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 Open Social 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), Open Social, 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 open social 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.
Sometimes, I just want to share something and that is the case today.
In my working life, my hobby project was Symfony Station. As part of that I subscribed to and learned from SymfonyCasts. And it is the best learning product/site I have ever used.
This week, I got an email that my yearly subscription is renewing. I no longer need it, so I canceled the subscription. Before it ends, I am enjoying one last tutorial on Vue JS (which might be useful for me one day, though hopefully not). Viewing it reminds me just how much I miss the truly awesome (and sadly late) Ryan Welch.
So, @symfonycasts@phpc.social please keep up the fantastic work for the PHP community and thanks for the wonderful memories. And in Ryan’s memory please get the fuck off Twitter and Facebook. And list your Mastodon handle on your website. :)
Featured Item(s)
Michelle Barker writes:
Building a website feels old-fashioned these days. How many more websites do I have left in me before the old fire flickers and dies? Is snuffed out. Before making websites is no longer a viable way to earn a living? The web will change drastically within my lifetime, maybe someday soon, indeed it already has. Maybe it really will fizzle out, a graveyard haunted only by bots and crawlers. But I have a hunch that there will be a long tail.
Please use the 4Rs and join the Open Media Network.
Bastian Greshake Tzovaras writes:
We do not need to create large structures that just run the risk of becoming yet another single-point-of-failure and at the same time require approaches to decenter community.
Instead, what we might want is many, ‘reasonably’-sized alternatives that can interact, exchange and cross-communicate. Jacobs did not think about ‘federation’ on a technical protocol level, but I think the Fediverse – with all its problems – shows that there is a real opportunity. And the folks working on making federated code forges work might just pull the same thing off for that domain.
On 'scaling up' and being the right size
CMSs
Make WordPress announces:
WordPress Contributor Toolkit 1.0: A smoother workflow for your first Core contribution
Useful.
Uncenter announces:
Helpful.
Hammer Tech Blog explores:
Putting a Bunny.net CDN in Front of My Static Blog
Typemill announces:
Typemill 2.26.0: PHP 8.5 and GitSync Plugin
After this disappointing announcement and I would expect some backlash, Publii announces:
Tools
Heart Soul Machine (correctly) opines:
The Guardian reports on:
Dickovers, baggravation and botiquette: 18 new words to describe our tech hellscape
As developers let's unfuck this.
Browsers
Waterfox announces:
Cullum Smith shows us how to:
Quite useful.
Cloud
Obiente has a resource:
Your Nextcloud deserves a real app
Nextcloud has:
Academy of Civic Organizations Foundation builds a secure digital workspace with Nextcloud
Nextcloud earns ANSSI CSPN and BSI IT-Grundschutz certifications
Writing
LibreOffice explains:
Why Digital Sovereignty Requires an Open Document Platform — and What That Actually Means
There Is No “Best” Interface, Only the Right Fit
Creative
GIMP has an update:
GIMP 3.4 Promises New Project File Format, PSD Support Improvements, and More
Linux / Open Android
TechPolicy Press reports:
Google Android Antitrust Ruling Shows the Next Battle is Over Who Controls Trust
Hosting / Serving
Johanna Larson examines:
This week's featured OMN tool
Framatoolbox
Using Framatoolbox is the first step on the road to your digital autonomy.
Programming
Always Twisted says:
The Recipe Isn't The Bake - What Design Systems Need Beyond Documentation
Ryan Cheley asks:
What if Maintainer Burnout Isn't Burnout
David Bushell shares his:
Git
Mathias Endler opines:
GitHub Was Never About The Source Code
Mathias, my man, check out Codeberg or Tangled.
HTML
Vic Matuzo shares:
Very helpful. Especially as I am extremely tempted to go back to coding sites by hand. ;)
Piccalilli takes:
A look at the geolocation HTML element and how it works
CSS
That HTML Blog has:
So Many Ways to Design Systematize a Component
Ion Prodan looks at:
CSS Tricks explores:
CSS Navigation Matching, Early Days
When this settles in, it will be another great way to get rid of some JavaScript. :)
AI
1Password explains:
Off-by-1 Labs: Why AI-generated vulnerability patches still require expert human review
AKA they’re horseshit.
