Is there some project that the opensource world is missing that you think it needs?
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I’m always surprised that, for as widely used as PDFs are, there doesn’t seem to be any real alternative to Acrobat for editing existing PDFs.
i’ve had good success doing small edits with libreoffice (design? draw? idk what its called).
that or Inkscape are the only real answers I’d have if you forced me to name one, but I’d have a hard time recommending a vector graphics editor to a regular person who just wants to edit text formatting in a PDF without messing it up.
Joining an existing project would be more helpful.
A. Phone.
Android is open-source, I thought.
Only Android Open Source Project, not the different phone UIs, vendor blobs, firmware, camera apps, etc… It is really the basics that are open source.
But also the source of android is 100% controlled by google unless it is an alternative forked project like lineageOS (at least I think so)
I run grapheneos since a couple of years and I love it.
android yes, but the entire google play ecosystem is not, and some things are very hard to do without being inside that ecosystem.
I’m using my fairphone without any google account (so no play store), and it works, but there are some obstacles. Luckily my bank still offers a good website and even uses some international standard for 2 factor auth, so i can do my ebanking without the app - which, like most companies, is only offered in the play store.
for public transport, i downloaded the app from apkpure (in hindsight, the aurora store would likely be the better option) and it works fine for buying tickets. this is just my lazyness, i could buy tickets on the website (but it sucks) or at ticket machines, but the app is super convenient.
for various other services i just refuse to install apps. parking payments, my insurance company, work (luckily i have a bunch of freedom at work, using linux on my work laptop too)… is all stuff that would be convenient but it’s all just available in play store. it looks like aurora is a good option, but 1. i don’t know how long until google kills it and 2. i want to completely stop being dependent on adtech anyway.
That’s not untrue but phones are complex, requiring lots of components and drivers to work together, so it’s hard to get a fully free phone.
Fairphone comes pretty close.
@frightful_hobgoblin @0101100101
Very needed
Lemmy, Piefed and Mbin could use some help
what’s up with Lemmy? Seems to be doing great
- multicommunities
- !languagesettings@lemmy.zip
- being able to completely block instances at the user level rather than just mute the communities
Things can be good from the consumption side. But the developers are often working long extra hours to make that happen. If we want to escape capitalism ever, we need to think of the human element.
Nothing and everything.
There are thousands if not millions of open source solutions scattered around society. Some are feature complete, most are not. Some are maintained, many are not. A handful are funded, the rest is not.
What open source needs, more than anything else is fundraising and the means to distribute those funds to the tune of the trillions of dollars that the corporate world extracts in profits from those open source efforts.
In other words, the people who make this need to get paid.
Firefox terms and conditions, Red Hat, and several other projects that have caused uproar through the community, are all caused by the need to get paid to eat food and have a roof over your head whilst you contribute to society and give away your efforts.
I 100% agree with this what we need is a centralized store like steam that is a non-profit. Where they make it easy just to buy the software. I love distros as much as the next person but having it centralized between all distros gets people paid. My only concern is how do we get the devs of libraries used by those apps use paid. And yes i know it sounds crazy it’s open source how can you charge? Nothing in free and open source says you have to not charge. You just have to given them the source when you do so.
Even if someone can build it themselves for free. If you make the store a great experience to use. People will just buy. It’s likely this i can go out and pirate any games I want. So from a monetary perspective it’s the same. With a little work I could have my games for free but steam is so good i just buy the game.
Perhaps a model like itch.io offers. Each product can set a price or have a “pay what you want” model. I feel some would be more likely to give money if it’s right up front.
But the biggest part that I think we need, is a centralized location, store or not. Sometimes it’s hard to find if an open source alternative even exists because it could be on Github, Gitlab, Codeberg, etc.
I know micropayments is a bad word, but a centralized nonprofit where I could pay 50$ a month to distribute amongst projects I use and their dependencies would be great. Disregarding any privacy concerns of course, as they would have to track all or most of the applications I use and for how long.
Liberapay might interest you. But quite the same but maybe close enough
I know about that and use it for some projects, but it’s still the hassle of donating to individual projects and small payments have disproportionally higher fees (I’m not blaming them it just is like that)
games! in maybe 95% of cases you can find an open alternative to some (non-game) software, but with games it’s the opposite.
i would say that the main proprietary softwares i still use, are video games
Disclaimer: I have no qualifications or really any business talking about this…
I think games aren’t the best kind of projects for open source. Some games are made open source after development ends which is cool because it opens up forks and modding (pixel dungeon did this). Most games require a single, unified, creative vision which is hard to get from an “anyone can help” contribution style. Most open source software are tools for doing specific things. It’s almost objective what needs to be done to improve the software while games are much more opinionated and fuzzy. So many times I’ve seen a game’s community rally behind a suggestion to address a problem and the developer ignores them and implements a better idea to more elegantly solve it. Most people aren’t game designers but they feel like they could be.
An exception to this are certain, rules-based puzzly games. Bit-Burner is an open source hacking game with relatively simple mechanics and it works well.
Open source doesn’t mean anyone can contribute
Sqlite is a good example of this. They explicitly say the project is open source but not open contribution.
Try Veloren and Anarch! Lots of fun to be had.
Intereating, this? Never heard of it before: https://drummyfish.itch.io/anarch
Yes. The author is a bit edgy, but it’s a cool and impressive game
Games have a very high barrier to entry though with many different parts, so that may be the reason?
It you’re looking for ideas-- Something you’re passionate about. Find a problem you’re having, fix it, and make it open source. That’s the best way to make sure whatever you do doesn’t get abandoned. Good luck
Sometimes you get into skill issue, or time issues. I make some softwares that I need, but I don’t have advertising skills to make people use it.
