Free, Libre, and Open Source Software Leftovers

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Sep 24, 2025

• Linuxiac ☛ OBS Studio 32.0 Released with Plugin Manager, Metal Renderer

  OBS Studio, a widely adopted free and open-source broadcasting and recording software, has just released its latest version 32.0, introducing several notable new features and performance improvements.

• Web Browsers/Web Servers

  • Alex Russell ☛ Comforting Myths

    Because competitors are reduced to rebadging WebKit, Apple has created new responsibilities and expectations for itself.2 Everyone knows iOS is the only way to reach wealthy users, and no browser can afford to be shut out of that slice of the mobile market. Therefore, the quality and features of Apple's implementation matter intensely to the health and competitiveness of the web, as web developers cannot even encourage users to switch to less buggy or feature-impoverished browsers.

    This put's Apple's actions squarely in the spotlight.

  • Mozilla

    • Mozilla ☛ Cozy games: A slower pace, and a place to belong

      This essay was originally published on The Sidebar, Mozilla’s Substack. There’s a moment Wiandi Vreeswijk knows well. After tending virtual crops in “Stardew Valley” and chatting with other players on Discord, he types: “I can’t anymore. I have to go lay in bed.”

• Productivity Software/LibreOffice/Calligra

  • Document Foundation ☛ LibreOffice and Software Freedom Day 2025 in Nepal

    Updates from the Nepalese LibreOffice community: Recent protests and stress in Nepal have disrupted regular activities. Almost everything was affected, including in-person events being canceled rapidly. For open source software users, Software Freedom Day 2025 was a big celebration. But many felt disillusioned about the event.

• Education

  • MWL ☛ “Networking for System Administrators, 2nd ed” Kickstarter is live

    The silly thing funded in fifteen minutes, and has gone high enough that all backers get a bonus ebook of FreeBSD Mastery: ZFS.

• Openness/Sharing/Collaboration

  • Open Data

    • Smithsonian Magazine ☛ This Shipwreck Eluded Searchers for 139 Years. A Group of Historians and Citizen Scientists Found It in Two Hours

      Key to their success was Baillod’s extensive research on the F.J. King. He reviewed hundreds of historic documents about the ship and its sinking, including two important records. One was the report the captain filed about the wreck, in which he explained that the ship sank roughly five miles from shore in 150-foot-deep water. The other was a report from William Sanderson, the keeper of the nearby Cana Island Lighthouse, who saw the masts of a schooner breaking the surface closer to the shore.

    • Matthew Brunelle ☛ Learning About Municipal Open Data with a Cambridge Workshop

      The mention of other towns got me looking though. I found out that the City of Cambridge was offering an Open Data Workshop, hosted in the wonderful Cambridge Public Library. [^ Public services like libraries are hugely important! Not only did they host the event, but also the library had laptops people could check out to use for the workshop.] The workshop was designed to help equip a non-technical audience with the skills needed to start working with the data assets the city has opened up. Alex Epstein & Reinhard Engels, both former librarians, ran the session. To paraphrase them: "something about librarians makes them like collecting, categorizing and sharing data."