The XMPP Standards Foundation: The XMPP Newsletter July 2025

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Welcome to the XMPP Newsletter, great to have you here again!
This issue covers the month of July 2025.

Like this newsletter, many projects and their efforts in the XMPP community are a result of people’s voluntary work. If you are happy with the services and software you may be using, please consider saying thanks or helping these project … ⌘ Read more

@kat@yarn.girlonthemoon.xyz On the one hand, all these programs have a very long history and the technology behind manpages is actually very powerful – you can use it to write books:

https://www.troff.org/pubs.html

I have two books from that list, for example “The UNIX programming environment”:

https://movq.de/v/c3dab75c97/upe.jpg

It’s a bit older, of course, but it looks and feels like a normal book, and it uses the same tech as manpages – which I think is really cool. 😎

It’s comparable to LaTeX (just harder/different to use) but much faster than LaTeX. You can also do stuff like render manpages as a PDF (man -Tpdf cp >cp.pdf) or as an HTML file (man -Thtml cp >cp.html). I think I once made slides for a talk this way.

On the other hand, traditional manpages (i.e., ones that are not written in mandoc) do not use semantic markup. They literally say, “this text is bold, that text over here is italics”, and so on.

So when you run man foo, it has no other choice but to show it in black, white, bold, underline – showing it in color would be wrong, because that’s not what the source code of that manpage says.

Colorizing them is a hack, to be honest. You’re not meant to do this. (The devs actually broke this by accident recently. They themselves aren’t really aware that people use colors.)

If mandoc and semantic markup was more commonly used, I think it would be easier to convince the devs to add proper customizable colors.

Twtxt as a network is so neat. Sucks it isn’t more widely adopted ): I feel like it’d be way easier to host than say, mastodon or GTS. & would require WAYYYY less resources. Not a diss on GTS, I love GTS , just saying because it’s text files, I assume the minimum amount of ram needed to host any of the twtxt server software is very low.

I could be super wrong though lol. Idk shit about anything ^^”

@prologic@twtxt.net Too bad, no FLOSS software. :-/ But thanks! :-)

@prologic@twtxt.net Yeah, it’s not a strong sandbox in jenny’s case, it could still read my SSH private key (in case of an exploit of some sort). But I still like it.

I think my main takeaway is this: Knowing that technologies like Landlock/pledge/unveil exist and knowing that they are very easy to use, will probably nudge me into writing software differently in the future.

jenny was never meant to be sandboxed, so it can’t make great use of it. Future software might be different.

(And this is finally a strong argument for static linking.)

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org dmenu is a great example.

There have been several attempts at porting dmenu from X11 to Wayland. Well, not exactly “porting” it, more like rewriting it from scratch. Turns out: It’s not that easy.

dmenu is super fast and reliable. None of the Wayland rewrites are (at least none of the popular ones that I know of). They are either bloated and/or slow.

It takes a lot of discipline and restraint to write simple software and not blow up the codebase. This is much harder than people think. It’s a form of art, really.

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org I do my timetracking in a little Python script, locally. Every now and then, I push the data to our actual service. Problem solved – but it’s a completely unpopular approach, they all want to use the web site. I don’t get it. Then, of course, when it’s down, shit hits the fan. (Luckily, our timetracking software is neither developed nor run by us anymore. It’s a silly cloud service, but the upside is that I’m not responsible anymore. 🤷)

Some of our oldschool devs tried to roll out local timetracking once, about 15 years ago. I don’t remember anymore why they failed …

This is developed inhouse, I’m just so glad that we’re not a software engineering company. Oh wait. How embarrassing.

Oh to be anonymous on the internet. That must be nice. 😅

@movq@www.uninformativ.de Yeah, it’s a shitshow. MS overconfirms all my prejudices constantly.