And sometimes I want to make something, but I don’t have the necessary skills.
For example I’d like a local filesharing option. Where a single folder would be synced in my phone from home computer when I’m at home, and from work computer and phone when I’m at work. Without using cloud sync between them only when I’m physically traveling between them, that’s good enough for most use cases of cloud sync that I want for work.
A fitness tracker app that rivals Strava.
Try FitoTrack. I’ve been using it for awhile, measurements are very close to what Strava records. It does lack the social element though
Also can’t find anything good for Macros
I’ve been wanting to try to leave Windows for Linux, but I just can’t find a replacement for AutoHotkey that can do everything that it can. It would have to be some kind of weird combination of various Python libraries, AutoKey, and Espanso, and even then it’s either not as easy or downright convoluted at best.
I also can’t find any FOSS image editor that can do this.
I use hyprland and can bind stuff through their config, whether that is some library functions or executing a script i wrote. I’m sure there are other ways to do similar with different desktop environments.
Interesting - what features are you using to have to need that?
AutoHotkey, it’s navigation through programs by hotkey-invoked series of smart, self-changing mouse clicks and keystrokes, though it can also do math and launch programs or put the focus on windows in specific ways. For example, I have a dynamic, template-based, weekly, ~60-slide PowerPoint builder whose clicks and keystrokes change across the screen depending on what the content is. One AHK GUI I built lets you specify how to proceed using a base template I made + a spreadsheet with data from week to week.
I also have a URL-cleaning script that deletes all my known trackers when pasting, does URL-decoding, etc. AHK can even check for images on screen and click them or wait to proceed (like wait for the browser to finish loading before taking action, etc.). I’ve got a bunch of various scripts and have not found any cross-platform tool as remotely as easy + capable.
However, thanks to your post and another Lemmy denizen, I now know of SikuliX! I’ll check that out…
I think that it never happened because folks find the power in bash scripts instead and different desktops can’t be automated the same anyway.
About the only UI automation I need is KeePass auto-type.
Auto type is so handy. I used KeePass previously, but recently switched to using these commands to type out my clipboard after pressing a custom hotkey:
sh -c 'sleep 0.5; xdotool type "$(xclip -o -selection clipboard)"'It is so damn handy, especially when you have to deal with VNC and iDRAC so often
Wow, fascinating!!! I don’t know how I couldn’t find any tool like this! Thanks, this may be a game changer!
A project to give me money in exchange for me writing software.
Liberapay
Have you checked out NLNet?
It is an European Agency that funds you to write FOSS software based on a project/idea you submit to them
yeah denied lol
A mesh network internet, it’s more of a hardware, security, and adoption problem but at this point there’s enough wifi overlap in most residential areas that entire towns could have their own local internet without needing the ISP model at all.
Berlin’s C-Base were working on mesh about fifteen years ago for Berlin - you could check out c-base.org
A manga chapter/volume manager similar to sonarr/radarr/readarr that can download with or similar to fmd2/hdoujin downloader/mihon
Would this work for your use case?
Unfortunately not, that is only for western comics and doesn’t work with manga. It is very close though!
How about https://github.com/Suwayomi/Suwayomi-Server ?
Something like this: https://apps.gnome.org/en/Komikku/ ?
Interesting, I havent heard of this one before! Its more of a single device type app rather than a selfhosted server like sonarr, but it looks interesting none the less
Idk if there’s a os music sheet software somewhere but if someone know one i am interested
MuseScore?
Or to be specific as of late, “MuseScore Studio.” There have been… a lot of company changes over the past 2 years…
Another good email client. Many are trying to leave Thunderbird on GNU Linux but there aren’t many to choose from.
I have no clue yet if an open source solution exists, but I’m just getting started volunteering with a local animal rescue, and they definitely need a better solution for records management.
A more general business management application like Odoo could work?
Thanks! Looks interesting. Might be a bit awkward to fit the data types, but I’m definitely curious to play with it and see how it compares to the other ERPs I’ve experienced, which were also clunky, even with more typical business data.
Don’t use Odoo, you will end up having to pay for features. What features are you after? There are dozens of alternatives.
It’s a shame that doesn’t exist yet. I was in your position for a horse charity 25 years ago and couldn’t find anything either. I ended up writing them such a system, which grew and grew. Sadly it was owned by them and replaced a couple of years ago.
Is sheltermanager not suitable for self hosting? They claim to be open source
Thank you! This particular issue is something that I only started to become aware of a few days ago, so I’m still trying to learn more before pushing for any big changes. I don’t know that self hosting is even the right solution for our group, so I’m glad to see that they also offer a hosted option, although the self hosted option seems like a great way for me to test it out.
I was curious so I took a closer look at Sheltermanager and, honestly, I’m very impressed. They have a free demo on their site so you can show it off to people and see if there’s any interest.
And agree, self-hosting doesn’t sound like it would suit them or you, but you asked in an opensource thread and that is nearly always self-hosted. SM looks quite fairly priced for a hosted solution.
Oh yeah, I’m very much aware of where I asked. Haha. I see an opportunity where I can at least advocate for the FOSS options, so I’m trying to learn what those are and how they compare to other solutions before I make any suggestions to the decision makers.
I was recently laid off, and have been wanting to explore some personal self hosting projects, plus I’m hoping to make a bit of a career pivot, so my interest is coming from a variety of motivations.
Of they’ve replaced it they might be open to the idea of freeing up the source code?
That’s their decision, but it’s very unlikely. Like much bespoke software that’s evolved over a long time, it was a pretty messy codebase, and also mostly in perl and was entirely written to their exact needs. It worked because of me, which was a curse because they were unable to find another person to support it after I left.
You had me at perl!
