This post originally appeared on The Fulcrum.
Welcome to this week's The Programmer's Fulcrum.
It's your weekly curation of the essential news in the Open Media Network and open social development communities with a focus on devastating big tech via Techno Anarchism.
As usual, we aim to provide actionable content you can use to destroy Techno Feudalism each week. It has the additional benefit of weakening authoritarianism.
IMHO, the best way to do that is to use tools from the Techno Anarchist Manifesto to build your own site(s) to participate in the Open Media Network. Then you should share it (them) via Real Simple Syndication (RSS), the Fediverse, and possibly a newsletter or podcast. This approach is similar to what some call the IndieWeb and its POSSE philosophy.
The second best strategy is to have accounts on the Fediverse and use the hell out of them. And do the same with a RSS feed reader.
We publish TPF on Fridays so you can enjoy it over your weekend.
There's good stuff in all of our categories, so please take the time to enjoy and bookmark the items most relevant to your goals. We hope you are inspired to create new ones.
Or you can jump straight to your favorite section.
- Sites/Blogs/CMSs
- Techno Anarchist / OMN Tools
- OMN Programming
- ActivityPub
- Fediverse
- More
FYI, my opinions will be in bold. And may involve cursing. Because humans. Especially tech bros. And fascists. Fuck´em.
Featured Item(s)
Shurish Kalkarni writes:
... the path forward for journalism isn’t a technology problem or a business model problem – at least not primarily. It’s a relationship problem. And relationship problems require a fundamentally different set of tools, skills and values than the ones the industry has traditionally invested in.
The disconnect between what the industry is doing and what it really needs is jarring. Ask yourself how many so-called “audience-centric” strategies, frameworks and consultants you’ve heard about. Hundreds right? Now ask yourself how much of that work is built out of actually speaking to citizens and listening to them. Not so many.
That gap – between claiming to center audiences and actually speaking to them – is exactly where the logical fallacy lives.
Christine Lemmer-Webber writes:
it feels like there's a massive coordinated attack on internet freedoms. But it also feels like the wind is out of the sails of these fights, which is alarming, because the stakes have never been higher.
Who's coordinating all these? What money is pushing it? Palantir? Heritage Foundation types? Large, centralization-enthused orgs like Meta? All of the above? It's hard to tell. But there's certainly a lot of money flowing underfoot.
But it's not just the coordinated attack. The fight itself feels deflated, in ways the fight for the internet hasn't been before. Sure, we have orgs like the ACLU, the Open Rights Group, the EFF, Fight for the Future, the usual suspects all fighting for the rights of the internet. And that's great.
But there's something else.
It feels like people are tired.
What happened to the fight for the Internet?
Let's stay on our feet and keep swinging. Take breaks when you need to. Your second, third, fourth, and fifth winds will come back. It's a permanent battle.
CMSs
Peter Gambos says:
People still want small, personal corners of the web
Ah, oui. Et damn straight.
And Jack Yan says:
Sixteen years on, farewell to WordPress’s Akismet plug-in
Paweł Grzybek isn't buying the hype:
My blog is not on the AT Protocol, standard.site is not for me
Leaflet
Leaflet Lab introduces:
Atmosphere Field Reporter Corps
Ghost
Magic Pages shows us:
How to stop spam signups on your Ghost membership site
The real cost of self-hosting Ghost in 2026
Build Awesome
Adam DJ Brett has:
Publishing Your Eleventy Blog on the AT Protocol with Standard.site and Sequoia
Enabling Webmentions in Eleventy (11ty)
11tyx5: Five Whitestone Foundation Sites, Eleventy, and the Long Open Web
Back to top 👆🏼
Tools
Caisse des Depots announces:
The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:
The Free and Open Web Is Under Attack at the IETF
The Free Software Foundation Europe reports:
DMA: The FSFE intervenes against Apple before European Court of Justice for the second time
The Guardian reports:
UK watchdog plans to break Apple and Google’s ‘effective duopoly’ on mobile app stores
The UK now has a chance to turn away from fascism and start walking their talk with things like this.
DB reports:
Newsletters
The University of Groningen Library says:
We are exploring whether we can use an open source platform for our newsletters
Thanks to this post, I discovered Keila and
Listmonk. If you're in Europe, Keila is the choice.
Small Web
scientiac::syntropy shares:
Chat / Team Chat
Signal announces:
Signal is working on sticker replies, linked Android tablets are getting closer, and more
Browsers
Servo shares:
May in Servo: user scripts, mp4 compat, blackboxing in DevTools, and more!
Writing
LibreOffice explores:
The invisible architecture of lock-in: the layering of dependencies
In other words, fuck anything that is even 1% connected to MicroSlop. And that includes EuroOffice. I can't abide sovereignty washing.
It's FOSS reports:
Collabora Office 26.04 Keeps AI Optional and Refines Writer and Calc
Unfortunately, this is about as good as we will get for a while on the "AI" front.
