r/opensource • • 1h ago

Discussion What's a fork you use of a popular software that you think more people should know about?

3 Upvotes

I'm very interested in the world of forks, but I feel like most of the info on them is contained to their respective software communities. I wanna ask broadly what are some forks that you think should be better known?


r/opensource • • 12h ago

Discussion Are GitHub projects becoming more short-lived?

23 Upvotes

I looked at the repos on GitHub that I've starred (703 in total) to see how long-lived they are. Specifically, I was interested in the first and last commits.

For example, there were at least 90 days between the first and last commits for 90% of the repos that had their first commit in 2022.

For each threshold, I only included repos whose first commit was at least that many days ago.

First commit≥90 days≥180 days≥365 days
Through 2019100%100%100%
2020100%98%98%
202197%97%91%
202290%89%84%
202395%93%80%
202489%85%82%
202590%84%67%
202688%80%-

Of course, this isn't a representative analysis, but I was curious to see if longevity suffers as a result of AI. At least to me, that's how it looks. Do you also feel like a lot has been created and then discarded lately?


r/opensource • • 1h ago

Promotional Motion Cues for Linux!

1 Upvotes

I built Mewtion, an open-source motion sickness reduction tool inspired by Apple’s Vehicle Motion Cues.
It uses a transparent, click-through particle overlay that responds to vehicle movement using accelerometer data.
Built with Rust, GTK4, and Wayland Layer Shell. Supports KDE Plasma, Sway, and Hyprland, with both native laptop sensors and an Android companion app.
Would love feedback, especially from Linux and Steam Deck users!

GitHub: https://github.com/aayuxh-vim/Mewtion


r/opensource • • 2h ago

Promotional [Project] Life HUD: A lightweight, open-source Windows widget dashboard built with Rust

0 Upvotes

I wanted my tasks, notes, weather, and music controls always visible without constantly switching apps or running a resource-heavy Electron app.

So I built Life HUD, a customizable desktop dashboard that docks to the top or side of your screen. Windows automatically resize around it, so it never gets in the way.

Features:

  • Tasks, notes, weather, Spotify/media controls, Reddit, YouTube, news, sports, stocks, and search

  • Lightweight native app built with Rust + Slint

  • Minimal resource usage (~0.5% of one CPU core with music playing)

  • Local-first, no accounts or telemetry

  • Modular architecture for adding new widgets

Free and open source under the MIT license.

GitHub: https://github.com/George-API/LifeHUD

Still actively developing it. Would love feedback, feature ideas, or contributions from the open-source community!


r/opensource • • 1d ago

Promotional Red Hat Working To Improve Memory Tiering For QEMU VMs To Save RAM

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70 Upvotes

r/opensource • • 20h ago

Discussion what's one paid tool you replaced with an open source one this year, and was it worth it?

12 Upvotes

spent a chunk of this year moving out team's paid tools to open source ones we host ourselves. Here's the rough scorecard so far

uptime monitoring went to uptime kuma. took 20 minutes and zero regrets

analytics went to plausible community edition. fine for traffic but we lost funnels, so we still pay for a second tool for that

error tracking went to glitchtip. it accepts the sentry sdk so the code change was one line, it's just lighter on performance tracing

feature flags went to unleash. works great, except now someone has to own the box it runs on and that someone is me

the one i rolled back was transaction email. tried postal instead of postmark and half our password resets landed in spam for a week. back on postmark, never again

total went from about $310 a month to a $24 server, but the real cost is maybe 2 hours a month of babysitting

what did you swap this year, and is there one you moved back to?


r/opensource • • 18h ago

Promotional BooruRamen - an open source personalized booru browser that learns what you love - Tiktok for Boorus

1 Upvotes

BooruRamen is an open source, personalized booru browser that learns what you love. It uses a client-side recommendation algorithm to deliver a unique, curated feed of images and videos that improves the more you use it.

BooruRamen turns your favorite booru sites into one endless, personalized feed. Scroll, like, skip and favorite, and the feed quietly reshapes itself around your taste. Everything it learns stays on your device.

Source: https://github.com/SoupDevs/BooruRamen

Latest Release: https://github.com/SoupDevs/BooruRamen/releases/latest

Both Android and Windows versions are available in the release.

A web version can be used from the source code.

Uses the GPL-3.0 License


r/opensource • • 12h ago

Discussion CodeRabbit scanned 1,125 open-source repos for free, found 1,215 serious vulnerabilities, and is helping maintainers fix them at no cost

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0 Upvotes

r/opensource • • 1d ago

Discussion Radio-Browser lost a bunch of streams?

