Hi All, not sure if such posts are allowed but wanted to share something (was gonna say "I" but now there are a few of us) been developing.
Most notable features is it’s a single process (<200mb rss idle), you don’t need another compositor (such as niri,hyperland), everything is in Zig (180k LOC), single process apart from the built-in apps obviously
with occasional C mixed in (and 1000+ automation tests in Python)
Just wanted to build sometihng that looks good, is themeable, boots faster than Gnome or Plasma (or even Mate and Cinnamon now on my machine).

PS. developed with AI - sorry if it bothers you but I am just a php developer!

https://github.com/oxydizer/rediwm

So I love Obsidian and markdown based notetaking in general. I wanted to self-host as Obsidian Sync costs $4 to $5 per month (not much I know) but the only way to do that was using a third-party plugin. Also, Obsidian is closed-source and I am not comfortable hosting closed software like that.

So I made Cairn Notes. It is a free, open-source notes app for Linux, Windows and Android. A notebook is an ordinary folder of Markdown files that Cairn reads and writes directly, so any other editor, Git or backup tool works with it too. You can sync between your devices through a small server you run yourself (optional and end-to-end encrypted). I have it running on my little home lab.

I don't make any money from this project and I do not collect any data. MIT licensed so you can fork and change it your way.

https://cairnnotes.app/

Disclaimer: the code for this project was mostly created by generative AI.

Edit:

I understand we are living in a moment where anyone can ask AI to create slop software. My goal here is not to advertise slop. This is a personal project which I thought could be useful to more people. I also will not hide the fact that the code is AI generated. Still, the architecture, stack, and design decisions were made by me with certain goals on mind, so it wasn't just a "Claude, recreate Obsidian" type of app. I intent on maintaining this since I am personally using it.

The title was clickbait. Obsidian is a GREAT project and doesn't "make me" do shit. You can also use free third party plugins or Syncthing. I wanna make that clear. However, I did have some goals on mind. I wanted a dedicated server rather than a syncing tool, have it be end to end encrypted, and good performance. That's why I ended up creating this.

You all are COMPLETELY justified when criticizing this project or any other slopware out there. I am, still, doing my best to be transparent about the project and actually put effort into it instead of just having it be more unmaintained, security flawed, slop software.

I wondered whether I could manage to generate a complete operating system using AI, and that is how "Violyx" came into being.

https://github.com/Merecete/Violyx

It has a completely unique kernel, its own file system (VioFS 2), and is neither Linux nor Unix-like.

My idea was a retro-style operating system that could be controlled exclusively via the keyboard, while simultaneously featuring a full-fledged desktop with functional applications.

The result turned out better than I expected. Above all, it is remarkably easy to use.

It can be installed on any x86 PC (caution: the installer wipes the entire hard drive), but it can also be run just as easily in live mode from a USB stick. I have tested it on QEMU, VirtualBox, and my own hardware.

Naturally, it is not intended for daily use, and the kernel also lacks memory protection.

The system includes a web browser, a music player, a calendar, an editor, a drawing program, and several games.

The web browser can display images in 256 colors. Internet access is provided via LAN (Wi-Fi is not yet supported).

The system detects USB flash drives (formatted with FAT32). Additional programs (.vpk files) can be installed subsequently.

I don’t know why one would necessarily need this system, or what makes it so special. But I can definitely say that the little games are really fun. :)

The system was written in C and x86 assembly. I have released Violyx under the MIT License.

EDIT: The code has been visually adjusted and should now be easier to understand.

Long time reddit user but first time poster, so apologies in advance for any errors.

Every time someone here asks for a good FOSS office app for Android, I've always seen the same answers: "Collabora is clunky", "LibreOffice Viewer is abandoned", or "just use OnlyOffice and accept the account nags". I have been through the same rabbithole for months, so I finally decided to build one on my own:

Libreon is a FOSS office suite for Android

1. Edits Word, Excel and PowerPoint (docx/xlsx/pptx, doc/xls/ppt, ODF, RTF) using the LibreOffice engine

2. PDF: fill forms, sign, highlight text (saved as standard annotations), search

3. Text, Markdown (with preview), CSV (with table view), and it handles huge files

4. Tabs, so you can keep many documents open, and unsaved changes survive Android killing the app

5. Search open and recent files, find in any document, word count for documents and selections

6. Light/dark themes, plus "light pages" for a single document

What it doesn't have: ads, subscriptions, accounts, trackers, analytics, or AI features. It doesn't even have the internet permission, so Android itself stops it from going online.

