Microsoft announced their latest round of FOSS fund recipients. We're thrilled to share that @NVAccess are among this quarter's recipients. From: https://github.com/microsoft/foss-fund

"A project of the Microsoft Open Source Programs Office, the FOSS Fund provides up to $10,000 USD in sponsorships to open source projects as selected by Microsoft employees."

Congratulations also to The GNU Compiler Collection, Urllib3, CLAP & MSW.

#OpenSource, #FOSS #Free #Software #NVDA #ScreenReader #Accessibility #A11y

The thing I want to shout from the rooftops is: THIS IS POSSIBLE.

#opensource projects can hire UX experts, who gather quantitative & qualitative data, and who then recommend specific choices. Maintainers don't just have to guess how to design good, usable features and interfaces.

Yes, even for command-line tools.

Yes, even without a big company running the project. We got grants: https://pyfound.blogspot.com/2019/12/moss-czi-support-pip.html

And tool*chains* can pool resources to invest & learn together! https://www.harihareswara.net/posts/2023/user-support-equanimity-potential-cross-project-tools-practices-open-source/

Mozilla and Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to support pip

The Python Software Foundation is receiving $407,000 USD to support work on pip in 2020. Thank you to Mozilla (through its Mozilla ...

^{Python Software Foundation Blog}

Just bought a #DELL 3190 laptop, new for $150 (11.6" screen, 64GB eMMC). It's fully supported on #Linux, and even if it has a Celeron N4120 CPU and only 4 GB of RAM, it'll work fine with #Mint, or #XFCE (and #Gnome/ #KDE if you don't mind some minor lag). Not opening too many browser tabs will ensure that the swap file won't get used too often.

If you're on a tight budget this is a good option, as it also has great battery life too at 10 hours with Linux.

#linuxmint #ubuntu #opensource #foss

CURL Up 2024

Let's meet @bagder and the other #opensource developers of the #CURL project

📅 May 4-5, 2024
📍 Stockholm, Sweden 🇸🇪
🏨 Best Western Hotel
🎤 English
🌍 github.com/curl/curl-up/wiki/2024

https://www.mbsplugins.de/archive/2024-04-08/CURL_Up_2024

‼️ This week's Dev update highlights the ongoing work to enhance Jami's reliability and user experience.
👀 Read more about the progress on mobile testing, bug fixes, and UI improvements for both Jami and JAMS.

https://jami.net/dev-update-5/

#Jami #opensource #P2P #App #TechTrends #PrivacyMatters

Jami - Dev Update #5

Ongoing work to improve communication reliability and efficiency, especially on mobile devices.

^{Loïc Bogino (Jami)}

We hear you: it IS frustrating that Thunderbird doesn't have a proper conversation view! It's finally time to answer WHY, and explain what we're doing to solve it.

It all started about 20 years ago...

PeerTube: https://tilvids.com/w/3wkuHE1GhpZXA5Z17LGGba

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3dyGB9oHe4

#Thunderbird #OpenSource #Development

When Will Thunderbird Get A PROPER Conversation View?

It's a great question. And a frustrating situation. Why doesn't Thunderbird have a proper threaded view that includes your SENT messages? Alex explains the blocker, and what we're doing to solve it.

^TILvids

Today, at Open Forum Europe Capital Series, our @EC_DIGIT_director_general Veronica Gaffey, talked about our goal - increasing the maturity of open source in Commission.

"Many #OpenSource project have sizeable European communities. If we collaborate, Europe can remain at the forefront of open source."

I am getting tired of reading about the #xz #security issue as if it is all about issues within #opensource. It is much bigger than that, and those takes conflate the problem with the solution.

So I wrote "The xz issue isn't about Open Source" here: https://changelog.complete.org/archives/10642-the-xz-issue-isnt-about-open-source

The xz Issue Isn’t About Open Source

You’ve probably heard of the recent backdoor in xz. There have been a lot of takes on this, most of them boiling down to some version of: The problem here is with Open Source Software. I want…

^{The Changelog}

"You have to understand, we’re responsible for taxpayer money here. We can’t just make a donation to your open source project."

— a national government who relies on #Matrix when being asked to support it financially

Read more about the problem and some initiatives that are responding to it:

https://matrix.org/blog/2024/04/open-source-publicly-funded-service/

#FreeSoftware #OpenSource #FOSS #FLOSS #funding #xz #sustainability

Open Source Infrastructure must be a publicly funded service.

Matrix, the open protocol for secure decentralised communications

^{Matthew Hodgson (matrix.org)}

Open source infrastructure *must* be a publicly funded service, and funders need to support maintenance – not just new feature development 📣

This is on our minds this week in the wake of the #xz news, and as we continue to seek funding to support #Matrix.

Read the latest from project lead, @matthew: https://matrix.org/blog/2024/04/open-source-publicly-funded-service/

#OpenSource #FOSS #OpenStandards

Open Source Infrastructure must be a publicly funded service.