12 Upvotes

I use Radio Droid on my phone and Shortwave on my computer. Radio Droid has a bunch that won't connect. Shortwave says "orphaned stations" but they still seem to work? There's just a red ! Next to them? They're pretty much the same streams on both devices. Will these fix themselves? Was there like a big crackdown on this or is it just a bug? These streams have been stable for months. I just want to know if I need to fix it or if it will fix itself?


r/opensource • • 1d ago

Discussion Open Source Contributions in the Age of AI - a rant in the woods

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0 Upvotes

r/opensource • • 1d ago

Promotional NitroLite: an open-source (MIT) replacement for Acer's NitroSense — 74 MB RAM, no telemetry, custom fan curves

2 Upvotes

I open-sourced a replacement for Acer's NitroSense laptop control software. MIT licensed, Windows, C#/.NET.

https://github.com/canerztk8/NitroLite

Why it exists: NitroSense is a big tool for a small job. NitroLite sits in the tray at ~74 MB RAM and ~0.6% of one core, with no Electron, no telemetry and no installer. It speaks to the same local Acer services the official tool uses, so power modes, fan curves, GPU MUX and the 80% charge limit behave the same.

It also does a few things NitroSense doesn't: per-game profiles (it detects the running game, applies a game-specific mode and fan curve, then reverts when you quit), user-drawn fan curves with hysteresis, and standby memory purge. Fully open: the protocol details are documented in the repo, 1089 automated tests run on every commit, and there are both English and Turkish docs.

Developed on an Acer Nitro 16 AN16-41; it queries hardware capabilities at runtime, so it should adapt to other Nitro models. Testers and issue reports very welcome.


r/opensource • • 3d ago

JetBrains renewed their support for Godot Engine through 2027

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154 Upvotes

r/opensource • • 2d ago

Promotional LightnerX v0.1.0-beta is out! My open-source C++26 networking library has reached its first public release

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7 Upvotes

Hey everyone!

I'm happy to share the first public beta of LightnerX, an open-source C++26 networking library focused on multiplayer game development.

The project uses GameNetworkingSockets for its networking layer and implements the INER protocol for structured client/server communication.

Before publishing this release, I decided to put the code through a technical audit rather than simply releasing it once it compiled.

The initial audit identified 14 issues. These were addressed through several rounds of fixes, regression tests, and an independent follow-up review that also caught a new regression.

The final reported validation included:

  • 9/9 automated tests passing.

  • 9/9 tests passing with AddressSanitizer.

  • Successful UDP integration tests.

  • Successful independent CMake integration.

This doesn't mean the library is bug-free. It's still an early beta, primarily tested on Linux, and there's plenty of room for improvement.

The project is licensed under MIT, and I'm open to feedback, issues, and contributions.

Thanks for checking it out!


r/opensource • • 2d ago

Promotional I got native AirDrop working on ChromeOS (bidirectionally!) :D

1 Upvotes

So... I was messing around with crosh on my Chromebook and found that, when I enable Developer Mode, I get access to the underlying ChromeOS host environment shell!

Naturally, as one does, I thought, "What insane thing can I do with this?"

AirDrop. The answer's AirDrop.

I did some research and found a cool library that reverse-engineered AirDrop, called owly (https://github.com/t4t5/owly) (the name reminds me of OpenDrop and OWL hmm). and decided to try to integrate it into ChromeOS, without Crostini or ArcVM (Android on ChromeOS). (Former is unable to open awdl0 interfaces due to the really weird way in which they implemented wifi passthrough, and the latter is just... slow and cumbersome)

So how does it work?

Rather than implementing Apple's AirDrop protocol from scratch, Chromedrop uses Owly, which provides the underlying AirDrop functionality.

Owly handles device discovery, establishing the connection, and the actual file transfer protocol, all the good stuff :P It also handles the AWDL interface (awdl0), which AirDrop uses for peer-to-peer communication.

Chromedrop uses Owly's CLI (owly browse, owly send, owly receive, etc.) via a Python server and root process via Upstart.

Frontend? Is that AI?

The frontend is a PWA (with share_handler, see images above) that communicates with the Python backend through a local HTTP API.

For my own sanity, I don't want to spend hours working out how Apple pulls off Liquid Glass, so I did get an LLM to improve the frontend, but it looks pretty now, so I don't really mind. (It looks better than my JS though 😭)

Limitations

  • Currently requires Developer Mode.

