Background: I have a laptop in one room on one floor that I'd like to be able to remote into from another laptop in another room on another floor. All spaces are covered by wifi. In general, I always prefer free and open source tools when available, which is why I've been trying RustDesk, and I really want to like it.

Problem: It seems like every 5 to 10 minutes, the connection hangs, and the only way to restore the connection is for me to bring my laptop upstairs and reset the connection on both machines. This is a significant impediment that renders the app basically unusable in my case.

Has anyone else had this issue? If so, how did you resolve it? Or if you use a different tool, which one, and how's that going for you?

On AlternativeTo.net, I'm seeing suggestions such as TigerVNC and HopToDesk, although I haven't tried either of them.

Both laptops are running popular Linux distros w/ graphical desktops (Mint, Fedora, etc).

One of the things I discovered (or better said, something I suspected but had the chance to verify) while working on open-sourcing a tool (and API client tool): there is a big (mostly justified) trust deficiency out there .

I could feel it immediately in every discussion: always that little question in the back of people’s minds:

"Will this project "stay true", or will it change the rules on me later?"

We have seen this pattern repeatedly: Terraform > OpenTofu, Redis > Valkey, Elastic > OpenSearch....

I understand this: it’s becoming hard not to become a little cynical. In some ways, SaaS starts to feel better only because its more honest and at least the incentives and motivations are explicit from day one.

But why does this happen?

One answer is simple: bad intentions, that yeah, they do exist some times. But then this might be an oversimplification.

One aspect that is not often talked about: Many of the most durable open-source tools and frameworks (VS Code, React, Kubernetes, and Backstage among others) were built by companies where the tool itself was NOT the primary revenue engine. Their core business lived elsewhere.

This means that these tools could function as ecosystem infrastructure rather than direct monetization vehicles. They could stay open because they weren’t carrying payroll, sales targets, and investor expectations on their own.

In contrast, when an open-source project becomes the business, the incentives start to shift. The tool now has to "fund" teams, meet SLAs, satisfy investors, and deliver predictable growth.

Over time, that pressure often leads to open-core models, licensing changes, community forks, and growing tension between "community" and "enterprise."

So yeah, the intentions might have not been alway bad....but the economics have spoken...

The "open source first, monetize later" strategy feels super risky.

Once adoption takes off and the tool becomes central to a company’s survival, teams are forced into trade-offs that often erode trust and fragment communities.

My opinion is that Open Source thrives most easily when it IS NOT carrying the full weight of corporate survival.

When it is, preserving its original spirit becomes much harder.

If we want healthier developer ecosystems, we need to be more honest from the start. This means to either build an open-source project as genuine long-term infrastructure and commit to keeping it open, or build a commercial product with a clear monetization model from day one.

Both paths are valid. Trying to blur the two is what repeatedly leads to broken trust (with developers), frustrated contributors, and fragmented communities.

The takeaway? I guess it is that we just need to be upfront:

If your project is commercial lets be upfront. If it’s truly open, lets commit to it.

Anything in between makes people hesitate to believe and that’s how communities start to fracture.

what do you think? what makes you trust an open-source project long term, and what are the red flags that make you cautious?

Hey everyone, I'm trying to replace most of the private owned app I use by FOSS ones, and today i'm pointing at notion.

I just use it as a way to organize my notes and use it both on my laptop and phone, and i'm looking for something that can have that fonctionnality.

I've already looked into a bunch of foss note taking apps but I didn't see any that could do it. (maybe i didn't look hard enough tho)

I'm willing to use syncthing or smth similar if needed.

do you have any recommendations? anyway, have a nice day and thanks to everyone making the internet/softwares more libre and accessible!

cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/46276018

Free/Open Source Software tainted by LLM developers/developed by genAI boosters, along with alternatives.

The intention of this list is to raise awareness of this technology's usage in popular software, as well as give people informed alternatives that they can reach for when they want to make decisions for themselves. This is not a list created so you can go and give these projects trouble for their decision. If you want to file a complaint about it with them, we consider that acceptable but ask that it be done respectfully and constructively.

The Software Freedom Conservancy provides a non-profit home and services to Free, Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) projects.

These scammers copy the text from new issues verbatim, and paste them in a new issue in a "support" repo. They tag the original author so they get notified.

They then use GitHub Actions to reply with a phishing link and email.

This particular repo has been up for a week and has done this to 113 people.

The link leads to a page that impersonates GitHub support. Every link on that page leads to a crypto scam.

If you stumble across such a repository, please report it. You can report this one here.

Our team are building an open-source IP/SIP intercom + video surveillance platform (GPLv3).

Core ideas

No vendor lock-in: designed to work with SIP intercoms and CCTV that expose an open API.

Modular setup: you can start small (a private house) and scale up to apartment buildings / residential complexes / districts / even a city.

What you can build

• IP/SIP intercom for entrances, gates, barriers
• Video surveillance (live + archive) with modern server-side + admin panel (we also maintain a built-in free media server (based on ffmpeg) for mobile live + archive access: Simple-DVR)
• Mobile apps for residents (iOS/Android)
• Desktop web client for security/concierge teams
• Ticketing & field service workflows (task tracking + planning + PWA for technicians)
• Optional face recognition + license plate recognition (FALPRS)
• Integrations with billing/CRM/payments and external systems

Localization

The project is currently localized for English, Russian, Kazakh, Uzbek, Bulgarian, Arabic, Armenian. If you’d like to help, we’d love contributions for new languages (translations, terminology review, UI copy improvements, etc.).

