All about open source! Feel free to ask questions, and share news, and interesting stuff!
Community icon from opensource.org, but we are not affiliated with them.
Reviews in OpenStreetMap, so that google maps can have a real competitor.
Its not FOSS, but I use to use foursquare for years because of how good it was at finding good restaurants / things to do in a new city. Now that its shut down, there's no real alternative that comes close.
There are some people working on this and proposing some options.
IMO, as someone who regularly edits OSM, the maps need much more info and basic editing before reviews. I had to add many of my fave restaurants. Forget about reviews when the restaurants aren't even on there. Just saying. Maybe as it gets more users.
(Tangent: I was just in a foreign country where I didn't have much mobile data. But I had downloaded OSM maps beforehand and made edits beforehand for my trip. The only downside is that OSMand doesn't update their maps very often in some places so I almost never got to use all my edits. Overall though the offline maps were very helpful for navigation, etc.)
I was recently in a different country and two of us were navigating an area that had been built up over the last three years. Only OSM had the streets and buildings. Google was way behind and would have been useless.
So for those people editing, thank you, it actually matters.
As an openstreetmap contributor, I wish this so much. Every time I add places in there I ask myself if I'm doing something really useful anf if it's being actually used by anyone, or if I'm just wasting my time while thinking I'm doing a relevant thing because I know absolutely no one that uses it. Actually, the main osm site doesn't even show details about businesses, but just the icon
I work in emergency services and have been with multiple agencies that utilize OSM due to its increased accuracy and often more up to date data.
In some of our software, it's even one of the base map options and many of us prefer it (both standard OSM layer and the humanitarian layer).
Just wanted to add, when I'm travelling I very much enjoy it when a town has up to date cafes/restaurants. That's why my highest priority when I contributing to OSM is adding cafe/restaurant information.
Wherever you are, your contributions are very well appreciated! I live in a very small town and use OSM. Idk who mapped this place, but having maps away from Google in such a small place makes me happy. Again, wherever you are, you are contributing to a cause that can help free people from big tech monopolies and actually advances human society forever.
You are part of the reason people like me who don't have time to contribute to such efforts can use these apps anyways. Part of the reason adoption is possible. Part of the reason OSM can grow beyond just whatever you're documenting.
Thank you, really. <3
Thank you for your words
I'm a sporadic/infrequent openstreetmap contributor, too - although I'm not second-guessing these contributions. Useless or not, I do use OSM all the time personally, so reason stands somebody before me did a good job and helped me a lot.
Admittedly, some of the people who use OSM around me use it because at a certain moment I've explained them the advantages. (I live in Europe and people frequently use other modes of transport besides the car, so OSM is legit frequently the better choice.)
Well at least googles reviews are now useless, so there is no competition there either.
Wish Linux on mobile was just as mature as on desktop.
To be fair, it's not much of linux's fault, but mostly due to shitty hardware restrictions and proprietary drivers
i wish cars had more of a conventional computer, more sensors, modular expansion, and completely open.
you would see some pretty cool shit.
A foss decentralized marketplace that costed very little or nothing at all to small stores to participate, to fight back against amazon and others
It would be nice to have the same, but for uber-like drivers
Also food delivery.
In Finland, there used to be "pizza-online" which was really just a directory and ordering system for restaurants that already did delivery themselves.
They took a very small comission, as the site didn't really do anything except connect restaurant and customer (and provide a review platform). For a long time, they didn't even have an app.
You'd log in, select a restaurant, browse their menu and place an order. The order goes to the restaurant, and after that the site's job was done.
It was massively succesful. Every hole in-the-wall pizza place was on there. Finding good food was easy and cheap, and the restaurants reached more customers than ever. And the platform including reviews led to competition in not just price, but quality.
Then pizza-online sold to foodora, and they got shut down, and participating restaurant were no longer allowed to deliver themselves, and the cut taken by the platform skyrocketed.
In Finland, there used to be “pizza-online” which was really just a directory and ordering system for restaurants that already did delivery themselves.
Something like that would be very nice too!
Then pizza-online sold to foodora, and they got shut down, and psrticipating restaurant were no longer allowed to deliver themselves, and the cut taken by the platform skyrocketed.
Oh no...
Flohmarkt is probably the closest. Basically federated ebay.
Cool stuff. Its a shame not many people are using it.
Something like that is what society needs.
The software for that is relatively easy
Getting people to use it will be next to impossible. Without a strong marketing budget, it would take decades at beat before even a small percentage of people would be using it (see Linux desktop) as its all word of mouth and initially only the nerds in the know would be using it for years
I think what you want is a CO OP. It would be nice if the software was FOSS of course.
But a coop would make things like uber type services be worker owned.
Also members can make decisoons.
I would like to see such a thing. But I would add API for accessing it with a dedicated app. Allows for better performance and features like filtering across multiple shops at once an even allows integration in scripts.
I'd like a federated ecosystem for game mods that uses torrents for file downloads to reduce server load. Something to act as a safe haven in case NexusMods enshittifies. It'd also allow more diverse sets of rules through servers, so you could have versions of Nexus, LoversLab, etc. all sharing a framework instead of everything running smoothly for one and not the others.