It's fresh out the oven and very much a beta (tested on a Galaxy S24 Ultra and a couple of other Android phones, the Android emulator and BlueStacks), so expect rough edges. Android 12+, about 115 MB because the whole office engine is inside.

Full disclosure: I built it with AI coding assistants (Claude Code and Gemini). The code is all public, GPL-3.0, and the app itself has zero AI in it.

GitHub and APK: https://github.com/jainiakhil/Libreon

Bug reports and feature requests are very welcome.

That's the main reason I'm posting.

Also happy to answer any questions here!

Hey r/foss ,

Solo dev here, from Ukraine. For the past year I've been building Pakko — a small ZIP/TAR archiver for Windows, built entirely on .NET's own System.IO.Compression and the OS's own signed tar.exe. No 7-Zip, no WinRAR, no vendored third-party compression code anywhere in the shipped product.

The reason isn't "reinventing the wheel for fun" (though, yeah, some of that too). Both 7-Zip and WinRAR are maintained by individual Russian developers, with no reproducible builds and no independent security audit — for most people that's a non-issue, but for government/defense workstations here, or honestly anywhere with an actual supply-chain policy, trusting an opaque process like that with every file you extract stopped feeling fine. WinRAR's CVE-2018-20250 (path traversal) sat in 500M+ installs for years before it got fixed, and there's no way to verify a distributed binary against source for either tool.

So Pakko only depends on things that are open-source, signed, and go through a real CVE process: .NET's BCL for ZIP, and Windows' own tar.exe for RAR/7z/tar-family. tar.exe still runs inside an AppContainer sandbox with a whole-archive pre-scan before anything gets extracted, since a hostile archive can still make a trusted binary misbehave — trusting the binary doesn't mean trusting the untrusted bytes it's about to parse.

It's WinUI 3, has proper Explorer right-click integration, propagates Mark-of-the-Web to extracted files (Explorer itself doesn't do this, which is a real infection vector), and there's a standalone CLI (pakko.exe) if you don't want the GUI. Apache 2.0, everything's on GitHub.

Not trying to out-feature 7-Zip — RAR/7z stay read-only (libarchive has no writer for either), and that's a deliberate tradeoff, not a bug. This is for people who care more about "what am I actually trusting to touch this file" than "does it support every obscure format that's ever existed."

Repo: https://github.com/pakkoapp-oss/pakko

Release: https://github.com/pakkoapp-oss/pakko/releases

Store: https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9p5mw010d8pr

Would genuinely appreciate eyes on it, especially the extraction-security side (the pre-scan/sandboxing) — that's what I spent the most time on and what I'd most want someone to try to break.

---

**Quick FAQ based on initial comments:**

* **Why not CLI tools (gzip/tar)?** Pakko IS a GUI wrapper around Windows' native `tar.exe` (`libarchive`) for everyday Windows users who need Explorer right-click integration and MotW propagation.

* **Why not just build 7-Zip from source?** Building 7z locally fixes reproducible binary matching, but it doesn't change the architecture — it still parses untrusted bytes with full user privileges outside a sandbox.

* **What about Linux?** This is a native WinUI 3 tool for Windows workstations. Distro maintainer reproducible builds on Linux don't secure opaque `.exe` installers downloaded on Windows.

I was really frustrated with all of the file sharing solutions, that it either requires to install a client app, or does not suport files bigger than a few GBs. So I created this app, which:

- works even without a backend (backend optional, mainly for device pairing)

- works most of the time over free STUN servers

- alternatively requires TURN server if STUN does not work

- has an official instance with free TURN from cloudflare and unlimited STUN usage

- auto-resumes transfers after dropped connections

Also, this app adds some niche stuff:

- directory transfers

- directory mounting into the browser

The project consists of the actual app (one html file, so it can be hosted by anything) and a flask API backend

https://github.com/Matszwe02/JFShare

* This software was made with heavy AI usage

I looked at the existing poll and saw it has tiers for ai use, but I am curious if that even seems like the right approach-- should AI matter at all or should the quality of the code matter ?

Some months ago I came across christ-cli on Reddit, a TUI that lets you read the Bible directly in your terminal. I loved the concept. I looked around for something similar for Muslims and found nothing, so I decided to build it myself.