Repositories

• Server (RBT): https://github.com/rosteleset/SmartYard-Server
• Simple-DVR media server (live + archive): https://github.com/rosteleset/Simple-DVR
• iOS app: https://github.com/rosteleset/SmartYard-iOS
• Android app: https://github.com/rosteleset/SmartYard-Android
• FALPRS (faces + plates): https://github.com/rosteleset/falprs
• Fieldworker PWA (RBT-TT): https://github.com/rosteleset/SmartYard-TT-PWA
• Desktop web client: https://github.com/rosteleset/SmartYard-Vue
• Web extensions examples: https://github.com/rosteleset/SmartYard-web

Who this might be useful for

• ISPs / telecom operators
• property management companies
• intercom installation & service teams
• building owners who want an open source self-hosted platform

Invitation

You’re welcome to use this project for free to build your own ideas/products/solutions — and if you like it, I’d love to invite you to contribute (issues, PRs, docs, localization, testing with new SIP intercoms/cameras, integrations, packaging/deployment improvements, etc.).

If you’re interested, I’d really appreciate:

• feedback on the architecture and docs
• suggestions on what hardware models we should prioritize next
• contributors/users who want to try it in their environment

Thanks! 🙌

Hi!

I do use these two programs for single and batch photo and video compression. They let you cut the file size by ~80% without any noticeable loss in quality, but can not find anything similar for my huuuge music collection. Any reccomendations please?

CompressO -> https://github.com/codeforreal1/compressO Caesium Image Compressor -> https://github.com/Lymphatus/caesium-image-compressor

Save some space, guys!

when i call family the calls usually fuck up alot. either they hear me and i don'y hear them or vice versa... or calls just entirely drop.

this is irregardless of it being over phonelines or a VoIP like Signal.

we both use stock android so far but i really intend to move us both to atleast an open source fork of android, leaving a secondary device with stock android to comply with demands of having a digital ID for citizenship stuff like banks online payments and logging into government sites.

but to reiterate: why do stock android fuck up calls so much? is it just intended to fuck with people's mental health, like an agent programmed to do this or is it ineptitude on the behalf of billion dollar corporations?

Source

Releases

Encrypted Voice Calls over the Tor Network
OnionPhone is a native Android application for anonymous, end-to-end encrypted push-to-talk voice and text communication over the Tor network. No servers, no accounts, no phone numbers — your .onion address is your identity.

Cross-platform compatible with TerminalPhone — call between Android and Linux/Termux using the same protocol.

Just look at this! https://github.com/keithvassallomt/ClusterCut

You can copy text and large files over your LAN from machine to machine

As someone who loves both coding and language learning (I'm learning Japanese right now), I always wished there was a free, open-source tool for learning Japanese, just like Monkeytype in the typing community.

Here's the best part: I added a gazillion different color themes, fonts and other crazy customization options, inspired directly by Monkeytype. Also, I made the app resemble Duolingo, as that's what I'm using to learn Japanese at the moment and it's what a lot of language learners are already familiar with.

Miraculously, people loved the idea, and the project even managed to somehow hit 1k stars on GitHub now. Now, I'm looking to continue working on the project to see where I can take it next.

Back in January, I even applied to Vercel's open-source software sponsorship program as a joke. I didn't seriously expect to win, and did it more out of curiosity, fully expecting to lose.

Lo and behold, yesterday I woke up to an email saying the app has been accepted into Vercel's Winter cohort. Crazy!
GitHub: https://github.com/lingdojo/kana-dojo
Live demo: https://kanadojo.com/

Anyway. Why am I doing all this? Because I'm a filthy weeb.

どうもありがとうございます!

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/44059976

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/44059967

for those not familiar with Mark Pilgrim, he is/was a prolific author, blogger, and hacker who abruptly disappeared from the internet in 2011.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.bestiver.se/post/968527

HN comments

see also https://fosdem.org/2026/schedule/event/SUVS7G-lets_end_open_source_together_with_this_one_simple_trick/

I don't care about perks or rewards, I just want a free and open license database that enables me to find and contribute gas prices in my area without spying on me. I've searched AlternativeTo.net, but nothing open source comes up. Thanks!

As the title say, how can I contribute to OSS without the an IT background ?

I know I can of course donate and I also know some ask for translation but French is usually well translated on most software I use.

I have been reading on The Document Foundation blog about the ODF and how Microsoft basically gaslighted us all into believing the OOXML is truly an open standard when it actually doesn't even use the ISO's standardised version of strict OOXML as a default in his office suit, which obviously makes ODF the better choice; but I am not knowledgeable about the PDF.

From what I've found, it was developed by Adobe up until 2008; since then, it is an "open standard" supposedly developed by the ISO.

Does this mean the Portable Document Format is legit the way ODF is? If not what would be the open alternative to PDF that ODF is to Microslop's?

Looking for apps similar to Pocket FM or Kuku FM that offer complete episodes of short shows without advertisements and payment.