Matrix, the open protocol for secure decentralised communications

^{Matthew Hodgson (matrix.org)}

Hi @AntennaPod people, thanks for all your hard work! Very happy with your FLOSS app. IMHO the best podcast available on Android. Looking forward updating to the latest version. Keep up the good work!

#Android #Podcasts #FLOSS #OpenSource #Software #ThursdayTip #ThursdayThankYou #Fdroid

Schleswig-Holstein geht voran:

#LibreOffice statt M$ Office
#Linux statt Windows
#Thunderbird statt Outlook
#Nextcloud statt Sharepoint

Das Kabinett hat den Startschuss für den Umstieg auf freie Software gegeben - ein Gewinn für #IT-Sicherheit, #Datenschutz und die heimische Digitalwirtschaft.

Langfristiges Ziel ist die vollständige digitale Souveränität des Landes.

https://www.schleswig-holstein.de/DE/landesregierung/ministerien-behoerden/I/_startseite/Artikel2024/II/240403_digitalsouveraene_verwaltung.html

Wir ziehen den Hut und wünschen eine erfolgreiche Umsetzung!🎩

#OpenSource #DigitaleSouveränität

Einstieg in den Umstieg

Schleswig-Holstein setzt künftig auf einen digital souveränen IT-Arbeitsplatz in der Landesverwaltung – das hat das Kabinett nun beschlossen.

^{schleswig-holstein.de}

Tomorrow's the official start of #30DayFOSSChallenge! We've got a few people chatting in the #matrix already: https://matrix.to/#/#30DayFOSSChallenge:mozilla.org

Feel free to join us. Don't know what I'm talking about? Look here: https://nullarch.com/30DayFOSSChallenge.html

#foss #floss #opensource #freeculture #degoogle #indieweb

Matrix - Decentralised and secure communication

You're invited to talk on Matrix. If you don't already have a client this link will help you pick one, and join the conversation. If you already have one, this link will help you join the conversation

^matrix.to

Any experienced C developers among my followers? #BoostsWelcome.

Expat, arguably the world's most popular #XML parser, is understaffed and without funding. As #xz has shown, situations like this are dangerous.

Last month, maintainer Sebastian Pipping put up a plea for help at https://github.com/libexpat/libexpat/blob/R_2_6_2/expat/Changes

(I would help myself, but my C skills barely surpass "Hello, World".)

Found via @timbray - https://cosocial.ca/@timbray/112203547801373427

#libexpat
#SoftwareSupplyChainSecurity #OpenSource #OpenSourceMaintainer
#C

libexpat/expat/Changes at R_2_6_2 · libexpat/libexpat

:herb: Fast streaming XML parser written in C99 with >90% test coverage; moved from SourceForge to GitHub - libexpat/libexpat

^GitHub

Tim Bray

2024-04-02 20:37:47

I think the #xz incident is teaching us that our infrastructure is dangerously fragile in the face of well-organized/funded attackers. The response isn’t “try harder” or “donate to your OSS project”, it needs to be institutional, professional, and at scale.

So, here’s my proposal, called “OSQI”, aimed at starting a how-to discussion: https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2024/04/01/OSQI

OSQI

^{ongoing by Tim Bray}

For World Autism Awareness Day, we want to highlight Open Autism, a group dedicated to developing open source software specifically for autistic users and the people who support them.

Many of us know how important it is to have free and open source options for our technology needs, and autistic needs are no different.

Learn more! https://open-autism.org/

#OpenAutism #WorldAutismAwarenessDay #OpenSource #Autism

Stuff I already wrote that other people might be open to reading this week, because of the #xz incident:

https://www.harihareswara.net/posts/2021/sidestepping-the-pr-bottleneck-four-non-dev-ways-to-support-your-upstreams/ Four Non-Dev Ways To Support Your Upstreams (Pass this along to executives who are asking "how can we prevent this in our dependencies?")

https://www.harihareswara.net/posts/2023/user-support-equanimity-potential-cross-project-tools-practices-open-source/ Potential cross-project #opensource tools and practices that you/we can implement to help lighten the load on each other

1/n

Who needs bad April Fools' Day jokes when you have laptop lids! Today's lid is from @Unaccounted4

Things we are loving:
* Sweet, squishy mascots 🐧
* Sound haberdashery 🎩
* Science and swears 🤬

Rating: 1100/1010 binary references

#OpenSource #Community #WeRateLaptopLids

Advanced ways to help #OpenSource

- Have corporate policies allowing devs to contribute upstream; heck, encourage it!

- Support your OSPO. Give them budget for a FOSS Fund. Listen when they speak.

- Subscribe to Tidelift, thanks.dev, kudos.community, and programs that auto-distribute donations to all your dependencies.

- Get listed on https://fossfunders.com/ and promote it to other CEOs/CTOs.

@bagder

FOSS Funders

^{fossfunders.com}

Wishing everyone a great time at Gnome 46 Release Party by Volunteers starting today in Offline in #Berlin, #Germany

https://foss.events/2024/03-30-gnome-46-release-party.html

@gnome
#gnome46 #foss #floss #freesoftware #opensource #events #europe #gnome

🚨 ⚠️ Emergency PSA: A critical security exploit was discovered in the xz package recently, used for compression and decompression on nearly all Linux distributions.

