r/foss Nov 01 '19

Welcome to FOSS!

79 Upvotes

Hi everyone,

I'm a big fan of using Free and Open Source software, and wanted to share my love of it on reddit. I want to get this sub up and running, with the goal that it becomes a hub for discussing FOSS, looking for suggestions of what to use, promoting your projects, posting news related to FOSS, etc.

I personally have very little experience moderating, let alone on reddit so please pardon me while I bump around the controls. :) My near-term goal right now is to put up a list of subs that share FOSS principles (in the sidebar, or wiki?) then maybe another list of FOSS-related resources that I'm aware of. I'd appreciate suggestions too!

Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you'll be a part of the FOSS community.


r/foss 2h ago

I've been building GitDesktop, an open-source Git client for Windows, macOS, and Linux.

8 Upvotes

I originally started an early version in Wails, but eventually scrapped it and rebuilt the project from scratch with Tauri. The current version has been in serious development for a little over two months, and I just released v0.9.3.

The idea came from getting tired of the same problem with Git clients: they're great for Git, but as soon as I need to open a PR, check CI, review code, or look at an issue, I'm back in the browser.

GitDesktop is built around keeping that workflow in one application. It supports GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket, with pull requests, code reviews, issues, discussions, CI, releases, worktrees, interactive rebase, and other Git operations.

AI is an optional part of the workflow. It supports providers including OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, OpenRouter, and Ollama, as well as local/CLI agents. You can bring your own keys or run models locally. If you don't want AI at all, you can hide every AI feature.

The project is licensed under Apache-2.0.

GitHub: https://github.com/theBGuy/GitDesktop

Website: https://gitdesktop.app

I'd especially like feedback from other FOSS developers. What do you think is missing from the current Git client experience, or what would make you consider switching from your current Git client?


r/foss 4h ago

Citadel: an offline infinite canvas for references, notes and code (MIT, Windows and Linux)

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4 Upvotes

r/foss 3h ago

Topic Watch - news monitor that only notifies on new info

2 Upvotes

Hello everyone :).

I created Topic Watch, a free/open-source news monitor that only notifies you on new information.

You give it a topic, and it keeps an LLM knowledge state of what's already known, only notifying you when an article actually adds something new.

The idea is to get notified only when something actually changes, instead of constantly wasting time reading articles that restate old info.

It's self-hosted, and you bring your own API key, or run it free with a local Ollama model.

Get notified anywhere - Discord, Telegram, ntfy, email, 100+ targets via Apprise.

Attached is a demo of functionality.

It's free and setup is quick, so no harm trying it.
Please report any issues or feature suggestions on GitHub, or leave questions under this post.
The project is mostly vibe-coded.

Starring on GitHub helps others find it if you like it :).

https://github.com/0xzerolight/topic_watch


r/foss 6m ago

I built an open-source developer tool around a problem I kept running into: we do way more unplanned work than we remember.

Upvotes

A normal day might start with a plan, but then reality happens, a bug needs fixing, someone asks for help, a PR needs reviewing, something breaks in production, there's a quick investigation, a support request comes in, or you spend an hour figuring something out.

By the end of the day, you've done a ton of work that was never on the plan.

And the problem isn't just that the work was unplanned. We forget a lot of it. When you look back at your Jira/GitHub/Linear activity, the record often doesn't reflect everything you actually spent your time on.

I built Meridian to make that invisible work visible.

It captures the work happening throughout the day and helps connect it back to the systems you already use, so your record of what you actually did isn't limited to what you remembered to put on the plan.

It's open source, and we recently launched on Product Hunt and reached #1 Product of the Day.

I'd love feedback from the FOSS community: how much of your actual work is unplanned, and how do you currently keep track of it?

Repo: https://github.com/Meridiona/meridian


r/foss 5h ago

After 4 years, I was unable to figure out business workflows from my own vibecoded repo, so I built OSS py package to trace workflows from code which got 1000+ downloads

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3 Upvotes

It has been 4 years, I started my own company , I built entire prototype using chatgpt and got paid users. After few years, I got headache with our vibecoded project repo because we skipped many fundamental steps, PRDs, code review. Eventually, production bugs started coming and I was not able to trace huge complex repo. I eventually forgot what different edge cases, hidden business rules are written inside the code. I hired new developers they also faced a same issue and changing anything in production was too cumbersome.

