This post originally appeared on The Fulcrum.
Welcome to this week's The Programmer's Fulcrum.
It's your weekly curation of the essential news in the Open Media Network and Fediverse development communities with a focus on devastating big tech via Techno Anarchism.
There is a lot of coverage of the shitshow that is ShitHub this week. And that makes me so happy I moved to Codeberg several years ago.
Our CSS section is full as well, which also makes us happy.
FYI, we officially began development work on our Manade project this week with a co-op. It's on the Bonfire platform and you will hear more about it over the coming months. I hope to have something you can build off of in 2027.
As usual, we aim to provide actionable content you can use to destroy Techno Feudalism each week. It has the additional benefit of weakening authoritarianism.
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 and its POSSE philosophy.
The second best strategy is to have accounts on the Fediverse and use the hell out of them. And do the same with a RSS feed reader.
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)
Eventuallymaking writes:
We could see a European digital identity taking shape, based on standards like interoperability (open formats), reversibility (the ability to easily retrieve one’s data), and the digital commons I mentioned earlier.
We could imagine conditions in public tenders that de facto eliminate US products.
Finally, we can imagine Europe becoming a hub for digital ethics, attracting global talent who want to contribute to projects serving the general interest rather than the stock price of a giant.
In short, open source is not a magic wand for Europe to stop being a digital colony. We will have to go further. This will require courageous public procurement, massive funding of digital commons, and strict legal protection against extraterritorial laws.
Why Open Source Won’t Be Enough to Free Us from Big Tech
Terry Godier writes:
The platforms will keep mutating. The feeds will keep filling. The slop will keep rising. The grief is real and you are not wrong to feel it.
But the actual internet — the protocols, the federated services, the plain-text commands, the open feeds, the small servers, the personal sites, the things people built when user and developer were sometimes the same word — is still right there.
It was not demolished.
It was buried under a louder layer for a while.
Now the louder layer is thinning out.
You do not have to wait for someone to rebuild what you lost.
You are standing in it.
An essay about what persists: The Boring Internet
This is what we preach, promote, and practice every week.
CMSs
Agaric Coop shares:
Publish once in Drupal, Syndicate Everywhere
Starlightnet announces:
Flatpress has:
Happy 20th, FlatPress! A guest post by Edoardo Vacchi
Arnold Gamboa explains:
Why I Won't Build Your Website in WordPress (And What I Recommend Instead)
This is why WordPress, Drupal, etc. desperately need to de-clusterfuck-ify. Unfortunately, because of AI, it’s not going to happen.
See:
Matt Mullenweg Assembles Trusted Group to Overhaul WordPress.org and Five for the Future
Simon Reeps shares:
Some new Faircamp development insights
Ghost
First Draft Media shares:
Ghost now comes with RTL newsletter support!
A Whole Lotta Nothing is:
Announcing Social Comments for Ghost
Jannis Fedoruk-Betschki explains:
AI deploys software. It doesn't operate it.
Yet another reason not to use AI in the first place.
Build Awesome
Kitty Giraudel explores:
Optimizing Images with Eleventy on Netlify
Micro.blog
Manton Reece announces:
Major new version of Inkwell for Mac
Tools
MNT shares its:
Great news and a good hardware company. I just bought a monitor from them to send some money their way until I need my next Linux computer.
Chat
DeltaChat announces:
The sovtechfund is investing nearly €500K into chatmail
Browsers
Brian Kardell examines:
Browsers and Language Features
Polypane announces:
Polypane 29: New network panel, snippet store and Chromium 148
RasterWeb! says:
Firefox is out, LibreWolf is in!
Cloud
PixelUnion shows us:
Albums Without Limits: How Immich Lets You Organise and Share Your Photos Your Way
Writing
LibreOffice has:
LibreOffice project and community recap: April 2026
Announcing the new LibreOffice website!
XWIKI shares:
Webinar overview: Meet CryptPad, the open-source alternative to mainstream office suites
Creative
Subvert announces:
For you musicians out there.
9to5Linux reports:
Inkscape 1.4.4 SVG Editor Released with a New Palette, Performance Improvements
Linux/Open Android
Open Source Musings shares a:
Quick Tip: Add Web Apps to Your Desktop with GNOME Web
Very useful, if you can get GNOME Web installed.
Ubuntu looks at:
Permissions Prompting: A Deep Dive
It's FOSS shares:
7 Features I Like in Ptyxis (The New Default Ubuntu Terminal)
Phosh has its:
PostmarketOS is:
Switching from pbsplash to Plymouth
The Register reports:
Where to buy a non-Apple, non-Google smartphone
9to5Linux reports:
Calibre 9.8 E-Book Manager Improves Content Server, Native TTS Engine, and More
Hosting / Serving
./techtipsy shows us:
How I self-host this blog at home with a dynamic IPv4 address, IPv6 prefix, and a dash of Wireguard
Local First
Bruno Croci explores:
A local-first sync setup for a markdown-based feed reader
This week's featured OMN tool
Harper
Harper is a solid and free grammar checker that respects your privacy.
Programming
Matthew Tift advocates:
Caring about Software, Caring about People
This is worthy of being a featured article. So, please read it.
That HTML Blog shares:
The Best Introduction Guide to SVG You Will Read
It's FOSS reports:
Typical Microsoft! Turns Out VS Code Was Adding Copilot as a Git Co-Author Without Telling Anyone
Please use V.S. Codium if you have to go this route. Which hopefully you don’t. And fuck Microslop. See below.
