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.
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)
Hamish Campbell writes:
The “cloud lords” (Google, Amazon, Meta, Apple etc.) operate their own digital fiefdoms. We are the new “cloud serfs” producing data and metadata for free, generating value through participation while feeding systems that learn from us and reshape our behaviour.
Even businesses and workers are pulled in. Sellers depend on Amazon marketplaces while workers are managed through platform systems and as the EU is finding, entire infrastructures depend on AWS-style cloud provision.
From this narrowing view, capitalism starts to look secondary to rent extraction from controlled digital spaces. But is this actually a new economic system?
Firesphere writes:
Do the test, The AI Compass. It's a simple series of questions and answers, to define where you sit on the AI opinion scale. And, of course, every outcome has their patron saint.
I took it and here's the screenshot of the result. On the scale, I'm the union organizer. My patron saint is Cory Doctorow (although he's a little libertarian for me). So, it mostly tracks.
CMSs
Silex announces:
Silex was just added to European Alternatives, an open source catalog of alternatives to US software
This would be a good 11ty builder to experiment with. Especially the self-hosting route.
Martin Paul Eve explores:
FAIR and Square: making a static site support FAIR signposting
Interesting.
Omicron introduces:
Omicron: A Home for Free Expression on the Fediverse
This looks great.
Build Awesome
Adam DJ Brett has:
Easier Font Awesome SVGs in 11ty
11tyx5, Reprise: Build Awesome Alpha, a Whitestone Metasearch, and the Quest for Four 100s
Tools
Waag Futurelab opines:
European digital ID wallets are a gift to Google and Apple
Of course.
The Free Software Foundation Europe reports:
Apple held accountable under the DMA - A victory for developers and computer users!
Fuck Apple.
Organic Maps announces:
Rolle Design demonstrates:
Chat / Team Chat
Signal has:
Signal lets admins end groups for everyone
Signal is working on support for linking multiple phones to a single account
Writing
LibreOffice continues a series:
The non technical dependency layers: the Calendar and the Invoice
And has:
Policy and Digital Sovereignty – TDF Annual Report 2025
LibreOffice 26.8 Beta1 is available for testing
Marijn Haverbeke announces:
Creative
404 Media reports:
Patreon Blocks Crawlers From Stealing Creators' Work for AI Training
Kdenlive announces:
The last maintenance release of the 26.04 series is out
GIMP shares:
What's up lately in ZeMarmot and GIMP?!
Subvert announces:
Subvert's First Annual General Meeting: September 19
Linux / Open Android
Phosh announces:
Librist has:
Linux for Mobile Devices: Introducing postmarketOS
9to5Linux reports:
BleachBit 6.0.2 Adds Support for Cleaning AI Models from Google Chrome
I had not heard of BleachBit but it's a great idea and should be very useful. Especially for shoveling out AI horseshit.
TUXEDO Computers Plans to Rebase TUXEDO OS on Debian Testing
It's FOSS says:
Packet is the Linux App You Didn’t Know You Needed for Fast Android File Transfers
This could be useful.
Modal examines:
openSUSE announces:
Uyuni Joins openSUSE Project Ahead of Annual Conference
F-Droid shares:
Hosting / Serving
HCCF shares:
Reclaiming Our Digital Selves: HCCF’s Vision for a Human-Centered Top-Level Domain
This week's featured OMN tool
Hyper8
Hyper8 is a static site generator for video publishing.
Cool.
Programming
Git
The Software Freedom Conservancy reports:
GitHub & other LLM-gen-AI Companies Urge You to Misdirect California Legislature on FOSS Licensing!
Fuck ShitHub and Microslop.
Mihaela Mihaljević Jakić reveals:
For sure not ones who aren't cunts.
Noma announces:
GitLost: How We Tricked GitHub’s AI Agent into Leaking Private Repos
Rafael Martins shows us the way around this garbage:
Dead Simple Tech asks:
Why don't people use git properly?
Maybe because like most things in programming these days, it's an overly complicated clusterfuck.
Tangled announces:
HTML
Krijn Hoetmer looks at:
Code snippets and live previews
Master.dev shows us:
How to Make an Interactive Element Invisible but Accessible
CSS
Master.dev has:
Thinking Horizontally in CSS @layer
CSS god, Josh Comeau explores:
Getting Started with Anchor Positioning
David Bushell examines:
Pawel Grzybek looks at:
JavaScript
Code Utopia says:
Svelte feels like the "Native Language" of the Web
Svelte is definitely one of the least shitty JavaScript frameworks.