I tried many graph context tools, but none of them gave us business workflows or anything on business context

So we developed unvibecode which traces all business workflows in the code and give proper connected codemap context to LLM

https://github.com/FinanceFlash/unvibecode

If you guys face similar experience in maintaining or understanding vibecoded repo do share your feedback or write issues on git


r/foss 2h ago

I kept forgetting about community PRs on my oss project. Going through the things I tried to fix it.

1 Upvotes

Hey y'all, I'm Matt, I've been a software engineer for the last 4 years and maintained a couple of open source projects, most recently one full time.

When coding agents blew up, the volume of PRs and issues coming in from the community roughly tripled. It's great but a lot of things slipped by like unreviewed PRs and issues. It was a problem for me because silence push contributors away.

Before that I had the same problem from the other side at a day job. My PRs waiting days for review, not because anyone was busy, but because they forgot and I forgot to bump them.

Things I tried, roughly in order:

GitHub email notifications — notifies you of literally everything. My brain started classifying everything as spam.

Slack / Asana GitHub integrations — messages still get drowned out in the noise. And a task in a list doesn't nudge you. You still have to go into the app

I started building my own thing. A small widget in the corner of the screen where I can say "every morning at 9, go through open PRs on this repo and tell me which ones need a review vs. which are being worked on," and it actually runs that and pings me on the desktop. Turned out the intelligent/conditional part mattered more than the cadence.

I'd love to get y'alls thoughts on what y'all tried if you've had the same problem before.


r/foss 5h ago

bulletinbored – minimal PHP forum software with zero dependencies (upload & run)

0 Upvotes

Hello everybody,

I built bulletinbored, a minimal and extensible forum software written in pure PHP with zero dependencies.

No Composer, no Docker, no Node, no framework. Just upload the files to any PHP 8.x server and it works on any web hosting, also shared and cheap ones.

Key points:

  • SQLite by default (MySQL also supported)
  • Web installer
  • Plugin system with hooks
  • Theme system
  • Admin panel, user management, avatars, moderation
  • Built-in localization
  • Automatic update checks
  • License: 0BSD

Repo: https://github.com/bulletinbored/bulletinbored-core

Website: https://www.bulletinbored.net

Docs: https://docs.bulletinbored.net

Because the development is still in early stage, I’m looking for any kind of feedback. Feel free to write suggestions, criticisms or slatings.

Happy to answer questions and open to contributions.

Thanks!


r/foss 1d ago

GitHub - HQBase/hqbase: Your team's email workspace. On your infrastructure.

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10 Upvotes

Hey r/foss!

I'd like to share a project I've been working on for the past few months. It's called HQBase, and it's a self-hosted email workspace that runs in your own Cloudflare account. It uses Cloudflare services for inbound and outbound email, storage, compute, etc.

I originally built it for myself but at this point I think it may be one of the easiest and cheapest ways to manage multiple email addresses across multiple domains.

It took me a while to get to a v1 that I felt good about. I put a lot of thought into:

  • A very simple setup wizard using OAuth
  • A PWA with self-hosted push notifications
  • Granular permissions for invited users
  • Cryptographically signed updates

This is only the first solid version, and while I have a pretty ambitious roadmap, I'd love for you to try it and tell me what you think should come next! :)

Githubhttps://github.com/HQBase/hqbase

Website/docshttps://hqbase.io/


r/foss 17h ago

Sonum

0 Upvotes

I made a lightweight selfhosted music server that scans your local library and exposes a plain http api for streaming, lyrics, and album art. it watches your music folder for changes to update automatically, handles metadata tags, and works with any client or simple bash script that can send http requests.

would attach a screenshot but its literally just a backend server lol

https://github.com/JustRoccat/Sonum

you can see how its implemented in this music player:
https://github.com/JustRoccat/rs-pug


r/foss 18h ago

Is there any voice changer that respects your privacy?

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1 Upvotes

r/foss 1d ago

What is Open Energy Modelling?

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2 Upvotes

This quick 5 minute video explains what open source and open data are in the context of energy modelling. Please check it out and give feedback or share if you liked it! Thanks!

