Free, Libre, and Open Source Software Leftovers

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Dec 31, 2025

• Evan Hahn ☛ Prediction: Mastodon will outlive Bluesky [Ed: Nope, There's No Twitter "Successor"]

  Disclaimer: I don’t know what I’m talking about.

  Mastodon and Bluesky are, in my opinion, superior to the centralized status quo. They’re built on important protocols: ActivityPub for Mastodon and the AT Protocol for Bluesky. These decentralized, interoperable networks sidestep some significant security threats and enable tremendous creativity. I like them both.

  But between the two, I predict that ActivityPub will outlast AT Proto. Specifically, I think ActivityPub will be relevant in 2050 and AT Proto will not. (I concede there’s a future where neither is relevant.)

• Linuxiac ☛ 2025’s GNU/Linux and Open-Source Moments That Shaped the Year

  A look back at the GNU/Linux and open-source moments of 2025 that influenced development and shaped the direction of the ecosystem.

• Ghacks ☛ Three GNU/Linux Conflicts That Still Shape the OS You Use Today

  Linux often looks calm on the surface. You install a distribution, pick a desktop, and get to work.

  Linux often looks calm on the surface. You install a distribution, pick a desktop, and get to work. Underneath that stability is decades of open conflict, technical, philosophical, and sometimes personal, that determined how Linux works today. These were not minor disagreements. They were long-running battles that split communities, spawned forks, and permanently altered the direction of the operating system.

• Arsenal Math font

  After my talk about TeX syntax-highlighting font at TUG2025 conference, then vice-president of TeX Users Group, Boris Veytsman approached me with a proposal to develop a Math counterpart for the beautiful Arsenal font designed by Andrij Shevchenko.

• Web Browsers/Web Servers

  • The New Stack ☛ Run Real Python in Browsers With Pyodide and WebAssembly

    There are many ways to bring Python to the browser (thanks, WebAssembly). But there’s only one way to bring Python’s full functionality (really no compromises) to the browser: Pyodide. Pyodide is a full Python runtime compiled to WebAssembly that allows you to run standard Python code directly in the browser. Yes, other tools exist, but the functionality has more limits than with Pyodide.

  • Mozilla

    • William Durand: My process for pitching projects as an engineer

      This winter break has finally given me the mental space I needed, so I wrote another work-related article this month¹, yay! This time, I’ll focus on my personal process for pitching projects as an engineer.

      Ever had a great idea at work but struggled to get it on the roadmap? As an engineer in an environment where product work is primarily driven by product managers, I’ve learned how to turn ideas into team priorities. The good thing is: there is no need to be a lead engineer for that!

• Licensing / Legal

  • Simon Willison ☛ Copyright Release for Contributions To SQLite

    I deeply regret this error! I'm linking to the copyright release document here - it looks like SQLite's public domain nature makes this kind of clause extremely important: [...]

• Standards/Consortia

  • Document Foundation ☛ The importance of ODF during the festive season

    To be honest, I didn’t think I would publish my usual post about ODF over the festive period, as most people are busy with other activities and the document format isn’t a priority.

  • Games

    • Video Cardz ☛ D7VK 1.1 adds experimental Direct3D 6 support for classic PC games on Linux