Plus, NexusMods have really dropped the ball with regards to permissions. Their default permissions are set up so that if you're a mod author, other authors need to ask you for permission to use your mod as a dependency. Not just crediting you and linking to your mod, but asking permission beforehand. I don't see how anyone can look an that and not see it as insanely hypocritical
I wish there was an actually decent CRM that's very lightweight and doesn't limit on number of users when selfhosting. I didn't dig super deep into it myself but some folks I know where trying to help a non-profit get setup with something like this for the people the non-profit serves. The options were pretty sparse. Civicrm seemed ok but doesn't work like at all on mobile (it does have an ugly app).
I think they ultimately just built something basic on top of pocketbase but that's not something non-techy people could do easily.
A high-quality FOSS version of Reaper (DAW) that can use the expensive audio production plugins. Right now that's where all Linux DAWs run short - the best plugins are only for Windows, or for Cubase. Running them through some VSTi Linux wrapper never quite works correctly.
Maybe something like After Effects with all the plugins and tools. Right now the software itself exists in Kdenlive, just not all the addons people have written for After Effects.
But pretty much everything else I use is already FOSS.
I want FOSS camera firmware so bad. imagine what we could do with them then! obviously that why it’s not foss…
In case of your are looking for a cinema camera there's cinepi . I use cinemate for my camera, but there are multiple projects using cinepi
There is also magic Lantern for some Cannon cameras
You can always check AlternativeTo for FOSS (and non-US based) software alternatives.
An application that would make donating to FOSS projects, especially GPL-licensed works (or at least: those not trying to cater to corporations) in desperate need of support, effortless. In that: a periodic budget can be determined, time spent actively using applications is tracked, an application's userbase is taken into consideration (as their cumulative income may eat too much into budgets: possibly better spent supporting smaller projects), and personal preference can be given (including an option to filter license types); as to rank the applications based on perceived value, and fraction the budget accordingly.
I would be happy to support projects that I actively, or to a lesser degree, rely on. But the process of taking all steps required to support a project is simply too manual, and outright unmanageable, when trying to take into account all system components. I really want the incentives to shift from MIT to GPL, so that maintainers don't effectively end up being controlled by corporate paychecks; and are rather supported by individual end users. This should in theory make FOSS more resilient to any future restrictions to source access, which could hamper the long-term parity of forks, seeking to strip anti-features.
A federated internet archive, I'm wondering whether I should build it myself. With so many journalists being banned for reporting the gaza genocide we need more ways to combat censorship.
I know lots of people are crypto-reactionaries... But there are like dozens of these projects in the (primarily open source) crypto space. The basic idea seems to be that a crypto-archive uses a blockchain for hosting and a cryptocurrency to fund it. I don't know how successful these projects have been. Here are a few quick examples from a search:
My main concern would be how to prevent tampering with archived pages - the owner of the second most popular site after Wayback Machine, archive.is, has been known to modify the content of archived pages for petty personal reasons. And without the sanctity of archives, the whole exercise loses its value as proof of records of the past.
maybe that would be a rare case of some blockchain-like structure being actually useful? But without any kind of tokenization, of course
An open source 2D animation suite that can compete with Toon Boom Harmony. I bought an (expensive) perpetual license for Toon Boom Harmony years ago, and then they moved to a ridiculously overpriced monthly subscription model and deactivated my license, essentially ripping me off for hundreds of dollars. So ever since then I've wanted something to come along and put them out of business.
What about OpenToonz? AFAIK Studio Ghibli used it
Last time I checked it seemed like it wasn't quite there yet in terms of features, but admittedly that was a few years ago so I'll have to give it another look. Thanks for the reminder!
I dream of a Bottom Up Logistics software that would enable us to thoughtfully connect and eventually scale grassroots resource sharing efforts. If Farmer Bertha had unsold crops she could list them. Communities in need of certain resources would indicate this. People could commit the use of their time, equipment, etc. The software would do the work of calculating efficient routes and assignments to get everything where it was needed.
My inspiration is the various pet rescue consortiums I’ve found in every city I’ve lived in. People crossing the country to pick up a single dog from rural alabama to bring it to a shelter in california. People pooling money to buy trucks specifically so volunteers can cart needy dogs around. They don’t use fancy logistics but they make it clear to me there’s a lot of uncaptured goodwill out there, and I think that given an organized way to engage, people would jump at the chance to participate in scaling a sharing economy based on empathy for our fellow creatures.
GarageBand. It's literally the only proprietary software that I prefer over open source DAWs.
Shouldout to LMMS, Audacity, etc. I appreciate and use these too. But GB makes things so easy...
software with 1:1 feature parity with Adobe InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop (except genAI crap)
ASCOM wireless bridge. There are proprietary and source available solutions but no true open source one.
first came a not of federated services to mind, not that's really necessary foss. but what would be cool is foss firmware or really open api for any hardware you buy... Home "smart" appliances, printers, cars infotainment system, etc, etc
foss nas software that isn't corporate controlled or vibe coded (looking at you true nas and open media vault)