities about their deep reliance on Microsoft’s products. Nearly every municipality uses Microsoft’s software for daily operations, from Office 365 to Azure, making a switch both expensive and technically challenging. This dependency has raised alarms over vendor lock-in, potential price hikes, and the risks posed by U.S. legislation—such as the Cloud Act—which could force Microsoft to share European data with American authorities. While many local governments wish for a robust European alternative, none currently exists, prompting calls for a strategic approach to boost digital autonomy rather than an abrupt break with Big Tech.
A Guardian article, published on January 20, 2025, reports on escalating tensions around international legal actions and sanctions. The piece explains that the International Criminal Court (ICC) is preparing for significant repercussions as it faces potential swift U.S. sanctions from President Trump. These sanctions are a response to recent Israeli arrest warrants issued against individuals involved in alleged war crimes. The situation has raised alarm over the ICC’s ability to operate independently, with critics arguing that political and economic pressures—especially from the U.S.—could undermine its judicial authority. In this volatile climate, legal experts warn that the unfolding events could set a dangerous precedent for international justice and the enforcement of accountability for alleged crimes.
Once a country is locked in to a closed system, vendors can easily raise prices at random, as transition cost is often even higher. This for example happened in Finland, where over 75% of the municipalities already depend on MS services. From a Pirha regional government meeting in November of ’24, we learn prices would go up with roughly 25% in 2025, compared to 2024.
Despite the Finnish government already changing policy in 2023, aiming to prioritize European services, it appears that in 2024 still a big majority of the public services are running the MS suite. Proving exactly how vendor lock-in can stronghold our whole infrastructure.
In Sweden too, experts have expressed their concerns about dependency on US based technology for their critical infrastructure. “The protection mechanisms that would ensure that European data do not end up in the hands of US authorities are effectively dismantled,” Heath said. He believes that Sweden must take control of its own infrastructure and not lean on the American one.
Norway is likewise uneasy about heavy reliance on U.S. cloud providers. A recent commentary noted that Norwegian public institutions are completely at the mercy of Microsoft’s cloud services today. It warns American cloud services might even become illegal in Norway if the EU–US data deal falters, raising doubts about the legality of using Microsoft, Google, etc. The author argues Norway faces a crossroads: become more dependent on a “crumbling American democracy” or dare to pursue new paths. This reflects growing concern in Norway over digital sovereignty and security, urging investment in European or domestic alternatives to give authorities better control of their data.
In Denmark, the Data Protection Authority took action over public sector use of Google services. In 2022 it banned Helsingør Municipality from using Google Chromebooks and Workspace in schools due to GDPR violations, judging that the data transfer risks were too high. Some 50 municipalities were ordered to fix their Google Workspace use to comply with the law. The ban was later suspended while Google and authorities work on remedies, allowing Helsingør and others to temporarily continue using Google Workspace. This controversy underscores Danish concerns about data sovereignty, security risks, and vendor lock-in, prompting consideration of alternative solutions or stricter agreements to protect citizen data.
The schizophrenia needed to solve the issues, is clearly documented in the Google story. While Google achieved to set clear guidelines for using Google Classroom, these don’t apply when using other Google products like Google Maps, Youtube or Google Search. Three year later, it seems clear that Google hasn’t succeeded in setting a clear framework, this article by Sivon from 2025 teaches us.
This critical dependency also creates situations like in Belgium, where 100% of the police force uses Microsoft for their mail service, and 57% of the fire departments run Microsoft or Google. Similar figures can be for Belgian hospitals. If Microsoft would become unavailable in Belgium, this would cause a critical chaos and cost lives.
While Europe has a strong policy when it comes to prioritizing local economy in the context of an interoperable Europe, policy makers all around seem to be susceptible to prefer the trodden paths of MS and Google.
Obviously, companies like Microsoft also feel the heat and are scrambling to procure nice infographics and promises, they even throw in some AI candy… but in the end, they still remain a US company. So they are susceptible to US law – which can affect both our privacy and our dependence: “U.S. laws such as the CLOUD Act continue to grant the U.S. government the authority to access this data,” warned the analyst. The question therefore is whether European governments can actually restrict this kind of access. “Can a single US disposition override these obligations,” the expert wonders. “In this case, residence does not necessarily mean control.”