  • Currently targets x86_64 Chromebooks with supported Intel iwlwifi hardware, but nothing says it won't work on non-Intel chips! See owly's supported hardware here: https://github.com/t4t5/owly#supported-hardware

  • AirDrop mode takes exclusive control of the Wi-Fi hardware on my Chromebook, so normal Wi-Fi is temporarily unavailable while it's active.

  • Transfer performance is hardware-dependent and still needs improvement but I believe this is more an owly-side thing

Repository: https://github.com/NellowTCS/chromedrop


r/opensource • • 3d ago

Discussion IPTV players are either ridiculously expensive or ugly as hell. Would you guys support an open source one?

12 Upvotes

I'm a dev and honestly I'm kind of fed up with IPTV players. The ones that have all the features I want cost way too much, and even then they look like something from 2010. Like, I'm paying that much and the UI still makes my eyes hurt.

So I've been thinking about starting an open source project on GitHub. Multiplatform, clean modern UI, something closer to Netflix or Prime in how it feels. Just a player, no content, you bring your own stuff.

I'm just wondering if this is something people would actually care about. If I started it, would you help out, test it, throw ideas around, or even contribute code? Also curious what features you can't live without and what bugs you the most about the players you use now.

If there's enough interest I'll set up the repo and we can figure out the rest from there.


r/opensource • • 2d ago

Promotional I audited my open-source C++ networking library before its first beta and found 14 issues

3 Upvotes

Hey everyone!

I've been working on LightnerX, an open-source C++26 networking library originally developed for my multiplayer game project.

Before releasing its first public beta, I decided to run a technical audit to see how reliable the implementation actually was.

The audit identified 14 issues and architectural concerns involving connection lifecycle management, resource ownership, client ID recycling, exception safety, and protocol validation.

I implemented the fixes and ran a second independent audit to verify them.

Interestingly, that second audit caught a regression introduced during the fixes: a failed memory allocation during copy assignment could leave the connection manager's internal mappings inconsistent.

That issue was subsequently fixed using a transactional assignment approach, with additional regression tests covering allocation failures.

The final validation results:

  • 9/9 automated tests passed.

  • 9/9 tests passed with AddressSanitizer.

  • UDP client/server integration passed.

  • Independent CMake consumer integration passed.

  • Connection lifecycle, reconnection, and ID management tests passed.

I've now released LightnerX v0.1.0-beta!

The library is still under active development, and testing has primarily focused on Linux. I'm not claiming it's production-ready, but I wanted the first public release to have a reasonably solid technical foundation.

I'd appreciate feedback on the architecture, API design, testing approach, or anything else that could be improved.

GitHub: https://github.com/pietroth/LightnerX

Thanks for checking it out!


r/opensource • • 3d ago

Community Adjustment: New Project Showcase Recurring Thread

20 Upvotes

We’re back with another adjustment hot off the press. As the title suggests we’re planning to have another recurring thread for projects to be showcased in.

Here’s our reasoning:

  1. Like most technology subs, we’re being inundated with projects. Regardless of the quality, the volume of project-promoting posts is drowning out other kinds of activity resulting in an unusable sub for the majority of users.

  2. Sharing projects is very much a part of the Open Source movement so banning the posting of projects in the main feed is some we want to avoid. The compromise is that we need to restrict the users who post and the projects which may be posted.

  3. To avoid gate-keeping or forcing users to post in other subs, a recurring thread is an easy place to redirect the posts that don’t meet the restrictions.

  4. We’re aware that the previously announced restrictions for the posting of projects are unpopular. They’re still under review, but what they eventually look like doesn’t change the need for this new thread.

Here’s how it will work:

  • There will be a weekly post. This is what many other subs do. Would the community prefer a monthly thread? 

  • Outside of obvious rulebreaking (e.g. not an open source licence) the rules for participating will be more lax. This will also involve more lenient enforcement of the rules.

  • The working title is “New Project Showcase”, but open to suggestions.

  • The first post will be sometime in the next week or so, so we can collect more community feedback on the concept before we implement it. After that, we’ll see how it works in practice and collect new community feedback in early 2027.

Below is a draft of the post. Feel free to comment with your feedback.

We have still not forgotten about the language issue.

---------------------------

Title: New Project Showcase

Welcome to the New Project Showcase. Find new and interesting projects.

If you’re looking for contributors or projects to contribute to, you should post in our “Contributors Wanted” monthly thread.

How it Works

Comment telling us about your cool new project.