Ignoring e-mail after lunch works great, though. :-)

Our timetracking is offline for over a week because of reasons. The responsible bunglers are falling by the skin of their teeth: https://lyse.isobeef.org/tmp/timetracking.png

1. The error message neither includes the timeframe nor a link to an announcement article.
   
2. The HTML page needs to download JS in order to display the fucking error message.
   
3. Proper HTTP status codes are clearly only for big losers.
   
4. Despite being down, heaps of resources are still fetched.
   

I find it really fascinating how one can screw up on so many levels. This is developed inhouse, I’m just so glad that we’re not a software engineering company. Oh wait. How embarrassing.

For example, I reckon software should treat stdout and stderr with care and never output logs or other such garbage to stdout that cannot possibly be useful in a UNIX pipeline 😅

@movq@www.uninformativ.de Yeah that’s why I’m striking this conversation with you 😅 Not only do I respect your opinion quite highly 🤣 But like you say (and I’ve read their philipshpy) it can be a bit “elitism” for sure. I’m genuinely interested in what we think of as software that “doesn’t suck”. Tb be honest I haven’t really put thought to paper myself, but I reckon if I did, I’d have some opinions/ideas…

@prologic@twtxt.net Hm, I wouldn’t say that. Go code could fall into that category as well.

Maybe this topic could use a blog post / article, that explains what it’s about. I’m finding it hard to really define what “suckless-like software” is. 🤔 (Their own philosophy focuses too much on elitism, if you ask me.)

@prologic@twtxt.net Ah, I’m referring to software that’s similar to that of suckless.org: Small, minimal codebases, small tools, but still useful. dmenu is probably the best example and also farbfeld.

Here’s the author of Anubis talking about some of their experiences:

https://xeiaso.net/blog/why-i-use-suckless-tools-2020-06-05/

(You can skip the long config and keybinds part.)

@movq@www.uninformativ.de Curious what you would define as “suck less” software? (language agnostic of course!)

The lack of suckless-like simple, hackable software these days is appalling.

Kære Windows bruger,

Næste gang du skal vælge en computer, så send en kærlig tanke til de udviklere der arbejder hårdt for at lave fri software til dig.

Vælg noget andet, så vi ikke længere behøver banke hovedet mod muren for at imødekomme sjælslugende operativsystemer.

På forhånd tak. ⌘ Read more

In all fairness, GOG says that Forsaken is only supported on Ubuntu 16.04 – not current Arch Linux. If you ask me, this just goes to show that Linux is not a good platform for proprietary binary software.

Is it free software, do you have the source code? Then you’re good to go, things can be patched/updated (that can still be a lot of work). But proprietary binary blobs? Very bad idea.

Ted Unangst’s snarky (and entertaining) remarks this month:

• https://flak.tedunangst.com/post/modern-software-2025-edition
  
• https://flak.tedunangst.com/post/killing-X11
  
• https://flak.tedunangst.com/post/forbidden-secrets-of-ancient-X11-scaling-technology-revealed

It annoys me when I clone a git repository A in order to build and self-host some software, only to realize later that I also needed to clone repos B, C and D. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing–logical separation of code between, say, a client and a server is very handy–but some projects do not communicate very well when you need multiple tools to get it running independently.

think i’m gonna use this license on my git repos going forward. it kicks ass https://anticapitalist.software/

Saw this on Mastodon:

https://racingbunny.com/@mookie/114718466149264471

18 rules of Software Engineering

1. You will regret complexity when on-call
   
2. Stop falling in love with your own code
   
3. Everything is a trade-off. There’s no “best” 3. Every line of code you write is a liability 4. Document your decisions and designs
   
4. Everyone hates code they didn’t write
   
5. Don’t use unnecessary dependencies
   
6. Coding standards prevent arguments
   
7. Write meaningful commit messages
   
8. Don’t ever stop learning new things
   
9. Code reviews spread knowledge
   
10. Always build for maintainability
    
11. Ask for help when you’re stuck
    
12. Fix root causes, not symptoms
    
13. Software is never completed
    
14. Estimates are not promises
    
15. Ship early, iterate often
    
16. Keep. It. Simple.
    

Solid list, even though 14 is up for debate in my opinion: Software can be completed. You have a use case / problem, you solve that problem, done. Your software is completed now. There might still be bugs and they should be fixed – but this doesn’t “add” to the program. Don’t use “software is never done” as an excuse to keep adding and adding stuff to your code.

