Welcome to this week's The Programmer's Fulcrum. FYI, this is our first one of 100% TPF curation.
It's your weekly review of the essential news in the Open Media Network and Fediverse development communities with a focus on devastating big tech via Techno Anarchism. We aim to provide actionable content you can use to destroy Techno Feudalism each week.
IMHO, the best way to do that is to use tools from the Techno Anarchist Manifesto to build your own site(s) to participate in the Open Media Network. Then you should share it (them) via Real Simple Syndication (RSS), the Fediverse, and possibly a newsletter or podcast. This approach is similar to what some call the IndieWeb.
The second best strategy is to have accounts on the Fediverse and use the hell out of them.
We publish TPF on Fridays so you can enjoy it over your weekend.
There's good stuff in all of our categories, so please take the time to enjoy and bookmark the items most relevant to your goals. We hope you are inspired to create new ones.
Or you can jump straight to your favorite section.
FYI, my opinions will be in bold. And may involve cursing. Because humans. Especially tech bros. And fascists. Fuck ´em.
Featured Item(s)
Hamish Campbell writes:
Historically, real social change doesn’t arrive by waiting for collapse. It arrives because people are active, they build alternatives in advance, strong enough to bridge the mess when existing systems fail and lose legitimacy. This isn’t theory. It’s how change has always happened.
If you are interested in a better outcome, we need to remember, build first, collapse later is the lesson that we keep forgetting. You don’t wait for the crash, you prepare, are ready to catch people when it comes.
Cory Doctorow writes:
...after decades of throwing myself against a locked door, the door that leads to a new, good internet, one that delivers both the technological self-determination of the old, good internet, and the ease of use of Web 2.0 that let our normie friends join the party, that door has been unlocked.
Today, it is open a crack. It's open a crack!
A post-American Internet is possible because Trump has mobilized new coalition partners to join the fight on our side.
My thesis here is that this is an unstoppable coalition. Which is good news! For the first time in decades, victory is in our grasp.
Let's start building friends. :)
Open Media Network Website CMSs
Joan Westenberg makes:
The Case for Blogging in the Ruins
WordPress
Make WordPress has:
Word Switcher: Extending Core Blocks with Interactivity
WordPress.com has:
How to Manage Multiple Client Sites with WordPress Studio
Or just your own.
Kinsta has:
How to create magic effects in WordPress with core blocks
The WordPress Block Bindings API: What it is and how to use it to build dynamic websites
Very detailed.
Willian Rodrigues shows us how to:
Ghost
Panos Tsamoudakis is:
Reflecting on the year and building for the next
Hostinger shows us:
How to install and use Ghost CMS on Ubuntu
On a related note, Sasha Corti has:
Running Ghost CMS with Docker, Tinybird Analytics, ActivityPub and a Clean nginx + Caddy Split
Publishing to the Open Social Web with Ghost (ActivityPub Explained)
DXEN explores:
Home Web Server Ep 4.2 — Cloudflare Access and Google SMTP Setup for Ghost
MagicPages explains:
Why ALIAS Records Can Cause Problems with Your Custom Domain
Drupal CMS
LostCarPark shares:
David Duymelinck has:
Drupal: exploring Canvas (part 1)
Drupal: Exploring Canvas (part 2)
Dripyard announces:
Dripyard’s Drupal Canvas Webinar Recording Is Live
Great stuff even if it's on YouTube.
Grav CMS
Grav examines:
Techno Anarchist and OMN Tools
F-Droid announces:
A faster heart for F-Droid. Our new server is here!
Framasoft has:
Framasoft en chiffres, édition 2025
FramaPDF : modifiez, manipulez, signez vos PDF simplement
Servo shares:
November in Servo: monthly releases, context menus, parallel CSS parsing, and more!
Writing
Zettlr announces:
This looks great.
