My smart watch is open source. Awesome!

PineTime from Pine64 (product | shop | wiki)

Software is a process, and whoever controls it ultimately decides what the developers can do and how they communicate.

The elephant in the room is Microsoft. Open tech, be afraid. Be very afraid. Microsoft owns both VSCode and MS-GitHub, two intertwined and utterly proprietary product-service ecosystems with a bit of open-source in their core to lure us in.

Have the Freenode sell-out (2021) and the Twitter fiasco (2022) taught us nothing?

FOSS thrives in FOSS ecosystems.

In their “State of the Forge Federation” newsletter, ForgeFriends said it best:

Don't lock a FOSS Android app in Google's proprietary store!

Many of us are looking to FOSS solutions in order to keep our digital lives under our own control. We don't accept that any Big Tech company should hold the keys to a vast swathe of our digital life.

Thanks to Automattic, the strongly open source company behind WordPress, another great product Pocket Casts goes open source! Awesome!

Automating our lights, security cameras, all the Things? We'll be needing some IoT Gadgets and a home automation system.

“Which brand? Amazon Alexa or Google or Apple HomeKit?”

NO! Big Tech makes technology that best serves Big Tech. We don't have to accept it, once we learn there's an alternative.

Time I Learned: our smart home can respect our freedom.

I have created an installation role to add the UnifiedPush-compatible push-notification server “ntfy” to the popular Matrix server installer system “matrix-docker-ansible-deploy”.

This Ansible role named “matrix-ntfy” lets a Matrix server operator offer self-hosted Google-less push notifications for their users.

An English translation of a web page of a German primary school which adapted Matrix software for their school's needs in COVID times. They called their version Hermannpost.

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The safe messenger for children and parents of Hermann School

A school messenger for our inclusive school

video: Hermann School: Our way through Corona (in German)

For years, Hermann School has been working on a sustainable media concept that meets its special features and special needs. For example, our classrooms have long been equipped with interactive whiteboards.

Then came Coronavirus.

An English translation of an interview with a German primary school teacher who adapted Matrix software for their school's needs in COVID times. They called their version Hermannpost.

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Instead of relying on Teams or Google, a primary school in NRW uses a customised Matrix client during homeschooling. The effort is worth it.

An Interview by Moritz Tremmel published on 24 January 2022, 9:15 am

Contents:

1. Matrix: Primary School forked Messenger
2. A matrix server alone does not yet make a primary school messenger
3. How Hermannpost came to the app stores

This is an informal summary of my recent (2016 ~ 2023) experience and explorations in the areas of Matrix and Android and self-hosting. For my employment history please see my more formal CV/resumé at https://blog.foad.me.uk/cv/.

Passions

• Matrix, FOSS, services-as-FOSS, digital Freedom for everyone

Recent skills

for secure location sharing with Matrix

I set up my own OpenStreetMap tiles server for use with matrix location sharing.

This guide explains how I did it, including the Ansible role scripts I wrote.