Rawhide users ARE impacted and should immediately STOP using Rawhide until the package update is fully rolled back. (1/3)

Security Advisory: https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/urgent-security-alert-fedora-41-and-rawhide-users

#Fedora #Linux #OpenSource #Security #Privacy

Urgent security alert for Fedora Linux 40 and Fedora Rawhide users

Red Hat Information Risk and Security and Red Hat Product Security learned that the latest versions of the “xz” tools and libraries contain malicious code that appears to be intended to allow unauthorized access.

^{, (Red Hat)}

In true open source, the software is open to everyone on the same, neutral terms. If you are in need of an #opensource in-memory, key-value data store, check out Valkey, a community-driven fork of the Redis codebase by the former community contributors.

https://www.linuxfoundation.org/press/linux-foundation-launches-open-source-valkey-community

Linux Foundation Launches Open Source Valkey Community

Community maintainers, contributors, and users will continue collaborative development of an open source, in-memory data store under the new Valkey name.

^{The Linux Foundation}

#Jami est un #logiciel #opensource qui se pose en alternative libre aux solutions de #visioconférence plus traditionnelles comme Skype, WhatsApp, Zoom, ou Teams. Il a été développé par les Canadiens de Savoir-faire Linux spécialisés dans les logiciels open source.

Source : @Fidel
https://outilscollaboratifs.com/2024/03/jami-visioconference-open-source/

Jami - Visioconférence sécurisée et respectueuse de la vie privée

Découvrez Jami, une solution open-source de visioconférence. Une alternative fiable à Zoom et autres Teams.

^{Fidel Navamuel (Les Outils Collaboratifs)}

Thunderchat Alert! 🚨

Community Office Hours start in ONE hour at 17:00 UTC! Today's format is Open Forum and FAQs, so bring your questions and comments and we'll bring the team! Find out how to join in the blog post: https://blog.thunderbird.net/2024/03/march-2024-community-office-hours-open-forum-and-faq/

#Thunderbird #Community #OpenSource

March 2024 Community Office Hours: Open Forum and FAQ

The March 2024 Thunderbird Community Office Hours invites questions from the community in an open forum format.

^{Monica Ayhens-Madon (The Thunderbird Blog)}

💡 The last Wednesday of March can only mean one thing...

#DocumentFreedomDay ✍️

Today we celebrate open standards: The ability for everyone to work and communicate using free software.

If you're using paid software that confines you see if any of the alternatives on my list of #opensource software can make life easier for you:

https://ethicalrevolution.co.uk/opt-open-source/

Includes (but not limited to) @cryptpad @thegoodcloud @piefedadmin @libreoffice @thunderbird @Tutanota @protonprivacy @plausible @GIMP @inkscape @session @signalapp @delta @efoundation @MattermostFR @element

Any I've missed, let me know!

@dff

#FOSS #DFF #DFD #decentralize

Opt Open-Source - Ethical Revolution

Join me in taking step O, “Opt Opensource”, in the A-Z of steps to a better world: transparency, quality, reliability, flexibility +low cost.

^{Sam (Ethical Revolution)}

If you're an #opensource maintainer seeking a good task to give a less-skilled new contributor, ask them to do a discovery report on the project, such as:

Starting from scratch, try to get a local installation up and running, and note how long it took.

Take an hour to explore our documentation and fora, and tell us your impressions.

Given a demo install, try these common user tasks.

Examples:

https://diff.wikimedia.org/2014/03/25/seeing-through-the-eyes-of-new-technical-contributors/

http://blog.linuxgrrl.com/2014/03/25/hyperkitty-at-the-0th-spinachcon/

https://blog.openhatch.org/2014/spinachcon-zero-a-huge-success/

https://www.changeset.nyc/resources/installation-audit.html

Wiki Loves Africa – Africa Creates

Arguably the largest photo contest on the African continent aimed at highlighting the richness, diversity and beauty of Africa which deserves to be visually celebrated […]\n

^Diff

The #GNOME 46 desktop environment already landed in #ArchLinux and #openSUSE Tumbleweed 👏👏👏

@gnome #Linux #OpenSource

It's time for our Community Office Hours this Wednesday March 27 at 17:00 UTC and the topics are up to you! We'll answer live questions, questions sent to officehours@thunderbird.net, and some of the questions we heard most at SCaLE! 🤔 🐧

Find out how to join us in the blog, and note the shift in day and in UTC! Silly spring time changes. 🗓️ ⏰

https://blog.thunderbird.net/2024/03/march-2024-community-office-hours-open-forum-and-faq/

#Thunderbird #Community #OpenSource

March 2024 Community Office Hours: Open Forum and FAQ

The March 2024 Thunderbird Community Office Hours invites questions from the community in an open forum format.

^{Monica Ayhens-Madon (The Thunderbird Blog)}