AI
David Bushell provides:
Very witty. And true.
Tech Policy Press opines:
The World Doesn't Need Another UN AI Declaration. It Needs Architecture.
Ben Werdmuller says:
Governance can prevent AI from being used to undermine democracy. But only if it has teeth.
SysDig reports:
JADEPUFFER: Agentic ransomware for automated database extortion
Live by the sword, die by the sword. And the sooner the better.
Other
XWiki shares:
Change management and best practices to navigate your migration from Confluence
OpenProject announces:
This week's featured programming tool
Pears
Unleash the Power of P2P. Empower Developers, Disrupt the Norm!
ActivityPub
Fedify has:
Why implementing ActivityPub is hard, and why it doesn't have to be
Great stuff. It needs to be as easy to build things with ActivityPub as it is with ATProto.
BotKit 0.5.0: A new design language, multi-bot instances, and consent-respecting quotes
Hrefna says:
Let's talk about hashtags in ActivityPub
ActivityPub for WordPress announces:
ActivityPub for WordPress 9.0.0 is here
BTW and for better or worse, WordPress is handing Ghost its ass when it comes to ActivityPub integration. And even ATProto.
Tod Sundsted announces:
There are two significant new additions in release v3.8.0 of ktistec
This week's featured ActivityPub featured tool
Kazarma
Kazarma is a bridge between two decentralized protocols: Matrix and ActivityPub.
Permanent aside here (unfortunately)
This is necessary because many people aren't able to comprehend this -> the Fediverse is for communities (private, semi-private, formal, informal, or otherwise) and the Atmosphere is for the masses (unwashed, washed, or otherwise). Corporate social media is for naive fools and intentional cunts.
Also, you can avoid surveillance on the Fediverse if you want to (and choose the correct tools) but not on the Atmosphere.
So, recognize their natures and don't ask the two protocols to go against them. This is also why we have accounts on both platforms and use them differently.
Fediverse
Connected Places explores:
Casually says:
The Fediverse Grew Up. Its Sign-Up Page Didn't.
See my permanent aside above.
Federated Mind continues a series:
The Written Fediverse: Where the Words Live
PieFed announces:
PieFed v1.7 is released: Following People, Faster Browsing & Smarter Moderation
Tod's Homelab shares:
Tim Bray opines on:
Mastodon, The Only Good Choice
I would say the Fediverse in general. And don't use mastodon.social.
Kuketz IT Security shares:
UnplugBigTech: Das Fediverse als Alternative zu X, Instagram und Facebook – Teil 7
More
The Democratic Tech Fund has:
LoRes Mesh looks at:
Binding apps to Regions in a LoRes Mesh
Matrix
Matrix announces:
Matrix 1.19 is officially here
Element says:
We’re interoperable, so you can be sovereign
Webmentions
Alex Hyett has:
Setting up Webmentions on my Static Site
Opting for privacy in webmentions
RSS
The Electronic Frontier Foundation opines:
Hate “The Algorithm?” RSS Is One of the Tools You’ve Been Looking For
XMPP
XMPP publishes:
Ignite Realtime announces its:
Other Federated Social Media
Jon is not impressed with Gander:
Social networks and ID verification is here
It's throwing off strong W Social vibes.
Erlend's Notes reviews:
Bits of Entropy says:
All data should be permissioned data
What’s Happening on My Feed? is:
Putting the Trust back in Trust and Safety
Blacksky announces:
The launch of Blacksky-Only Posts
Community Trash explains:
Jon Worth shares:
Bluesky, we don’t get fooled again, the sequel
Democracy Tech
Decdim announces:
eMail / Newsletters
Andrew Marder notes:
I have also decided to go the invite only route for subscribing to our newsletter. So hit me up on open social if subscribing via a newsletter is your thing.
Ghost announces:
Magic Pages has:
A Simpler, More Secure Newsletter Sending Setup
Why a Subdomain, Not Your Main Domain, for Newsletter Sending
Tuta announces:
Tuta One-Click Migration is now in closed beta!
Cool. I think I will move my ancient personal gmail account to this when it's ready.
Tara Tarakiyee says:
I Cannot Be Trusted to Send Email
CTAs
- That’s it for this week. Please share The Programmer's Fulcrum.
- Follow us on Surf or at @thefulcrum@thefulcrum.dev on the Fediverse or at @thefulcrum.eurosky.social on ATProto for daily coverage.
- Read, live, and share The Techno Anarchist Manifesto!
And please build something for a community! We're nuturing Manade.
Top comments (0)