You should include:

  • The name of the project

  • A link to the project - must include a direct link to the source

  • What licence it uses

  • A description of what it does, the benefits it has, and how it compares to other similar projects.

Rules

The normal rules of the sub still apply, in particular:

  • Projects must be Open Source, for software this means using an OSI compatible licence.

  • No spamming, one comment per project.

  • Be respectful.

Some rules are relaxed within this thread:

  • No limits on project age or number of contributors.

  • No restrictions on AI assisted or vibe coded projects.

Example

FooBar is a tool for generating Lorem Ipsum in your web sites.

It’s perfect for designers who don’t know what copy they’ll need but still need real looking text.

It’s super flexible with support for multiple languages, lengths, and formatting such as lists.

Unlike BarFoo which is purely client side JS, FooBar uses a client-server model to keep resource loading times realistic.

FooBar is GPL licenced and written in COBOL and React.


r/opensource • • 3d ago

Promotional A simple app but aesthetically pleasing, turned a fan-made volume slider concept for ios to reality, but for android! custom volume slider and an edge pop that animates as you press side buttons.

7 Upvotes

Pressing volume buttons or power button shows an edge pop (or that's what I name it) and also a custom volume slider that looks exactly like the concept.

For edge pop: You can customize its width, height, position for each button

For custom volume slider: same settings as edge pop with an option for making it floating, and an edge inset for how far you want it from the edge, choose the volume steps you want (1-10), and supposedly it should detect how many steps your device has (only tried it on 1 phone though).

For landscape mode: turn it on/off for edge pop, and for custom slider turn it on and choose its position (you can place it literally anywhere), or show the default system slider, or just hide it leaving the edge pop only shown.

There're haptics in the settings, light mode (for the app itself and audio mixer). Opening the audio mixer is done by simply pressing the sound icon on the custom slider or long pressing anywhere on it.

https://github.com/DarkAspect1/Nudge


r/opensource • • 2d ago

Promotional I made a Google Messages/Contacts/Dialer replacement! (Android)

0 Upvotes

Hey! A few month ago I released Cinnamon, a 3 in 1 Messages/Contacts/Dialer app with Material 3 Expressive, and today I can happily say it's stable!

Here's the breakdown of the features:

💬 Messaging

- Send, receive & view SMS & MMS, including group chats (No RCS support sadly)
- Schedule messages so your "happy birthday!" goes out at midnight even if you're asleep! 🎂
- Pin your favorite conversations to the top, complete with unread badges
- Archive chats you don't want cluttering your list
- Give every single chat its own color and wallpaper
- Search inside a conversation and hop between matches, or search across all your messages
- Pinch to zoom the chat text bigger or smaller
- Forward messages to other conversations
- Reply and mark as read straight from the notification
- Delivery reports, character counter, and options to send long or group messages as MMS

📞 Dialer

- T9 dialing, so you can just tap out a name on the dialpad
- A floating call bubble that hangs out over your other apps while you're on a call
- Optional full screen incoming call popup instead of a tiny notification
- Call log with grouping of back to back calls from the same person
- Voicemail support
- Blocked numbers get silently rejected, and calls that fail network verification get screened out too

👥 Contacts

- Browse, create and edit contacts with all the fields you'd expect (phones, emails, addresses, websites, company, notes)
- Favorites for the people you reach the most
- Contact posters
- Device level blocking that works everywhere on your phone, not just inside Cinnamon

📦 Data & backup

- Back up your conversations and call logs to JSON files
- Export and import contacts as standard .vcf files
- Restore everything when you switch phones, with the option to skip anything that already exists

📶 Dual SIM friendly

- Full multi SIM support, and you can pick a different default SIM for texting and for calling

You can grab it from the GitHub releases page (F-droid coming soon): https://github.com/sosauce/Cinnamon/releases

I'd absolutely love to hear what you think. Bug reports & feature ideas ^^

Thanks so much :3


r/opensource • • 3d ago

Promotional Build in Public made Simple!!

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0 Upvotes

r/opensource • • 3d ago

Promotional LightnerX: A lightweight C++ networking library for multiplayer games

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10 Upvotes

Hey everyone!

I've been developing LightnerX, a lightweight C++ networking library focused on multiplayer game development.

It's built on top of Valve's GameNetworkingSockets and implements INER (Intention, Notification, Event, Response), a message-based communication model designed to simplify client-server interactions.

The goal is to provide a minimal, efficient networking foundation without unnecessary complexity.

The project is still in its early stages of development and is currently undergoing a technical audit focused on identifying and fixing bugs, improving code quality, and enhancing overall reliability.