Git
Bookstack announces:
BookStack Has Migrated From GitHub to Codeberg
Chris Smith is:
Migrating from GitHub to Forgejo
It's FOSS reports:
Go Away Microsoft! The Netherlands is Quietly Building Its Own GitHub Replacement
Vito Satori reflects:
Matthew Lang is:
Why Not Hugo muses:
Matt Duggan shares:
Andrew Nesbit dreams of:
Armin Ronacher examines:
Martin Hafskjold Thoresen explains:
If you haven’t got the hint yet, you should say fuck off to ShitHub.
Here’s how:
A Programmer's Guide to Leaving GitHub
Markdown
Thought Asylum looks at:
Odd Evan explores:
Looking for feedback: Chat Transcripts in Markdown
Great site name.
HTML
Jim Nielsen has a good:
Reminder: You Can Stitch Together Lots of Little HTML Pages With Navigations For Interactions
CSS
Mozilla looks at the:
content-visibility CSS property
Polypane explores:
Using safe-area-inset to build mobile-safe layouts
Julia Evans shares:
Khoa's Space examines:
A cute little effect.
CSS Tricks looks at:
Fixed-Height Cards: More Fragile Than They Look
Interesting, but I largely agree with "Most of the time, letting the browser handle the sizing leads to a more resilient result."
Making Zigzag CSS Layouts With a Grid + Transform Trick
Frontend Masters explains:
CSS n of Selectors for Conditional Validation
A little help with everyone's favorite, web forms. ;)
Web Components
Will Browar leaves Tailwind and Nuxt:
Really great stuff.
Evil Martians moves:
From React to native web with nanotags: a migration that saved 100 KB
Aaron Gustafson explores:
Visual Validation Feedback for Form Fields
JavaScript
Ujjwal Sharma asks:
Jxself examines:
ESLint announces:
FirtDev promotes their:
This looks like a great resource.
AI
Hidde's Blog asks:
Open web vs AI: what can W3C do?
The push notifications idea should definitely be explored.
Linear notes:
So true. And the same goes for programming.
Other
Slint shares:
Servo with Slint Update: Windows Support
This week's featured programming tool
Pears
Unleash the Power of P2P. Empower Developers, Disrupt the Norm!
ActivityPub
Evan Prodromou says:
ActivityPub for WordPress shares:
Radical Speed Month — The Reader Meets the Fediverse
I really wish Ghost was moving forward at this pace.
CybersecKyle demonstrates:
Automating Blog Posts to Mastodon From My Website
This week's featured ActivityPub featured tool
Tangled
Kidding, this is not actually ActivityPub but an ATProto equilvalent.
Tangled is the next-generation social coding platform built with ATProto.
Fediverse
Hamish Campbell has this analysis:
The Meta-Mess of the “Open” Social Web
Spot on. And it's why we are working on our Manade project in addition to our work here. You need to walk the talk so to speak.
Join the Fediverse announces:
FediLabs has:
Settings in Fedilab have been reworked to improve the UX
UntrackMe 2.0 will be available soon
Ideally you would avoid most of these sites to begin with.
Holos announces:
A new version of Holos has been released
I like it so far. But, it's definitely a work in progress.
Mastodon announces:
Mastodon's first ever Discovery Week is just a few days away.
Friendica announces:
Friendica 2026.04 release candidate
And NodeBB shares:
Connected Places has:
Federation Has a European Legal Problem
Judges are nearly as incompetent as politicians when it comes to tech.
Solid coverage of two events.
Phoenix Paulina Schmid looks at:
The Glass Floor of Digital Sovereignty
Betula announces:
And Pachli announces.
I just downloaded it to my de-googled phone and will check this Mastodon client out.
Bonfire
Bonfire shares:
If you are interested in our Manade project, give it a view.
More
Silverpill explores the:
LibreSolutions examines:
Fungible Digital Infrastructure for bottom-up resilience and censorship resistance
Monospace Mentor is:
Going back to the roots for our community chat
It’s In My Head says:
Decentralize your communication
If you are looking for a Matrix instance, this might meet your needs.
Bakelight and Roses asks:
Let's hope so. I just added two to our footer.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation shows us:
A Bridge to Somewhere: How to Link Your Mastodon, Bluesky, or Other Federated Accounts
Web Mentions
Matthias Ott announces:
Buckle Up: Webmention plugin for Craft CMS version 1.3.0
RSS
Michael Barrett shows us how to:
NetNewsWire announces:
NetNewsWire Now Getting Feed Images from RSS
Andre Franca show us:
How to style a Hugo Atom feed with XSL
Susam Pal moves:
Terence Eden notes:
RSS Feeds Send Me More Traffic Than Google
Other Federated Social Media
Fitz Thiar opines:
WordPress Social? I don’t get it!
BTW, this is neither Tumblr or ActivityPub for WordPress. ???
Elena Rossini reports:
W Social uncovered: the reality behind the hype
In effect it's a corporate, somewhat suss Eurosky clone.
TechCrunch reports:
As X shuts down Communities, Acorn debuts an alternative that puts creators in control
This looks like ATProto's version of Bonfire. And it's a hell of a lot easier to setup. And cheaper. Though less customizable.
Another similar project (but for cities) and built on ATProto is:
Anuj Ahooja is:
Introducing Disperse: A Share Sheet for the Atmosphere
Noah Bogart looks at:
Democracy Tech
Decidim announces:
Decidim Fest 2026 Save The Date & Internal Regulations
eMail / Newsletters
Buttondown muses on:
What email will look like in the future
And has:
Simplified email address settings
Should we bring back email exploders?
This is a terrific history lesson.
Toni Notes notes:
A newsletter should extend a publication, not duplicate it
Good advise for professional publications but a little overkill for personal ones, IMHO.
Kevin Quirk shares:
My Inital Thoughts On Thunderbird Pro
Ghost introduces:
CTAs
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