KDE Plasma 6.7 Beta arrives with Plasma Bigscreen, new Union theme system https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2026/05/kde-plasma-6-7-beta-arrives-with-plasma-bigscreen-new-union-theme-system/

#KDE #Linux #OpenSource #Plasma

🆕 blog! “UK Government Kicks Out Palantir”

The UK Government, for all its faults, is pretty good at publishing contracts it has awarded. That's why I get depressed when I see rage-bait nonsense about how companies have been award "Top Secret" deals.

Right now you can go to https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk and search for whichever bête noire has you riled up. You …

👀 Read more: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/05/uk-government-kicks-out-palantir/
⸻
#government #OpenSource

And here's the official Open Source guidance from GDS.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/ai-open-code-and-vulnerability-risk-in-the-public-sector

Throws quite a bit of shade at the NHS, including the line "Private repositories can create a false sense of security."

#NHS #OpenSource #Mythos

NetBSD 11 RC4 is here! Huge thanks to all the devs getting this ready for the final release.

Quick reminder since we are almost halfway through the year: The NetBSD Foundation needs our help to keep things running. If you appreciate clean code, software freedom, and an OS that literally runs on anything, OS which rejects A.I. slop, please consider making a donation. Let's help them hit their 2026 goals!
Grab the RC: https://blog.netbsd.org/tnf/entry/netbsd_11_0_rc4_available
Support the foundation: https://www.netbsd.org/donations/
#NetBSD #FOSS #OpenSource #antiaislop #Linux

Mozilla, Proton, Mullvad, Tor Project, and EFF signed a letter opposing UK online age-verification proposals over privacy and surveillance risks 🌐
The coalition warned mandatory age gates could centralize identity checks, weaken anonymity, and push open web toward closed, monitored platforms 🔒

🔗 https://cyberinsider.com/mozilla-mullvad-proton-sign-letter-opposing-uk-age-verification/

#TechNews #Mozilla #Proton #Mullvad #Tor #UnitedKingdom #EFF #Privacy #Cybersecurity #OpenSource #FOSS #VPN #Surveillance #UK #DigitalRights #Internet #Freedom #AgeVerification

Anne Dickison, Deputy Director of the FreeBSD Foundation, will join Katie Steen-James (Open-Source Initiative) and Margaret Tucker (GitHub) for a GitHub Maintainer Month panel on what age assurance proposals mean for open-source maintainers.

The discussion will examine developments in the U.S., Brazil, and Europe, and what developers need to understand as policy conversations evolve.

LinkedIn Live on May 22, 2026
Learn more and register: https://bit.ly/3Ra8QOY

#FreeBSD #OpenSource

🚨 Critical Composer Update: 2.9.8 & 2.2.28 fix a GitHub Actions token disclosure!

⚠️ Update NOW or disable GitHub Actions immediately!

https://blog.packagist.com/composer-2-9-8-and-2-2-28-fix-github-actions-token-disclosure-in-error-messages/

#PHP #Composer #ComposerPHP #OpenSource #WebDevelopment #GitHubActions #DevSecOps #CyberSecurity #SoftwareUpdate #PatchRelease #DependencyManagement #SecurityFix #Programming #Packagist #PHPDev #ComposerUpdate #OpenSourceSoftware #WebDevLife #InfoSec #SecurityPatch #CodeSmart #DependencyManagement #SoftwareSecurity #TechUpdate

Sovereign Tech Fund invests over €1 million in KDE software development https://kde.org/announcements/sovereign-tech-fund-invests-kde/

#opensource #linux #unix

What is your favourite code editor that is:
1) light (feature-wise)
2) pretty (in a customizable way)
3) running on Linux 👀

#Linux #Programming #OpenSource

Every year in late summer, FrOSCon brings together people who are passionate about Free Software and Open Source. The event is organized by the Department of Computer Science at Bonn Rhein Sieg University together with the FrOSCon e.V. and offers many interesting talks, workshops, project booths, and opportunities to connect with others from the community.

What I really like about FrOSCon is the atmosphere. Developers, companies, contributors, and open source enthusiasts come together to exchange ideas, learn from each other, and simply have a good time. The social event on Saturday evening is also always a great opportunity for networking and interesting conversations.

