Free, Libre, and Open Source Software Leftovers

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Nov 11, 2024

• Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

  • Terence Eden ☛ Introducing ActivityBot – the simplest way to build Mastodon Bots

    Say… didn't I write my own ActivityPub server? Why, yes! Yes I did!

    I took the code and stripped it down to the bare essentials. All you need to do is upload two files0 - index.php and .htaccess - fill in your details, and you're done.

  • Lawrence Tratt ☛ pizauth: HTTPS redirects

    I’ve just released pizauth-1.0.6 which introduces one notable new feature: support for HTTPS redirects. New features sound good, but what does this actually mean? My experience is that the way OAuth2 works is sufficiently counter-intuitive that people often struggle to make sense of what it’s doing.

    Here’s a very quick, simplified, summary of what OAuth2, and pizauth do [1]. OAuth2 lets you obtain a time-limited token which you can use to access a remote resource (e.g. the ability to send email): pizauth’s job is to get you such a token. If you ask pizauth for a token for a resource and a token isn’t already available, pizauth will create a URL which you then open in your local web browser. That URL will take you to the remote resource (e.g. your email provider) who will then ask you to authenticate yourself (i.e. login). Once you’ve successfully done so, the remote web page then needs to tell pizauth that you’ve been successful: it does so by redirecting you to an HTTP URL that’s actually pizauth running on your local machine.

  • Medevel ☛ Beyond Strava: Why This Free Open-Source Tracker Became My Go-To for Mountain Biking (Not There For Equestrians Yet)

    As an avid mountain biker and occasional trail runner, I've always struggled with activity tracking apps. They either came with hefty subscription fees or bombarded me with premium features I'd never use. That's when I stumbled upon FitTrackee - a free, open-source activity tracker...

  • Medevel ☛ 14 Open-source Free Solution to Backup your Docker Container and Docker Volume

    As a web developer, Docker containers are my daily companions - they've completely changed how I build and ship applications. But here's the thing: I learned the hard way that containers are temporary by design.

  • SaaS/Back End/Databases

    • PostgreSQL ☛ PoWA 5 is out!

      PoWA (PostgreSQL Workload Analyzer) is a performance tool, compatible with all supported PostgreSQL versions. It allows to collect and aggregate metrics gathered from multiple PostgreSQL instances using various extensions covering all parts of PostgreSQL and provides real-time charts and graphs to help monitor and tune your servers. It also suggest optimizations, like global or per-query index suggestions, to easily improve performances.

  • Education

    • Uğur Erdem Seyfi ☛ Linux Asceticism

      When people argue for using Linux, they often focus on either political or practical reasons. For instance, they may choose Linux because it supports the principles of software freedom and personal control. They may also choose it for reasons such as cost savings, customizability, flexibility to meet specific needs, performance, tool availability, and so on.

      However, there’s another often-overlooked aspect that can make using a minimal Linux distribution worthwhile: using a minimal Linux distro on your personal computer is a form of Askesis -disciplined practices done for self-improvement. At first, it will probably feel uncomfortable and overwhelming. You’ll face many problems that you’ll need to solve. But you’ll also come to realize and understand better that many of the features you take for granted in an OS with a preconfigured desktop environment are actually separate components that need to exist on your system for you to have that functionality.

  • Openness/Sharing/Collaboration

    • Open Data

      • Simon Willison ☛ Visualizing local election results with Datasette, Observable and MapLibre GL

        Alex Garcia and myself hosted the first Datasette Open Office Hours on Friday—a live-streamed video session where we hacked on a project together and took questions and tips from community members on Discord.

        We didn’t record this one (surprisingly not a feature that Discord offers) but we hope to do more of these and record them in the future.

        This post is a detailed write-up of what we built during the session.