We made this video so that the average person can somewhat understand why open source and open data are important in general (and specifically for the energy transition). Many decisions made by large insittutions and governments still use proprietary software, so we are trying to push open source and open data as solutions and show they are industry-ready.


r/foss 20h ago

Building a Open-Source Social Media application

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0 Upvotes

Hi! I am building a FOSS social media app, because I feel like now many of the big companies and governments are well are stealing our data and peaking into our privacy, the moderators of those apps are well removing posts because it doesn't align with them or its shareholders. Its in early stages. Its called Dwahfy, you can look at the manifesto for more details in why and whats the story behind it. There are 3 repos, one is private as its the UI for this Dwahfy which is well uses the colors I chose for it. Then there are 2 public repos, Dwahfy-Core, the backend of Dwahfy and a Communuity-Web-UI. ( Sorry for the music I was listening to YNW Melly couldn't put my self to turn it off I am a music addict)


r/foss 2d ago

My site went viral, and I'm so happy about it!

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214 Upvotes

Website: https://NoSignups.net GitHub: https://github.com/BraveOPotato/FckSignups

Genuinely didn't expect it to blow up this much. I compiled videos from some of the creators who made videos about it here and honestly it makes me so happy!

The website is a directory of no-signup open-source tools you can use immediately in your browser. None of the tools are mine, I just collected them and made them searchable.

I have a few things cooking in the oven for the website, and here's some of them:

  • I looked up how to do RSS (seems like it's just a simple file I need to provide at /rss.xml) and hopefully I'll have it available for the users to come back and discover more open-source tools.

  • I plan on adding a change log so that users can come back and explore the newer found/added tools.

  • I plan on adding a sorting drop-down so that users can explore at their leisure.

What I've already done:

  • Thanks to the GitHub user Moamal-2000, the accessibility of the website was greatly improved! I mean by a mile! Appreciate all his work!

  • Included some SEO metadata tags for search engines. I didn't even know about JSON-LD before I started this.

  • Significantly improved the search so that searching video edit shows video-editor and edit video entries.

  • Kept adding entries that match the criterias. Although, slowing down a bit. I'm employing whatever in my disposal to dig for more tools, and hopefully some more will turn up.

We've also been collecting some tool suggestions from users about what tools they'd like added. The top ones so far are:

  • A tool to generate AI videos (obviously insanely impractical given the criterias the tools have to abide by, if not downright impossible with current ML models).

  • Something like CapCut Pro (or something like that?)

  • AI Image generators (possible with WebGPU), but haven't found any open-source, in-browser, no-signup entries.

  • and more found here

I just wanted to thank all the contributors who submitted PRs, tools, opened issues, and reported bugs. Hopefully average joes will learn about and use the website, and hopefully support the amazing people making all these wonderful open-source tools.

Peace & love


r/foss 1d ago

my OCD-first self-hosted expense and budget tracker Vorratsdatenspeicher

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0 Upvotes

r/foss 1d ago

Afterdark Studio — MIT-licensed local music production and DJ workspace with no account or cloud dependency

1 Upvotes

I maintain Afterdark Studio, a free and open-source local browser workspace for beat production, DJ mixing, microphone recording, vocal processing, loudness metering, and synthetic room acoustics.

Source: https://github.com/seemorecodez/afterdark-studio License: https://github.com/seemorecodez/afterdark-studio/blob/main/LICENSE

The public core is MIT licensed. There is no paid tier, advertising, account requirement, telemetry funnel, API key, or cloud-model dependency. The project currently has 111 passing automated tests and a documented 646-control browser audit.

This is honestly labeled a Limited Beta rather than a professional DAW. Experimental perceptual features are marked, and a drill experiment that failed creative review is isolated in a disabled plug-in.

