Free Software Leftovers

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Jun 27, 2024

• Cassidy James Blaede: How & Why to Connect Threads to the Fediverse—including Mastodon

  This week Threads announced it is rolling out wider support for connecting with “the fediverse,” and it’s a no-brainer to opt in to this feature if you’re on Threads.

• LWN ☛ How free software hijacked Philip Hazel's life

  Philip Hazel was 51 when he began the Exim message transfer agent (MTA) project in 1995, which led to the Perl-Compatible Regular Expressions (PCRE) project in 1998. At 80, he's maintained PCRE, and its successor PCRE2, for more than 27 years. For those doing the math, that's a year longer than LWN has been in publication. Exim maintenance was handed off around the time of his retirement in 2007. Now, he is ready to hand off PCRE2 as well, if a successor can be found.

  Punch cards to flat screens

  Hazel's tenure as a free-software developer is exceptional, if not record-breaking in its length. Linus Torvalds began working on Linux in 1991 as a college student and is still leading its development 33 years later with no signs of slowing. However, as Hazel wrote in his technical memoir From Punched Cards To Flat Screens, he began contributing to free software ""nearer the end than the start"" of his career.

• K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

  • Carl Schwan ☛ Kirigami Addons 1.3.0

    Kirigami Addons 1.3.0 is out. Kirigami Addons is a collection of components to enhance your Kirigami/QML application. This release contains many change related to the settings module.

• Mozilla

  • Mozilla ☛ The Mozilla Blog: Matt Klein, Reddit’s head of global foresight, on the cozy corners of the internet [Ed: Mozilla shilling Reddit, which is an anti-FOSS site funded by Microsoft]

    This month we chat with Matt Klein, a researcher, writer and advisor who currently serves as Reddit’s head of global foresight. We talk to him about The Tiny Awards, which he co-created in 2023 to recognize small, independent projects that make the internet a more fun place to be. The Tiny Awards return this year with the winners announced this August.

    My favorite corner is the one that I’m currently trying to garden with The Tiny Awards. Last year I helped fund the first annual Tiny Awards which are meant to celebrate the creators making the internet feel cozy, homemade and fun… just because. We received over 300 submissions of small, whimsical web-based projects and over 1,500 votes across our 16 finalists. (Rotating Sandwiches was our winner.)

    We’re at it again this year with the same intent: to honor those nurturing a weird, poetic and human-first internet.

    It’s easy to claim that the silly, creative web is lost or dead. I’d argue it’s alive and thriving. It’s just not easily found. The Tiny Awards is attempting to shine a small but important spotlight on those doing the important work.

  • Cloudbooklet ☛ Mozilla Hey Hi (AI) Chatbot in Firefox Sidebar for Enhanced Browsing

    Mozilla Hey Hi (AI) Chatbot: Mozilla brings Hey Hi (AI) chatbots to Firefox sidebar for enhanced browsing, blending Hey Hi (AI) and browser.

• Audiocasts/Shows

  • Bryan Lunduke ☛ Lunduke's Nerdy Q & A - June 26, 2024

    So many questions, so little time!