The result is qari-cli, a terminal scripture library written in Rust. It has fourteen shelves: the Quran, Tawrat, Zabur, Injil, Tanakh and Greek NT, plus eight hadith books including Bukhari and Muslim. There's a three-column reader, search, and a pipe-friendly CLI, and it also does prayer times.

qari-cli: https://github.com/HyperZx2O/qari-cli
Inspired by christ-cli: https://github.com/whoisyurii/christ-cli

I am making the lightest desktop environment ever made. Just one reason: Save old hardware for being thrown away.

I work from 9 to 24 on boring office projects as a software developer, I have 12 years of experience. I now can use AI + my engineering skills to build with me dream projects that wouldn't be possible without a lot of free time.

The objective is to save old hardware like my N2808 notebook, and my step father samsung laptop he still uses. I see a lot of people struggling with desktop environments because all of them are (light + looks like crap) (looks decent + not light enough) so I want to take both worlds and make the most beautiful fastest desktop environment.

This is not meant to be just a random project, this has a real purpose to recycle old hardware instead of throwing it away.

Microsoft, Adobe, and all these companies are still increasing system requirements, to the point that nowadays running a windows 11 desktop is like running a videogame in the background (4gb ram usage, hell...)

I always was the spectator, looking how everything got more expensive in memory, while established projects like icewm, xfce and xlqt did not change much from their "old school" ui, which I like of course, but still did not provide enough savings to justify.

Support the project. Support recycling hardware. Support the future of computers to be clean, lean and modular and not bloated.

https://github.com/ArkFlame/flamewm

What's your stance on this?

Suppose there's an open-source commercial product that meets your needs. How comfortable would you be with the use of AI tools and agents (such as ChatGPT, Claude, etc.) in its development?

For context, assume there's appropriate human oversight throughout the entire development process, and the final product meets high standards of quality.

Hey guys!

I made a simple tool that does something pretty cool. It takes an image and converts it into actual chess boards you can zoom in with actual games from the Lichess database. It can also generate arbitrary legal chess positions with different levels of "play-ability" which is much faster than database indexing/searching. Try it out:

https://github.com/ilyamiro/chesser

P.S. This is entirely "vibe-coded" so beware my power of using Claude code. But I really liked the idea and knew that id never do it myself.

Hi everyone,

I'd like to share RigSight, a free and open-source hardware monitoring application for Windows.

This wasn't an attempt to replace the many excellent system monitors already out there. I built it because I wanted a very specific experience that I couldn't find in a single application: a modern Windows-native UI, an easier way to understand crashes than digging through Event Viewer, and a simple recap of what happened on my PC yesterday.

Features

• Real-time CPU, GPU, RAM, disk & network monitoring

• Background lightweight recorder

• Daily hardware recap and crash insights

• Free & open source

I'm actively maintaining it, so I'd love feedback, bug reports, or contributions from the FOSS community.

GitHub: https://github.com/b0llu/Rigsight

Download: https://b0llu.github.io/Rigsight/

Edit: Built with Claude Opus 5.5 as my primary development tool. The entire codebase is open source to inspect, modify, and contribute to.

I’m a man with too much free time and a Claude 20x account. I’m wanting to try and give to the community a little with some actually solid, open source and free software.

Let me know your ideas, especially if there are limited comments on this as I will most likely build whatever gets recommended.

Cheers,
Sam

Hello, LayerShop is a fork of PhotoCraft, the open-source Photoshop-style editor in Rust by the ArtCraft team. I added generative AI to it, running locally through ComfyUI, which is also open source.

So it's basically the love child of the two: proper layers, masks and PSD files, plus AI that puts every result on its own layer. Regions, references, LoRAs, prompt enhancement, style presets and batch rendering are all in there now (see the video).

- Free, same licence as PhotoCraft: MIT OR Apache-2.0

- Standalone Windows app, no account, your pictures stay on your PC

- Still a preview: Windows only, local models need an NVIDIA card

Source: https://github.com/SlavomirDurej/layershop

Contributions, bug reports and ideas are welcome.

i am new to coding, heck i built this entire thing in Python.

this is Streamy, a YT Music client for Windows. It took me about a week of non stop coding to build. Its not the best thing in the world visually, and has alot of bugs but, with a little help, we could make it as good as Metrolist or SimpMusic.

so if any of you guys wanna help, feel free to send some DMs and you can pitch me some ideas or bug fixes.

im hoping i can fix up a small team of dudes to help

(idk if im allowed to post links here so)

https://github.com/TheKeychain15/Streamy

Hey Everyone,

I have been using FilePizza ( https://file.pizza ) for a while now. For those of you who are not aware of FilePizza, it is a webRTC based P2P file sharing tool that works readily in your browser. No middleman or cloud involved.