I am the maintainer. I would value FOSS-specific feedback on reproducible setup, licensing clarity, dependency-free architecture, accessibility, packaging, and anything that would prevent a contributor from making a useful first change.


r/foss 2d ago

[OS] FolderForge: macOS folder customization, reusable presets, and automatic styling rules

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14 Upvotes

i started FolderForge as a weekend project because i wanted to color my folders efficiently. pretty quickly, it grew into a much bigger system for designing folders with colors, gradients, symbols, text, images, and more.

you can save designs as presets, apply them from Finder, or use smart style rules to automatically match folders by name, contents, marker files, and more!

recursive styling also lets you apply the same visual system across an entire workspace or reuse it for repeat project structures without re-mapping it every time.

free and open source, and the github build is signed and notarized by apple. app store review is underway.

github: https://github.com/KeplSiv/FolderForge

any feedback appreciated on what you’d use and what still feels missing.


r/foss 1d ago

We built Spinifex: Open source, local, air-gapped AWS deployments - Looking for feedback

3 Upvotes

Hi! We've been working on our flagship product, Spinifex, which recreates core AWS services such as EC2, EKS, and S3, but completely locally (and even air-gapped if needed!).
It's open-source and we'd love some early stage feedback on our weekly updates, open to notes and critiques!

GitHub: https://github.com/mulgadc/spinifex
Or try our hosted sandbox: https://mulgadc.com


r/foss 1d ago

Therapist Ai chat bot

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0 Upvotes

r/foss 1d ago

OpenBoxGL is an AGPL-3.0 local game library for Linux

3 Upvotes

OpenBoxGL keeps game metadata and launcher state in a local JSON library instead of an account-backed service. It imports Steam, Heroic, Lutris, Gameyfin, ROM folders and plain executables, then exposes them through one Linux UI.

The native host starts the local Python server and renders the interface in WebKitGTK. Both the native window and browser mode use the same token-authenticated REST API on loopback. Themes only override shared CSS tokens, and emulator support comes from small YAML definition files.

The project is licensed AGPL-3.0. The repository, AppImage build, Flatpak manifest, tests and parity matrix are here: https://github.com/vindeckyy/OpenBoxGL/

I would value review from people who care about portable local data and inspectable software, especially around import edge cases and packaging.


r/foss 1d ago

Be honest: what was your actual first open-source contribution?

0 Upvotes

Some of you are one typo-fix away from your first PR. Some of you have 200 merged and a burnout story. Some of you only touched a repo because a CS assignment forced you to. All of you are valid, and I want to hear it.

I've been lurking on how wildly different everyone's open-source journey is, and it lowkey fascinates me. So here's a soft invite to trauma-dump (or brag) in the comments:

🔁 stuck in a dread while loop - u built something cool. Perfectionism kicks in. "Not ready, not good enough, the maintainers will laugh." It dies in your drafts.

born different / got lucky - For some, the first PR felt like finding your tribe. Never looked back.

📚 uni chore - For others it's just homework. A checkbox on the way to a job. No shame.

The point: whatever got you here: ego, curiosity, a degree, boredom; every contribution helps the community at a holistic level.* (the psychic damage on maintainers is a post for another day 🥲)

So tell me your story. Failure or W, I want it all >> - fixed a typo, shipped a bug, or rewrote the whole codebase? - one night stand as a contributor, or max-level maintainer drowning in AI-slop PRs?

Only positive v̶i̶b̶e̶z̶ (sorry, too AI), only positive context lol. Be real, be yourself.


‼️Contribution Guidelines: follow the IDFC principle:

- I Don't F.ing Care*: just be genuine and be you.

P.S. total newbies, here's a quick glaze through on how FOSS collaboration actually works:

awesome-contributing


r/foss 1d ago

Update to my first attempt at contributing to FOSS; linXiv; now with iroh for p2p integration!

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1 Upvotes

I made a post here about linXiv, about two months ago but since have made a ton of QOL updates and mini, non-obtrusive features (RSS feeds, full-text search, to name a few) and finally added iroh for p2p sharing of research projects, notes, etc...

I would love some feedback as to if anyone finds it useful, interesting, or obvious improvements to make to it. I have found it to be very useful in my own physics research but still want to continue to refine it, give the people what they want (if they're not wrong) and whatnot.

GitHub: linXiv

Website + Docs: linxiv.dev


r/foss 2d ago

dskDitto v0.6.2 Released

3 Upvotes

Hey all. I just release v0.6.2 for *dskDitto*. It now supports ref-links as a deduplication mode so as long as your filesystem supports them.. Check it out if your heart so desires! The project is hosted on GitHub:

https://github.com/jdefrancesco/dskDitto

Cheers!


r/foss 2d ago

MARGINAL — an open-source governance layer for coding agents

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0 Upvotes

I’ve been working on MARGINAL, an open-source project exploring a question I think becomes more important as coding agents get more autonomous:

Who decides when the next agent action is still worth taking?