And while president Trump with its Department of Governmental Efficiency (DOGE) is currently pushing the boundaries of the legal frameworks quite openly, the Snowden revelations have taught us that the US services have been monitoring EU citizens for over a decade through these international companies.
Are we willing to hand over our data and operations to a country that could pull the plug with the flick of a presidential finger?
While it’s an important step to run applications from within Europe, it’s also important to realize that international relationships change. Furthermore, on the IT-market – a very international and competitive market – it’s not uncommon for companies to be bought up by bigger partners. What once was a local company, can quickly turn into a branch of a huge multinational. If this happens, both data and know-how often exchange hands and become part of a foreign entity, possibly no longer aligned with the priorities initially outlined when collaborations started.
By staying in control of the software used in your government, you eliminate the need to trust a company. In the Open Source ecosystem, there is already a long tradition of safeguarding knowledge and code to be accessible to all.
Sharing code between municipalities and governments, is also a very pragmatic way of cutting costs – allowing different partners to also tweak applications to tailor to local needs. Through the use of a strong open source license (e.g. GPL), you also protect other companies from profiting off your investment without contributing back for the betterment of the community.
Let me quote Johan Linåker in this article on the website of the French government:
The surveyed countries exhibit diverse policies, emphasizing interoperability, digital sovereignty, transparency, and cost efficiency. While cost efficiency interoperability and transparency were commonly referred to, much less attention was paid to digital sovereignty and even less to cyber security and sustainability aspects related to FOSS. The latter is rather surprising but can potentially be explained by the relatively recent uprise of these topics in public debates. We hope and strongly recommend that these topics be considered explicitly in upcoming policies.
Europe has some of the greatest minds in the field of cybersecurity and IT. Given the job-market is ever-expanding in the US and merely on life support in Europe, it is obvious that our biggest talents cross the pond to fully harvest their potential. Now is the time to invest in our local talent, to safeguard our companies from being bought up by US investors.
Hacker communities and FOSS movements have been bringing the message for decades. Europe must decide whether to remain dependent on foreign tech giants or to invest in its own future. We have the expertise, the resources, and the legal frameworks to support a shift toward European digital sovereignty. What we need now is action from policymakers and pressure from the public to ensure that the infrastructure of tomorrow serves European interests, not those of a foreign power.
The longer we wait, the harder it will be to break free. The reliance on a single vendor is not just a matter of cost but of sovereignty, security, and resilience. If European governments do not act now, they risk facing an even greater crisis when pricing becomes unsustainable, when services are withdrawn, or when geopolitical tensions escalate. The alternative is clear: build European infrastructure, promote open standards, and foster a thriving FOSS ecosystem that guarantees long-term independence.
Are you a local or national politician? Don’t quietly make deals with the established companies because it’s the easiest deal and they have the best marketeers.
Are you an engaged citizen? Reach out to your local municipality or government and question their choices.
Please add other articles in the comments!
Interview: Technologist Bert Hubert tells The Reg Microsoft Outlook is a huge source of geopolitical riskThomas Claburn (The Register)
NVDA 2025.1 beta 1 is now available for testing! 2025.1 includes NVDA Remote, OneCore & SAPI 4 & 5 improvements, OCR, Microsoft & LibreOffice improvements, Add-on store improvements, Braille updates & new tables plus heaps more! Download from: nvaccess.org/post/nvda-2025-1b…
Please note the "What's new" link doesn't currently work, we're fixing it, but in the meantime, run the installer & open what's new from the NVDA menu.