Malleable software: Restoring user agency in a world of locked-down apps
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Auto-Pentest-GPT-AI: LLM Powered Pentesting for your software
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MacOS 26 is the final Intel version, sucks to be a 2023 Intel Mac Pro owner
macOS Tahoe is the final software update that Intel-based Macs will get, as Apple works to phase them out following its transition to Apple silicon. During its Platforms State of the Union event, Apple said that Intel Macs won’t get macOS 27, coming next year, though there could still be updates that add security fixes. ↫ Juli Clover at MacRumors Not particularly surprising, but def … ⌘ Read more

iFLYTEK Wins CNCF End User Case Study Contest for Scalable AI Infrastructure Breakthroughs with Volcano
Company to present large-scale Kubernetes model training success at KubeCon + CloudNativeCon China 2025 Hong Kong, China — 10 June 2025 — The Cloud Native Computing Foundation® (CNCF®), which builds sustainable ecosystems for cloud native software,… ⌘ Read more

CNCF Kubestronaut Program Momentum Highlights Asia’s Role in Growing Cloud Native Talent
Upcoming Kubestronaut celebrations in China and Japan to honor global program growth Hong Kong, China– 10 June, 2025 – The Cloud Native Computing Foundation® (CNCF®), which builds sustainable ecosystems for cloud native software, today announced continued… ⌘ Read more

The XMPP Standards Foundation: The XMPP Newsletter May 2025

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XMPP Newsletter Banner

Welcome to the XMPP Newsletter, great to have you here again!
This issue covers the month of May 2025.

Like this newsletter, many projects and their efforts in the XMPP community are a result of people’s voluntary work. If you are happy with the services and software you may be using, please consider saying thanks or help these projects! Int … ⌘ Read more

GitOps in 2025: From Old-School Updates to the Modern Way
1. Introduction: Why Everyone’s Talking About GitOps in 2025 It’s 2025, and building software is more cloud-driven than ever. Cloud computing offers incredible speed and flexibility, but it also brings complexity. Companies are expected to ship… ⌘ Read more

iOS 26 Announced with New Liquid Glass Interface
Apple has announced iOS 26, the next version of system software for iPhone. And yes you read that correctly, it’s iOS 26 – twenty six – jumping way ahead from iOS 18, to follow year numbers. It’s not just iOS that is facing the numerical versioning change, it turns out that Apple is labeling all … Read More ⌘ Read more

Radeon Software For Linux Dropping AMD’s Proprietary OpenGL/Vulkan Drivers
Direct link to upstream release notes.

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Tell HN: Help restore the tax deduction for software dev in the US (Section 174)
Companies building software in the US were hit hard a few years ago when the tax code stopped allowing deduction of software dev expenses. Now they have to be amortized over several years.

HN has had many discussions about this, including The time bomb in the tax code that’s fueling mass tech layoffs - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44180533 - (927 comments) a few days ago. Other thr … ⌘ Read more

The Software Design I See: Thick–Thin Clients
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Windows 7: a 2025 perspective (rose-tinted or not)
Quite often, I wonder how much nostalgia plays part in our perception of past events. Luckily, with software, you can go “back” and retest it, and so there’s no need for any illusions and misconceptions. To wit, I decided to reinstall and try Windows 7 again (as a virtual machine, but still), to see whether my impressions of the dross we call “modern” software today are justified. ↫ Igor Ljubuncic The conclusion is that, yes, you can … ⌘ Read more

binfmtc - binfmt_misc C scripting interface
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Morse Micro and Gateworks Launch Wi-Fi HaLow Solution for Industrial Connectivity
Morse Micro and Gateworks Corporation have partnered to bring Wi-Fi HaLow (IEEE 802.11ah) to industrial environments. In collaboration with Silex Technology, they offer a hardware and software ecosystem for long-range, low-power, and secure wireless networking across manufacturing, energy, and transportation sectors. Wi-Fi HaLow operates in the sub-GHz frequency band, offering a co … ⌘ Read more

Growing the Topos tech team
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Building Industrial Strength Software without Unit Tests
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When I chose the MIT license for all of my software, I thought:

“Should I use GPL, which I don’t really understand? Is that worth it? Yeah, there is a theoretical possibility that some company might use my code in their proprietary product … and then what? Should I sue them to enforce the GPL? I’m not going to do that anyway, so I’ll just use the MIT license.”