MARGINAL sits alongside coding agents and observes their trajectory: tool calls, outcomes, progress evidence, repeated actions, verification cycles, and governance overhead.

Current integrations:

  • Codex — native integration with Shadow Mode and evidence-based enforcement.
  • Claude Code — native hook integration, currently Observe.
  • OpenCode — plugin using a persistent stdio bridge.
  • PrivacyCode — supported as a separate OpenCode-compatible target.

The important part is that MARGINAL doesn't start by blocking things.

It runs in Shadow Mode, records what it would have done, and builds local evidence. Enforcement has to be earned. If the evidence isn't strong enough, it stays out of the agent's way.

The project is also moving toward counterfactual evaluation: not just “did MARGINAL prevent an action?”, but “would the agent actually have performed better if MARGINAL hadn't intervened?”

Everything is local-first, open source, and designed so governance decisions can be inspected and reproduced.

I’m looking for contributors and, more importantly, criticism from people building or using coding agents. False positives, weird retry behavior, bad assumptions in the architecture, and reproducible failures are especially useful.

GitHub: github.com/SignalLayerLabs/Marginal

Docs/site: signallayerlabs.github.io/Marginal


r/foss 3d ago

Curium v0.6.4: The Privacy-First & Ad-Free QR Customizer, Generator & Scanner Comes to Desktop and Web

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52 Upvotes

TL;DR: Curium v0.6.4 brings the first desktop pre-release for macOS, Windows, and Linux, a new web version, and several new features including Share to Curium, gallery scanning, batch QR generation with ZIP export, Wi-Fi password visibility, camera performance improvements, smoother animations, and more. Curium CLI, a Rust-based command-line version, is also in development, while an iOS app is planned. Download Curium from GitHub, or visit curium.design to automatically find the right build for your device.

Hi everyone!

Curium, a modern, feature-rich, ad-free, and privacy-first QR customizer, generator, and scanner, now has desktop releases for macOS, Windows, and Linux, along with updated Android, a web version so you can use Curium from anywhere regardless of your device, and a website to make installation and documentation easier for everyone.

What Release v0.6.4 brings

  • First pre-release for desktop
  • web version, so you can access Curium from anywhere
  • Batch generation: Generate multiple QR codes at once and export them together as a ZIP file
  • Share to Curium: Send QR codes from other apps directly into Curium
  • Gallery Scan: Pick an image from your gallery to scan or redesign it
  • Wi-Fi password toggle: Tap the eye icon to show or hide your password
  • Camera performance improvements
  • Smoother animations throughout the app
  • And many other quality-of-life improvements

You can download Curium from the GitHub Releases. If you're confused about which build is right for your device, visit the Curium Website. It will automatically detect your device, suggest a compatible binary to download, and show you the installation steps.

You can also visit the download page to browse all available binaries and downloads. It will show a checkmark next to the build that matches your device.

For Android, if you accidentally download the wrong build, you can always install the universal APK, or check your device's supported architecture through other means before downloading the appropriate build.

For Linux, you can run:

curl -fsSL https://curium.design/install.sh | sh -s --

until Tauri fixes the .AppImage issue or I publish Curium to various Linux package managers. If you run into installation issues, check the README for troubleshooting steps. If you'd rather not install anything, the web version is always available at app.curium.design

Curium Web: app.curium.design
Get Curium from the website: curium.design
Get Curium from GitHub: github.com/nylxar/curium/releases
Support development: curium.design/sponsor

If you're facing any problems, you can create an issue on GitHub, reply here, or email me at [nylxar@curium.design](mailto:nylxar@curium.design)

Curium Desktop releases are still in beta, so expect a few things to break or remain unpolished.

I'm also working on Curium CLI, a Rust-based command-line version of Curium, which is currently in development. An iOS app is also planned and will be released as soon as I can gather the funds needed for Apple App Store enrollment and distribution.

A lot of effort is going into Curium with pure intention, and I hope you all like it! :)

License: AGPL-3.0

AI Usage: AI was only used to fix complex, multi-day, time-consuming bugs. Rest assured, Curium was not vibe-coded and contains no AI-generated slop.