#NVDA #NVDAsr #Beta #News #Update #PreRelease #FOSS #FLOSS #OpenSource
Beta1 of NVDA 2025.1 is now available for download and testing. For anyone who is interested in trying out what the next version of NVDA has to offer before it is officially released, we welcome yo…NV Access
Petr Valach from the Czech LibreOffice community tells us about feedback from the LibreOffice booth at this event… InstallFest is a well‑established yet relatively small open‑source conference held annually in the Czech Republic, traditionally at t…Mike Saunders (The Document Foundation)
mother electricity
#unix_surrealism #fosschild #technomage #penguin #netbsd #daemon #fish #computer #foss
General Activities LibreOffice 25.2.2 and LibreOffice 24.8.6 were announced on March 27 Stanislav Horáček updated and improved UI and help texts Gábor Kelemen (allotropia) documented a new field that displays the page count for a range until the next…x1sc0 (LibreOffice QA Blog)
For this year’s LibreOffice Conference we had two location proposals: Luxembourg and Budapest. Members of The Document Foundation voted to choose the final location, and we can announce that Budapest is the winner.Mike Saunders (The Document Foundation)
L'équipe de @thunderbird travaille sur une suite de services incluant un service d'e-mails (avec webmail), sous licence libre blog.thunderbird.net/2025/04/t…
L'inscription en liste d'attente pour la beta : thundermail.com/. Hâte de tester ça 
Announcing a new Thunderbird email service called Thundermail as part of the Thunderbird Pro suite of additional services.Ryan Sipes (The Thunderbird Blog)
The latest proprietary #VSCode extension that no longer works in non-Microsoft builds of the MIT licensed VS Code source code appears to be C and C++ support.
Your regular reminder: every day more of VSCode functionality is proprietary, and increasingly #FOSS hostile.
#FreeeSoftware #OpenSource #OSS
github.com/VSCodium/vscodium/i…
As of the latest update of Microsoft's C/C++ extension (v1.24.5, released April 3, 2025), use on non-Microsoft products appears to have been blocked. Upon initializing the extension, I get the foll...GitHub
I've used Thunderbird and its previous incarnations back to Netscape Mail. It's hard to imagine my email or calendar without it!
Also, what a cute bird ❤️
updates.thunderbird.net/en-US/…
@thunderbird #foss #opensource #donate #email
Thunderbird is a free email application that’s easy to set up and customize - and it’s loaded with great features!Thunderbird
I said it before on Mastodon. I'm reposting this again. Comparing #DeltaChat and #Matrix together, if you want hassle free and consistent messenger for private #E2EE chats, don't go for Matrix. DeltaChat is way better.
However, if you want something like a public forum, or a public chatroom, don't go for DeltaChat. Matrix is way better suited for that. And DeltaChat does not support public groups at all. In DeltaChat groups, there is no admin or moderator and everyone have got permission to remove or add the others.
I think I have to write a longer post on my personal blog about these two, comparing them together.
PS: Another Matrix encryption bug few minutes ago triggered repost of this.
#Element #IM #Messenger #Email #FOSS #opensource #freesoftware #free_software #decentralization #decentralized
#Akademy2025 is happening in Berlin, Germany, and online from Saturday the 6th to Thursday the 11th of September.
Mark your calendars!
More details: akademy.kde.org/2025/
#KDE #FOSS #techevent #fossevent #linux
On March 26, we celebrated Document Freedom Day. Mike Saunders from The Document Foundation, the non-profit behind LibreOffice, gave an online talk about the importance of open standards and free software: Please confirm that you want to play a YouTu…Mike Saunders (The Document Foundation)
serial2midi v1.1.1
Turn your serial port into a virtual midi device
🚀 Finding tty device should now be faster
🌱 Overhauled the sysex request
🥸 Better parsing of midi bytes to not read invalid midi messages from tty
⏰ Added --timeout flag to cli
🧹 Moved crates into own subfolder (./crates)
🧹 Updated dependencies
codeberg.org/obsoleszenz/seria…
#foss #midi #linux #audio #musicproduction #arduino
# Changelog 🚀 Finding tty device should now be faster 🌱 Overhauled the sysex request 🥸 Better parsing of midi bytes to not read invalid midi messages from tty ⏰ Added --timeout flag to cli 🧹 Moved crates into own subfolder (.Codeberg.org
Here’s our summary of updates, events and activities in the LibreOffice project in the last four weeks – click the links to learn more… We started the month by posting some extra videos from the open source tracks of the LibreOffice Conference 2024 i…Mike Saunders (The Document Foundation)
Hi folks, I'm trying to jumpstart federation on my little gotosocial instance and get a more full feed of things to read and interact with.
I could use your help. If you could boost this, I would appreciate it. If you see this and favorite it, I will follow you if your interests seem to align with mine.