Scribus announces:
Creative
Kdenlive announces:
Make Use Of reports:
This photo-editing app is so good, I finally stopped using Lightroom
GIMP announces:
GIMP 3.2 RC2: Second Release Candidate for GIMP 3.2
9 to 5 Linux reports:
Inkscape 1.4.3 Open-Source SVG Editor Improves PDF Import and Text on Path
Krita announces:
Krita Monthly Update - Edition 33
Linux
Linux on Mobile has a:
PostmarketOS looks at:
Getting sustainable work done in postmarketOS thanks to your donations
AHoneyBun provides:
A 2025 review of Mobile Linux with postmarketOS v25.12
Zorin OS announces:
Our Gift to the Open Source Ecosystem this Holiday Season
Tugaleres shares:
Début de l’aventure Murena avec le Fairphone 6 sous /e/OS
e/OS has:
Leaving Apple & Google: Wrapping up the year 2025 with /e/OS and Murena
“AI”
Hamish Campbell explores:
This Symfony Station article has the gist of my opinion on “AI” use:
Is there an ethical AI stack for Web Development?
NV Digital Solutions sends:
A thank you to WordPress, open source – and a little thing I’ve been building
The Ollama route is the best option here.
This week's featured OMN tool
Since I will use it every week to write posts, I thought I would start with Joplin.
It is an open source note-taking app that uses markdown and is compatible with HTML. So, it’s perfect for pasting directly into Content Management Systems’ editors.
Capture your thoughts and access them from any device via its cloud offering.
OMN Programming
Paul Allies shares:
The Silicon Valley Stack Doesn’t Work Here: Why Africa Will Lead the Post-Bloat Web
1000x this and not just for Africa! This is the K.I.S.S. approach we advocate.
Open Project has:
Looking back: OpenProject in 2025
xWiki has:
Release Notes for XWiki 17.10.2
Joan Westenberg promotes:
The Rime of the Ancient Maintainer
Preach, sister.
The Linux Foundation has:
Behind the Badge: Community, Process, and Care in Open Source Exams
Version Control Is Not Just for Code
Good stuff from my Drupal peep, AmyJune.
HTML
That HTML Blog says:
The Web Platform is a Triumph of Object-Oriented Programming
Yep.
HTMHell advocates:
Just do it. ;) And see ⬇️.
Robodobdob examines:
Native HTML modals with HTMX and Dialog
Zero Height shows us:
How to annotate design system components for accessibility
CSS
CSS Tricks says:
text-decoration-inset is Like Padding for Text Decorations
Frontend Masters looks at:
!important and CSS Custom Properties
WebKit has:
JavaScript
Tyronne Ratcliff shares:
The “this” Mystery Solved: A No-Nonsense Guide to JavaScript’s Most Confusing Keyword
It certainly bedeviled me over the years.
Balaji Bal explores:
Getting Started with HTMX: Your Journey to Simpler Web Development
Should I cover HTMX in addition to Vanilla JavaScript?
HTML and CSS are doing more and more. But for those of you that use it, is HTMX easier than going the vanilla or web component route when you need something extra custom?
I'm leaning toward it. Feel free to give your input in the comment section below.
The New Stack reports:
Web Components are the comeback nobody saw coming
:)
Planet Performance explores:
The Curious Case of the Shallow Session SPAs
Reason 48,407 React sucks and more on the worthlessness of 99% of SPAs. K.I.S.S. my friends.
Other
Elena Rossini has a series:
A newbie's guide to self-hosting with YunoHost. Part 1: reasons + requirements
A newbie's guide to self-hosting with YunoHost. Part 2: installation & setup
I will be moving my sites to European hosting. Currently, I am looking at Uber Host, 1984 Hosting, and YunoHost. If you have any input please let me know via the Fediverse or in the comments below.
Elena inspired me to buy a book on self-hosting BTW. 😁
This week's featured programming tool
Codeberg is a community-led effort that provides Git hosting for free/open source projects.
ActivityPub
Island in the Net announces:
WordPress Cornerstone Theme 1.1.0: Fediverse Avatars Now Display Properly
Marius looks at:
To be honest, I'm not following most of this. ??? But, maybe you will.