I am very proud that we as #credativ will be part of FrOSCon this year as a stand partner. It is a great chance for us to present our open source-projects (like #ProxLB, #ProxPatch, #ProxSnap, [...] but also all the other ones like #Plutono/#Vali and the credativ-pg-migrator for #PostgreSQL) and meet so many people from the community in person again.

At the moment I am unfortunately still unsure if I can attend personally, because I would also love to prepare a talk about #PegaProx for #Proxmox VE based clusters and share the story behind it, the progress over time, and some of the challenges and experiences along the way.

LET'S MAKE #OPENSOURCE TOGETHER!

FrOSCon Partner: https://froscon.org/partner/
FrOSCon: https://froscon.org/

Alt...

credativ at FrOScon 2026 with gyptazy

Bambu Lab is abusing the open source social contract

https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2026/bambu-lab-abusing-open-source-social-contract/

by @geerlingguy

Sooner or later, I'll buy a 3D printer. But, after this, I think I'll look at other brands.

#OpenSource

Open Source Conference Japan in #Nagoya coming up on 23rd of May!

https://event.ospn.jp/osc2026-nagoya/

Mostly Linux, but also a #NetBSD booth set up as well!

#OSPN #OpenSourceConference #Japan #OpenSource

Interesting. It seems like there are way more Linux users here than I expected.

So, let’s do a little roll call:

What are you using?

Linux?
Windows?
macOS?
BSD?
Something beautifully weird?

I’m curious 👀

#Linux #LinuxUser #Fediverse #Mastodon #OpenSource #Tech #OldschoolInternet

Today we are celebrating our first birthday! 🍰🎈

As it's been a very busy year – full of new community members, new features, and more – we've written up a summary of all the things that have happened.

And to give all of you a small gift: If you press the *Check Updates* button in the 2026.05.06 version of CoMaps, you'll find some freshly updated maps that were quietly released for you yesterday!

https://www.comaps.app/news/2026-05-12/celebrating-the-first-comaps-birthday/

#OpenStreetMap #opensource #freeSoftware

I've been talking before why money won't solve the burnout problem. But let's for a minute assume that you really wanted to help people maintaining #FreeSoftware by paying them. The problem is that:

1. You have to pay them a living wage.

While all monetary help is appreciated by developers, they need a living wage. Not "that should prevent you from starving to death" but the kind of money that can support a honest (but not lavish) lifestyle: pay the bills, feed your family, cover other living costs such as repairs, clothes, appliances, and let you save enough for future emergencies.

It's simple as that. If you can't do that, they're going to need a dayjob. If they're lucky, it won't collide with their #FLOSS work. If they're not, it will kill them. Or they'll fall somewhere in the middle, slowly burning out until they can neither maintain their projects, nor work.

2. You need to guarantee that the payouts will continue.

People need security. They're not going to stay unemployed, let alone quit their job or turn down a job offer, unless they either have good guaranties or substantial savings (or they're in a really bad shape and wouldn't be able to handle the job anyway). The job market is hell, and people just know that when the payments stop, they may not be able to find a job soon, let alone a good job. Even "passively" looking for a job can burn you out.

So yeah, one-off payments and pinky swears won't do. And it isn't even a matter of whether we can trust you; it's a matter if you'll actually be able to continue paying us. And honestly, I don't really know how to solve that. Perhaps by paying up front, but for how long? Finding a job may take more than a year, finding a good job may be once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

3. It can't end up being a job.

Perhaps most difficult of all, these payments can't really come with explicit obligations. I mean, that's the whole point: you want to support FLOSS, not turn it into a corporate project. You want the maintainer to remain free and enjoy the work. That is unlikely to happen if their livelihood is now dependent on your satisfaction. And even if it isn't, I for example would still feel indebted to whoever's paying me to do FLOSS, even if they really didn't expect anything in return, and would fall into a spiral of guilt-inflicted burnout if I failed to maintain the software satisfactorily.