9to5Linux reports:
Calibre 9.11 E-Book Manager Adds Support for Exporting Annotations as HTML Pages
Creative
David Benqué is starting:
Luddite Academy; Towards a politicised digital creative practice
9to5Linux reports:
Shotcut 26.6 Open-Source Video Editor Released with Vulkan on Linux Support
Linux / Open Android
GrapheneOS announces:
Compose TextField has bugs which cause compatibility issues with AOSP keyboard
FuriLabs announces:
FuriOS 14.0.3 is now released!
9to5 Linux reports:
Purism Announces Librem 16 as World’s Most Private and Secure Linux Laptop
MNT provides its:
Larvitz Blog examines:
Upgrading FreeBSD 15.0-RELEASE to 15.1-RELEASE: The Official Paths
F-Droid looks at:
What We Talk About When We Talk About Malware
Has it been a while since we said fuck Google?
This week's featured OMN tool
Harper Spell Check
Harper is a solid and free grammar checker that respects your privacy.
Back to top 👆🏼
Programming
BeOrg App looks at:
Using WebDAV to connect beorg to cloud storage providers
Murat Çorlu has:
Using inline partials in Ghost Themes
Using contentFor helper in Ghost Themes
Markdown
Dan shares:
CSS
Lee Cattarin recommends:
Dripyard explains:
Why CSS Style Queries Are a Bigger Deal Than You Think
Frontend Masters explores:
Fluid Typography with progress()
JavaScript
Kami’s Corner shares:
AI
Platformer reports:
Why the tech industry can't keep up with the AI backlash
Mindful Design promotes:
Other
XWiki shares:
Take back control from Atlassian: The open-source alternative stack built by XWiki and OpenProject
This week's featured programming tool
OpenProject
Open source project management software for open source developers.
Back to top 👆🏼
ActivityPub
The Social Web Foundation explains:
Unsubscribing tags.pub from Open Registration Relays
Annette Schwindt shows us how to:
Make a Mastodon Follow-Up Link from WordPress Blogs available externally
This week's featured ActivityPub featured tool
ActivityPub Book
This is the ActivityPub handbook that every social software hacker needs.
Back to top 👆🏼
Permanent aside here
Necessary because many people aren't able to comprehend this -> the Fediverse is for communities (private, semi-private, or otherwise) and the Atmosphere is for the masses (unwashed, washed, or otherwise). Corporate social media is for naive fools and intentional cunts.
Also, you can avoid surveillance on the Fediverse if you want to (and choose the correct tools) but not on the Atmosphere.
So, recognize their natures and don't fucking ask the two protocols to go against them. This is also why I have accounts on both platforms and use them differently.
Fediverse
The European Commission issues a:
New call for proposals to shape safer and more inclusive social media platforms
IFTAS announces:
The annual Social Web Operations Survey from @iftas is open!
If applicable to you, please complete the survey. It's truly important. And donate if you can.
Checkfirst Network has:
Wallabag IT explains:
Pourquoi wallabag.it fait le choix des services européens
wallabag.it va financer des développements reversés à wallabag
Mobilizon announces:
The alternative to Facebook groups and events, as well as Meetup releases version, 5.2.4
PeerTube announces:
We've released #PeerTube 8.2.2!
The GFSC Community explains:
Why we discontinued our Mastodon server
If you're a larger community than GFSC, Bonfire would be the better fit (though hosting may not be any more inexpensive). Plus, you can lock it down and avoid the outside abuse and inept regulation issues.
But, the main point is this: if you're small (and income challenged) you need to join the instance that fits you best and not self-host one on your own. It’s easier to donate to your instance admin than manage and pay for infrastructure. And just in case, educate yourself on how to migrate away from it.
Bonfire
Bonfire announces:
Bonfire Social 1.0.5: Archipelago!
Archipelago lets you federate only with a hand-picked allow-list of trusted people, groups and servers, and keep everything else out by default. So, for example two Manade instances could federate with each other but nothing else.
Back to top 👆🏼
More
RSS
FreshRSS announces a:
XMPP
Movim announces:
Movim 0.31.4 is out, and it's a security-focused release!
Goffi says:
XEP-0516 "XMPP Decentralized ID (XID)" has been published
Other Federated Social Media
B. Prendergast creates an archive of:
Thank you Eurosky for creating Mu.
Elena Rossini asks:
W Social: a Broken Ghost Town?
Open Future asks:
W-Social: What does sovereignty mean for social media?
Grifting isn't sovereignty BTW.
Politically Inclined reports:
W Social? More Of An L, Actually
If L stands for loser, it's actually more of a C. And we all know what that stands for. It's certainly run by them.
Pizza Thoughts explores:
Holobrine examines:
Happy View announces:
rpg.actor has:
Vibe Check: Effort, Risk, and Games in The Atmosphere
CTAs
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