DeadSuperHerson says:
Ghost's ActivityPub Integration Feels Half-Baked
I feel the same way. And it's why I am running a backup of The Programmer's Fulcrum on WordPress to keep Ghost honest. We'll see where TPF ends up in 2027.
This week's featured ActivityPub featured tool
ActivityPubFuzzer is a small program to help build social media software on the Fediverse. It emulates known Fediverse software, helping solve the problem where developers have to manually test compatibility with dozens of other projects.
Fediverse
Tim Chambres shares:
My 2026 Open Social Web Predictions
Stefano Marinelli shows us:
FediMeteo: How a Tiny €4 FreeBSD VPS Became a Global Weather Service for Thousands
This is what we are talking about when we sign off with "And please build something for a community!"
Framasoft has:
Publiez vos vidéos avec PeerTube sur mobile!
Holos Social announces:
Custom domain support for Holos is in development and coming along nicely!
Bandwagon.fm has an update:
Speaking of tunes, The Indie Beat Television says:
Welcome to The Indie Beat Television
The Fediverse's MTV has landed.
The Elder Logs is:
Is there a Fediverse alternative to LinkedIn in the works?
Bonfire
I plan on exploring Bonfire personally and featuring it extensively here on The Fulcrum. So, let’s take a quick look at it.
"Bonfire is open, community-first social infrastructure. A digital commons where people gather, co-create, and care together."
While Big Tech centralizes for profit and blockchain prizes sovereignty over solidarity, both leave collective care and real community needs behind. They erase communities in the race to scale. They turn social life into products that use, abuse, or extract from us.
Bonfire offers a different path: trusted communities with real autonomy and participatory governance, interconnected across the open web. It empowers communities to shape digital spaces that reflect shared values, like autonomy, mutual care, and collective power.
We design for communities, not abstract “users”. We focus on relationships, not engagement metrics. We're building for the long haul, not for scale or profit.”
I also plan to experiment with Bonfire and have taken notes for a series of articles.
I have even reserved the domain manade.org to possibly run subdomains off of for various communities I am in.
According to WikiPedia, a manade (prov. menada, originally from lat. manus = hand) is a term used in the Camargue area in France for a semi-wild herd of horses led by a gardian.
Herd/community. Get it.
This week's featured Fediverse Platform/Tool/Resource
Mbin is a federated content aggregator, voting, discussion and microblogging platform.
More
Uncountable Thoughts explores:
Matrix shares:
The 2025 Matrix Holiday Special
RSS
Robert Alexander is:
Discovering the IndieWeb with calm tech
Fantastic.
Peter Ries pursues:
Reading news from non-RSS websites
P2P
Jack Perkins examines:
Other Slightly Federated Social Media
Connected Places has:
ATmosphere Report 147 - Year's end reflections
ATProto Community has:
Ændra Rininsland: Supporting and growing ATProto development in 2025 and beyond
I am going to check Leaflet out.
Tales of Adding oAuth Login with Bsky to an OS
Rudy Fraser: Building Communities for the Decentralized Era
Great, great, great stuff. Rudy is the North star of ATProto, not fucking Bluesky.
Democracy Tech
Decidim shares:
By the way, ‘Decidim, from the Catalan “let’s decide” or “we decide”, is a digital infrastructure for participatory democracy, a digital platform, built entirely and collaboratively as free software. More specifically, Decidim is a web framework produced in Ruby on Rails that allows anybody to create and configure a web platform to be used as a political network for democratic participation.’
It would be great if Decidim could interoperate with Bonfire. Can Ruby and Elixr get along?
Now there is a project for you.
Buttowndown asks:
Ask a Nerd: Can you improve email deliverability with a personal domain?
CTAs
- That’s it for this week. Please share The Programmer's Fulcrum.
- Follow us on Flipboard or at @thefulcrum@thefulcrum.dev on the Fediverse for daily coverage.
- Read, live, and share The Techno Anarchist Manifesto!
And please build something for a community!
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