And now we have those LLM scrapers and now it’s suddenly a reality that these companies (ab)use my code. I can see it in my logs. I didn’t expect that back then.

GPL wouldn’t help, either, of course. (Regardless, I now think that GPL would have been the better choice anyway.)

I’m honestly considering taking my code and website offline. Maybe make it accessible through some obscure protocol like Gopher or Gemini, but no more HTTP.

(Yes, Anubis might help. Temporarily.)

I’m just tired.

GSO: Challenging Software Optimization Tasks for Evaluating SWE-Agents
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Olimex Showcases Open Source €20 Smart Home Server Project
Olimex has recently highlighted a new open-source hardware and software project aimed at creating a €20 smart home server. The initiative was introduced during a lightning talk at TuxCon 2025, a community-driven open-source conference held earlier this month in Bulgaria. The project aims to deliver a compact, easy-to-use smart home server that prioritizes local control, […] ⌘ Read more

Paste Without Formatting Should be the Default
Software needs to stop trying to be so dang fancy. ⌘ Read more

Trump orders U.S. firms to halt chip software sales to China ⌘ Read more

A Personal Software Runtime inspired by Emacs, Plan 9, Erlang, Hypermedia, and Unix
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DietPi May 2025 Update Introduces Security Changes, Kernel Fixes, and Software Cleanups
The latest DietPi release (v9.13) focuses on improving security defaults, enhancing support for specific SBCs, and removing outdated software options. The update also brings kernel upgrades, interface refinements, and dozens of bug fixes for improved stability across platforms. DietPi: DietPi is a lightweight, Debian-based operating system optimized for single-board compu … ⌘ Read more

Non-Pointless Software Projects for New Devs in the LLM Age
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Open Source SQL Workbench Says “No Republicans Allowed!”
The Apache licensed SQL query tool says Republicans (and many others) are not welcome to use their software due to “despicable politics” and “contempt for human rights.” ⌘ Read more

Introducing Docker Hardened Images: Secure, Minimal, and Ready for Production
From the start, Docker has focused on enabling developers to build, share, and run software efficiently and securely. Today, Docker Hub powers software delivery at a global scale, with over 14 million images and more than 11 billion pulls each month. That scale gives us a unique vantage point into how modern software is built… ⌘ Read more

What Problems are Truly Technical, not Social?
Most “tech” problems (and solutions) seem social, with e.g. most newer startups relying on internal connections to gain real world adoption, otherwise blocked due to institutional apathy and bad regulations (sms 2fa, hospital faxes…)

A recent (unlocated) poll asked a similar question: “what percent of workers in the software industry are employed writing programs that should not exist?” While we do have NP-hard problems, politically hard problems like avoi … ⌘ Read more

GNU Parallel Examples
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Docker at Microsoft Build 2025: Where Secure Software Meets Intelligent Innovation
This year at Microsoft Build, Docker will blend developer experience, security, and AI innovation with our latest product announcements. Whether you attend in person at the Seattle Convention Center or tune in online, you’ll see how Docker is redefining the way teams build, secure, and scale modern applications. Docker’s Vision for Developers At Microsoft Build… ⌘ Read more

Accessibility on Linux sucks, but GNOME and KDE are making progress
Accessibility in the software world is a problem in general, but it’s an even bigger problem on open source desktops, as painfully highlighted by this excellent article detailing the utterly broken state of accessibility on Linux. Reading the article is soul-crushing as it starts to dawn on you just how bad the situation really is for those among us who require accessibility features, making it vir … ⌘ Read more