Free, Libre, and Open Source Software and the Web

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Aug 02, 2025

• Open Source Society Malta ☛ Open Source in Europe: Did Lyon Pick the Right Path? Lessons for Malta’s Digital Autonomy | Open Source Society Malta

  On paper, OnlyOffice (headquartered in Latvia with British ownership) also ticks many of these boxes, offering modern collaborative features and strong Microsoft Office compatibility. However, for us here at ossmalta.eu, and many in the wider open-source community, there are reservations. OnlyOffice operates on an “open core” model, meaning its free version has limitations that might make it impractical for large government deployments. Its development process is also less transparent, and it has faced scrutiny over security vulnerabilities.

• Events

  • Software Freedom Conservancy ☛ Software Freedom Conservancy gives its first Distinguished Service Award in Software Freedom to Lance Albertson [Ed: SFC is just a copycat of SFLC and FSF; it also attacks both]

    A news item from Software Freedom Conservancy.

    Free software projects can't thrive without support for their contributors to communicate and collaborate. For over 18 years, Lance Albertson has devoted himself to providing critically needed infrastructure for hundreds of the most important free and open source projects through his work at Oregon State University's Open Source Lab (OSUOSL). Besides doing technical work to maintain and improve these services, he has selflessly mentored and supported generations of the Lab's students as they develop their own skills. Even prior to OSUOSL, he contributed to free software as a developer and package maintainer for Gentoo Linux.

• Web Browsers/Web Servers

  • Ben Werdmuller ☛ Curate your own newspaper with RSS

    There’s a burgeoning ecosystem of great independent writing, and without an adversarial advertising network or venture capital funding to support it, many of these writers need to make a living another way. Subscriptions work. I particularly like it when writers (like Molly) offer patronage, allowing everyone to see the benefit of their writing for free, while allowing the people who can pay to back it.

  • Molly White ☛ Curate your own newspaper with RSS

    RSS offers readers and writers a path away from unreliable, manipulative, and hostile platforms and intermediaries. In a media landscape dominated by algorithmic feeds that aim to manipulate and extract, sometimes the most radical thing you can do is choose to read what you want, when you want, without anyone watching over your shoulder.

  • Mozilla

    • Mozilla ☛ Mozilla Addons Blog: Warning: Phishing campaign detected

      The developer community should be aware we’ve detected a phishing campaign targeting AMO (addons.mozilla.org) accounts. Add-on developers should exercise extreme caution and scrutiny when receiving emails claiming to be from Mozilla/AMO. Phishing emails typically state some variation of the message “Your Mozilla Add-ons account requires an update to continue accessing developer features.”

    • Thunderbird ☛ Mozilla Thunderbird: Monthly Release 141 Recap

      We’re launching a brand new series that will highlight features and improvements with Thunderbird 141.0 – your front row ticket to Thunderbird’s monthly enhancements! (No more waiting in the wings so to speak). Learn what’s new, why it matters, and how it’ll transform your inbox experience.

      In March, we introduced a new monthly Release channel and swapped it as the default option on the Thunderbird.net downloads page.

• Content Management Systems (CMS) / Static Site Generators (SSG)

  • Henrique Dias ☛ How Searching This Website Works

    Now, it is different. The website is, for the most part, statically generated by Hugo, so there are constraints about what I can and can’t do. However, I think I found a reasonably creative solution to solve the problem. An important piece of information is that the website is still being served by Eagle, which adds some custom functionality, like Micropub, Webmentions, etc.

• FSF

  • Unicorn Media ☛ Boston-Based FSF Could Use a Few Volunteers on August 11

    FSF's big summer fundraiser is over and it's now time for rolling up the sleeves to get those orders shipped!