I'm not asking for follows... rather I'm asking for you to help me shout out into the ether that I'M looking for people to follow. My main interests are going to be hashtagged below.
By the way, the way hashtags work here is that currently, if I search, I only see what my server is already knows about... which would mean just the folks I follow, since I'm a single-user instance. Not very helpful 😂
I will also be using one of my apps that can load the main feed from other servers, to see if I see something interesting. If you see a follow from me and come here to check me out... I mean you no harm and I come in peace.
Thanks all!
#linux #fedora #foss #floss #oss #fediverse #raspberrypi #technology #gnome #polymerclay #fantasy #scifi #adventuremotorcycles
#OpenOffice vs #LibreOffice vs ??
I've been using Google Docs for composing and managing resumes and cover letters. It's quick and easy to edit, but I don't love the feel of the finished product. #LaTeX gives me a ton of control, but adds more friction during revisions.
What are you going with for word processing these days?
The Document Foundation (TDF) has received two different proposals for the organisation of the LibreOffice Conference 2025. TDF Members will receive an email asking them to cast a vote and decide which will be the final venue.Mike Saunders (The Document Foundation)
but will you support #FOSS software that is NOT owned by corporations which support fascist take over of democracies?
You should, if you *allege* to support PRIVACY.
Chromium now has initial, experimental support for the xdg-session-management #wayland protocol, which will start shipping in canary channel in the coming days. I've implemented and tested it against Mutter 48, the only compositor supporting it atm - also experimentally - since version 47.
Quick demo at youtu.be/OG9ZLXzlwkQ
#chromium #wayland #linux #gnome #opensource #foss
Short demo of Chromium M135 with Ozone/Wayland backend, showcasing its WIP support for the xdg-session-management-v1 protocol. Running unders a Gnome Shell 4...YouTube
Berlin, 27 March 2025 – The Document Foundation announces the availability of LibreOffice 25.2.2, the second minor release of the recently announced LibreOffice 25.2 family [1], and LibreOffice 24.8.6, the sixth minor release of the LibreOffice 24.Italo Vignoli (The Document Foundation)
In-Process is now available, featuring all the info on CSUN ATC 2025, Thorium Reader, how the NVDA 2025.1 Update is going, Open-Source software and a new RH Voice Update! Read it all here: nvaccess.org/post/in-process-2… and don't forget to subscribe via email: eepurl.com/iuVyjo
#NVDA #NVDAsr #ScreenReader #Accessibility #CSUNATC #CSUNATC25 #CSUN #Thorium #RHVoice #OpenSource #FOSS #FLOSS #News #Newsletter #Update
We are happy to announce that 56 teams and individuals will receive funding to support their work on improving the core technologies of the internet.
We'd like to congratulate them and thank them for making the internet better for us all.
Come and take a look at the projects to see the marvellous work being done to upgrade the open internet architecture.
nlnet.nl/news/2025/20250321-ca…
#FOSS #NGI0 #NGI
Getting started with XMPP/Jabber and PGP for federated, encrypted messaging
This is a short thread where I explain how I started using the XMPP protocol and PGP encryption for secure messaging. I am not a security expert, but I am a mathematician and I am confortable with the Linux command line. This guide is for people who want to use PGP for secure messaging easily. You will need to be okay with typing commands into the Linux command line in order to do this, but I will tell you exactly what to enter.
Part 1: XMPP
Mastodon is like email, but for social media. You sign up for an account with a server, and then you can talk with any other accounts that are signed up on other servers, as long as your servers are getting along. (No one wants emails from the sketchy spam server, and we want to be able to choose between Yahoo, Gmail, etc.) XMPP (a.k.a. Jabber) is the same thing for text messaging.
Just like signing up for an email/Mastodon account, you need to sign up for an account. You can find a list of servers at list.jabber.at/ and will probably at least need to provide an email addess when making an account.
Once you have made an account, you need a client. On Linux, I've been having a good time using Dino (dino.im/). You can then enter your account name and password to log into your XMPP account and start chatting! There are both public rooms and you can also message directly with your friends.
#security #PGP #XMPP #FOSS #Jabber #Dino #MonoclesChat
(1/4)
A privacy-friendly messaging app for the desktop. It uses the XMPP protocol and provides a clean UI with modern features.dino.im