I love it and have been using it for a long time. And others who have used it, would agree too.

So to add my own enhancements and improvements, I decided to fork it and build "CheezyPizza"( https://www.cheezypizza.in/ ).

The main additions:

• Large file support: Works well above 10GB depending on total disk space and the browser you use.

• Resume support: interrupted transfers pick up from the last byte. Progress is saved to OPFS or IndexedDB depending on what the browser supports.

• Flow control: high/low watermarks on the WebRTC data channel so fast senders don't overwhelm the receiver.

• SHA-256 verification: files are checked before being saved to disk.

Many more features to be added soon.

TURN servers are configured, so you can access files from devices behind symmetric NATs.

And for the devs, you are welcome to make your own contributions and fix any breaks.

I hope you try it out and give your valuable reviews. And other improvements that you would like to see.

If you liked the app, do comment and suggest your recommendations and star 🌟 us on Github if you can.

Repo: https://github.com/hariharjeevan/cheezypizza

Webapp: https://www.cheezypizza.in/

Thank You

The best Spotify client I've found so far

I got tired of watching Coding sessions re-read the same files over and over. A 2,000-token file read 5 times = 10,000 tokens gone. So I built sqz.

The key insight: most token waste isn't from verbose content - it's from repetition. sqz keeps a SHA-256 content cache. First read compresses normally. Every subsequent read of the same file returns a 13-token inline reference instead of the full content. The LLM still understands it.

Real numbers from my sessions:

That last row is the whole philosophy. Aggressive compression can save more tokens on paper, but if it strips context from your error messages or drops lines from your diffs, the LLM gives you worse answers and you end up spending more tokens fixing the mistakes. sqz compresses what's safe to compress and leaves critical content untouched.

Works across 4 surfaces:

• Shell hook (auto-compresses CLI output)

• MCP server (compiled Rust, not Node)

• Browser extension - Firefox approved. Works on ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok, Perplexity, Github Copilot

• IDE plugins (JetBrains, VS Code)

Install:

cargo install sqz-cli
sqz init

Also available via npm (npm i -g sqz-cli) and pip (pip install sqz).

Track your savings:

sqz gain    # ASCII chart of daily token savings
sqz stats   # cumulative compression report

Single Rust binary. Zero telemetry. 920+ tests including 57 property-based correctness proofs.

GitHub: https://github.com/ojuschugh1/sqz

Docs: https://ojuschugh1.github.io/sqz/

If you try it, a ⭐ helps with discoverability - and bug reports are welcome since this is v0.8 so rough edges exist.

Have anyone else facing this problem ? Happy to answer questions about the architecture or benchmarks.

I kept wanting a database manager that felt fast, simple, and not overloaded, so I started building Tabularis.

It’s an open-source cross-platform DB tool built with Rust/Tauri + React, and the whole app is under 10 MB.

What I was aiming for:

• quick download

• fast startup

• clean UI

• no giant bundle of rarely-used features

It’s still evolving, but already usable.

I’d genuinely love to hear from people who use DB GUIs a lot: what’s the one feature you actually need, and what’s the bloat you wish more tools would drop?

Please for the love of anything. No wars.

Firefox is going toward ai. I want out. Im looking for alternatives without telemetry. Not brave, not chrome, not librewolf. I feel im at an impasse. Is ungoogled chrome still a thing ?

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

I've been working with AI for a few months on Mime, my own alternative Wine/Proton/anything-Wine-based with kernel anti-cheats and more Windows compatibility in mind.

Recently it's able to run Marathon (2026) through Steam entirely on Mime with BattlEye working and even able to go in a multiplayer match.

Softwares such as with SolidWorks, Paint.NET and more are also on the way!

There's still performance improvements to do and some graphics issues but it's slowly getting there, excited to talk more about Mime in the future!

For anyone interested, here's the source code https://code.vexcited.com/mime/mime mirrored at https://github.com/vexcited/mime and you can join the (currently small) community on https://discord.gg/SfH2VgX2aq !