#OpenSource

Hey #Python library maintainers! 👋 I sometimes see pull requests from well-meaning users about bumping minimum versions of dependencies to "fix security vulnerabilities". Here's a resource you can link to about why this strategy doesn't work in practice:

https://sethmlarson.dev/library-version-specifiers-not-for-vulnerabilities

#python #security #oss #opensource #vulnerability

I just discovered today that there are Pac-Man clones for the Unix terminal.

People truly will think of everything. Just a little ./configure; make; make install and you're good to go.

MyMan is the best:
https://termplay.github.io/posts/myman-terminal-pacman.html

#linux #freebsd #opensource

Alt...

A still from MyMan, a Unix terminal clone of Pac-Man featuring ASCII graphics for the characters

Episode 16 of Dark Blue Weekly released

https://darkblueproject.com/sites/news/dbw-e16.php

#darkblueweekly #darkblueproject #omnios #illumos #parrotsec #hyprland #shellyalpm #linux #opensource #freesoftware

I have written a sample letter that you can use to invite organizations to join the #Fediverse.

The letter is shared under a #CC0 license. Feel free to copy, adapt and send it to organizations that still rely on #BigTech.

Thanks to @danie1 for the English translation.

Replies to this post will also appear as comments under the blog post.

https://bammerlaan.nl/posts/Example_letter_Fediverse

#OpenSource #SocialMedia #mastodon #decentralisation #PublicSpaces #x #threads #bluesky #DigitalSovereignty #ActivityPub #AntiTrust

Thank you to Paweł Dawidek and the Fudo Security team for highlighting how they use FreeBSD’s isolation primitives in their security architecture.

It’s encouraging to see organizations building enterprise security solutions on top of these primitives and applying them in real-world deployments.

#FreeBSD #OpenSource #CyberSecurity #EnterpriseSecurity

"Go Away Microsoft! The Netherlands is Quietly Building Its Own GitHub Replacement
The self-hosted, FOSS-only platform is still in the pilot phase, but government agencies are already signing up.

Back in November 2025, Jan Vlug, a software engineer who writes for the Dutch government's developer portal, put out a detailed blog recommending which Git forge the Netherlands should adopt for its governmental source code hosting needs.

His post came at a time when the Ministry of the Interior (BZK) was already setting up a dedicated Git instance, and the platform decision was still open.

.,

Forgejo came out on top due to its fully free and open source nature. Licensed under GPLv3+ and governed by Codeberg e.V., a democratic nonprofit, it has no enterprise tier, proprietary upsell, or vendor lock-in problems.

On April 24, 2026, code.overheid.nl had its soft launch, with developer advocate Tom Ootes writing about it on developer.overheid.nl. He framed it as a collective project to build something together rather than ship something finished.

The platform is a self-hosted Forgejo instance, running on Dutch government infrastructure managed by SSC-ICT (DAWO). It's free for all government organizations and is built around the following goals."

https://itsfoss.com/news/netherlands-forgejo-migration/

#opensource #netherlands

What happens when you write to /dev/null ?

You can find out by attending this talk given by Martin Vahlensieck at BSDCan 2026.

Registration: https://www.bsdcan.org/2026/registration.html

Scedule: https://www.bsdcan.org/2026/timetable/timetable-all.html

#BSD #OpenSource #BSDCan

Duplicating Your System: Using Duplicity to Back Up Your FreeBSD Desktop.

In this Q1 2026 FreeBSD Journal article, Jason Tubnor walks through a practical approach to backing up your FreeBSD system using duplicity, including encrypted backups, incremental chains, parity protection, and S3-compatible storage.

Read more:
https://bit.ly/4d5AR1v

#FreeBSD #OpenSource #ZFS #Backup #SystemsAdministration

The #PHP License, Simplified
The #PHPlicense has been retired, and the PHP code has been relicensed under the three-clause #BSD license, an #OSI approved #opensource license. The actual BSD-3-Clause license, with its SPDX identifier, recognized by the OSI, the FSF, and every major piece of licensing tooling in use today. It’s worth knowing the licenses exist, they’ve been updated, and PHP’s legal foundations now match the spirit of the language and community.
https://ben.ramsey.dev/blog/2026/05/the-php-license-simplified