Other
OpenProject reports:
This week's featured programming tool
SymfonyCasts
In honor of my final weeks with Ryan's tutoring.
SymfonyCast's JavaScript Courses
SymfonyCast's JavaScript Framework Courses
ActivityPub
Hamish Campbell shares:
OMN: Activity, culture and why Soviet experiments matter
I started reading the ActivityPub book while on vacation last week and this ties into AP's history in an unique way.
Shom Dev has:
I missed this last week.
Starling is a nice simple server I use for the Manade project's official communications. And it actually works with Fediverse clients. Unlike my accounts on holos.social, fedihood.social, and Ghost.
The Social Web Incubator Community Group is trying to tame some of the chaos from Mastodon's implementation of ActivityPub (and everyone else copying them):
ActivityPub Miscellaneous Terms
This week's featured ActivityPub featured tool
ActivityPub Book
This is the ActivityPub handbook that every social software hacker needs.
Permanent aside here (unfortunately)
This is a perpetual pet peeve because many people aren't able to comprehend ⬇️:
- The Fediverse is for communities (private, semi-private, formal, informal, or otherwise)
- and the Atmosphere is for the masses (unwashed, washed, or otherwise).
- and corporate social media is for naive fools and intentional cunts.
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
PixelFed announces:
We're building an official Pixelfed relay service
ActivityPub Space is:
Fedilab Apps announces:
We started an account to test it out. Follow us at @walkers@fedihood.social if you can.
Mastodon previews:
Good UI improvements.
Owncast has:
Owncast Newsletter August 2026
The Social Web Incubator Community Group is trying to tame some of the chaos from Mastodon's implementation of ActitivyPub (and everyone copying theirs):
ActivityPub Miscellaneous Terms
Bonfire
Bonfire asks:
Asta von Schröder has thoughts:
Science Communication in the Fediverse – Mastodon and Open Science Network
As promised last week, we're going to explore the many challenges of achieving our vision of an easily installed, safe, surveillance-resistant home for vulnerable online communities.
More
Hamish Campbell says:
In tech, the unit of measure is important
He makes a great point: ...what would the balancing of communal-first tech look like? Well, much like the current mod process of good grassroots Mastodon instances. Malatesta was right: anarchism is not the absence of “paths”, it’s paths we make for ourselves.
Local First
Tyler's Blog examines:
A Local-First Task Planner On ATProto
ATProto
ATProto announces:
The Atproto Spaces Alpha is Live
This is the name they settled on for permissioned data.
Nick Gerakines continues a series:
Permissioned Data: Space Access
As does Daniel’s Leaflets:
Permissioned Data Diary 7: Off the Record
Chris’s Corner looks at:
The disconnect between web pages and the social filesystem
Johanna Larson has:
Taking control of your atproto account
Latch - an Elixir atproto OAuth library
Atmosphere
And this interesting tool:
We will see if it works for this site. But, I don't think it will for basic Ghost. Pro or self-hosted might work.
Diego Vicente shares:
Getting into ATProto: My 2026 Field Guide to the ATmosphere
A good list of apps, including a few non-horseshit ones.
Ewan's Blog has:
2,558 Is Not a Number of People
Interesting if you care exactly who and what your followers are. Nothing personal, but I don't.
We Can Just Do Things reports:
W Social is TruthSocial with a European accent
They are definitely a pack of poser grifting cunts, whose few real users are bamboozled, clueless marks at best.
XMPP
Slidge announces:
Matrix
Matrix explores:
Hey Matrix, keep up the good work but please walk the talk and get the fuck off YouTube and onto PeerTube. At least for your embedded videos.
Adullact reports:
Matrix pour les collectivités : vers une messagerie instantanée souveraine et fédérée
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 the Atmosphere for daily coverage.
- Read, live, and share The Techno Anarchist Manifesto!
And please build something for a community! We're painfully nurturing Manade. See above :(
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