I'd really appreciate feedback, suggestions, or code reviews from fellow C++ and game developers!


r/opensource • • 3d ago

Running a hackathon where every entry has to be open source and the builders vote on winners. Looking for feedback before it starts.

0 Upvotes

I’m putting together a free one-week hackathon with one brief: build the free, open source version of something people pay for every month. One feature of a bigger product is a fair scope.

Every entry has to be in a public repo under an OSI license. Forks of existing open source projects are fine if you say what you added.

The parts I care most about getting right

- the prize pool is held by a nonprofit (applying to Open Source Collective), not by me

- everyone who submits gets 3 votes, and every ballot is public

- a volunteer panel only checks for cheating and has to publish its reasoning

- the rules move to a public GitHub repo before it starts, and every change is a PR

Nothing’s scheduled until 100 builders join. I’d really like input from people who’ve run or contributed to open source projects: what would make this better for the projects that come out of it, and is there anything here that would make you not trust it?

I’m pledging the first $2,500 to the prize pool myself and reaching out to sponsors now. Every pledge is listed on the site as it comes in. Appreciate any insight!

antipaywall.org


r/opensource • • 3d ago

Promotional [no ai] Release QoL Improvements, Fixes & Refactors v1.4.0.9 · DCTS (decentralized chat platform)

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5 Upvotes

r/opensource • • 4d ago

Promotional Dawarich — free open source self hostable alternative to Google Timeline

23 Upvotes

Hi r/opensource!

I'm Evgenii, Ruby on Rails developer with ~14 years of experience. I develop and maintain Dawarich, a free, open-source (AGPL-3.0), self hostable alternative to Google Timeline. I'm working on the project for the past 2.5 years and I mostly post updates to r/selfhosted, but I've never properly introduced the project here, so here it goes.

GitHub: https://github.com/Freika/dawarich

I'd insert couple of pictures here top get your attention, but the sub doesn't allow images, so you'll have to visit the github repo page and check out the readme to get a glimpse of the UI.

What it is

Dawarich keeps your location history on your own server and shows it to you: where you've been on a given day, and when you've been to a given place. It started in ~March 2024 as a weekend thing after Google announced it was moving Timeline off the web and onto your phone. I tried using OwnTracks for a while, but it wasn't for me: geodata contains lots of insights, and OwnTracks only surfaced data on the map. So I decided to build something of my own.

How data gets in

I needed to continue tracking my movements, so I had two requirements: the tool must accept live data from OwnTracks client (later I discovered Overland for iPhone which served a lot better, and about a year ago my friend joined me to develop our own mobile apps) and be able to import my existing data from Google Takeout and OwnTracks export. Later on I added support for GPX, GeoJSON, KML/KMZ, Polarsteps and Foursquare Swarm formats.

Dawarich also can be used with about half-dozen of 3rd party open source mobile clients: I already mentioned OwnTracks and Overland, and now you can use GPSLogger, Colota, Traccar and HomeAssistant, too.

Everything can be exported from Dawarich, so data portability is there.

What you can do with it

- Map and timeline of your history, trips with photos pulled from your Immich or PhotoPrism instance

- Places with visit detection, and geofencing webhooks on enter/leave (Home Assistant, Node-RED, n8n or anything else)

- Location sharing with family members on the same instance, privacy first (nothing gets shared without explicit action to do so), think: Life360 alternative

- Stats, insights and achievements system

- Posters and video replays generation built in

- Privacy zones, so you can share a map or record a video without doxxing your home

Tech stack

Rails, PostgreSQL + PostGIS, Sidekiq, Redis, MapLibre. It runs as 3 Docker containers and idles at around 230 MB of RAM.

Open Source Nuances

The main page of Dawarich website might get you a bit confused, because we also offer a hosted version for those who don't want to fiddle with tech stuff, but have no worries: Dawarich is and will remain free, open source and selfhostable. The hosted version helps us finance development. The official mobile apps are separate and not open source. If you want a fully auditable setup end to end, self-hosted Dawarich + OwnTracks/Overland/Traccar covers it.

Since the first commit it's grown into something way bigger than I expected: ~11K stars and more than 6000 self-hosted instances.

Contributions are welcome. New languages are especially appreciated: we now support English, German, Spanish, Catalan, Simplified Chinese, Polish, French and Portugal and looking forward to add more.

Hope you find our project useful!

The github link one more time, to save you a scroll: https://github.com/Freika/dawarich

Cheers!