New blog post is out, with a look at our finances in 2025. Most importantly:
Thanks to your donations, we can now start the Contributor Support Programme to make developing postmarketOS more sustainable. 
https://postmarketos.org/blog/2025/12/19/contributor-compensantion-and-financial-update/
One of the things that makes #phosh look a bit unfinished is the fact that we don't show a representation of launching apps in the overview (while they show a splash screen).
We have a merge request for that now and it will hopefully land for 0.52 (or 0.53). This also fixes not being able to interact with apps while one is launching. Together with some pending activation fixes that should make things look more polished and will allow us to fix some other long standing bugs.
Alt...
A screenshot from phosh's overview. The running apps carousel shows the authenticator app to the right and the launch splash of the "App Icon Preview" app in the center.
Shall I get it for you? I'm going to FOSDEM and can hand it over to someone you know there?
Really enjoyed @z3ntu 's presentation today here in Japan. I agree with much of the assessment of the problems facing software freedom on the mobile space. I'm excited for #postmarketOS to move beyond being ready just for an average hacker and towards the average user.
Facial scanning in our town centres, removal of jury for many trials, digital ID to track our interactions. The Labour Government really is attacking civil liberties and rights on many fronts.
Say No to Digital ID 🚫
Nearly 3 million people signed the petition against Digital ID. Next Monday, MPs will debate this 4th largest petition in British history.
Tell your MP (UK) to attend the debate and stop digital surveillance.
Use our tool ⬇️
https://action.openrightsgroup.org/tell-your-mp-attend-debate-digital-ids
#NotoDigitalID #DigitalID #surveillance #privacy #ukpolitics #ukpol #ID
Expanding facial recognition without proper safeguards in place puts our rights on the back foot.
We should be able to walk down the street without being ID’d at every step.
The UK Parliament must wake up and halt the march of this tech with its questionable accuracy.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3r7pwpgeweo
#facialrecognition #police #policing #ukpolitics ukpol #surveillance #privacy
Deutsche Bahn vs Linux [SENSITIVE CONTENT]
I have had difficulty making a purchase from #DeutscheBahn over the past week or so. The BahnCard is only sold online, and at the payment step I always landed on an error page, with code 751. (On int.bahn.de the error page says it's a 404, but the URL includes errorCode=751.)
I tried on several days, in Firefox and Chromium, on both bahn.de and int.bahn.de, clearing cookies, etc.
I phoned DB on Saturday, but didn't reach anyone who could help with this. Today I phoned again and was transferred to their technical support department, apparently to exactly the right person there. They were able to tell me code 751 indicates bot detection. And since I was not using a VPN and had already tried different browsers, the most likely reason for this was: using Linux.
Sure enough, on Firefox on Windows this worked first time. Maybe a User Agent switcher would also work, but I didn't have one installed.
Yet another example of a European institution favouring dependence on US technology.
Upgrade to a new laptop only once every 10-15 years, you get 3x-7x in HD space increase.
2 times ago, it was 2005 when I got this massive increase in laptop disk. Then, the song “My Humps” by Black Eyed Peas was in heavy rotation, & so, when I copy over my old files to my new laptop and I see how much disk space is *left* after copying over the data from the drive that keeps running out of disk space, I imagine these modified lyrics:
“Whatcha gonna do? … with all that space inside your trunk?”
Remember how people go on about how the UK is slowly becoming a fascist country?
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/dec/02/david-lammy-jury-trials-cuts-labour-mps-peers
Yes, goodbye Jury Nullification.
I was a juror. The person who was on trial would probably end up in prison if not for the jury system. I was about 75% sure that the defendent was technically guilty of the crime, but I pushed for notguilty and that person is free today. Because the law as it was applied was, I believe, unjust in that specific case.
Anyway, fuck the Labour Party. Good day.
Another year to make a #CyborgMonday joke! For your future cyborg self, invest in #software freedom!
https://sfconservancy.org/sustainer/
Also check out the hot deals on #freesoftware! Dozens of software projects available at deep discount prices. Act now!
At a whopping £1.8 billion, Digital ID is costly to the UK taxpayer and our rights.
This divisive scheme wasn't on Labour’s manifesto. It’s the last thing this government should be embarking on during a cost of living crisis.
The whole thing needs to be binned.
https://www.theregister.com/2025/11/28/digital_id_cost/
#NotoDigitalID #DigitalID #privacy #surveillance #ukpolitics #ukpol
Kicking off #FreeSoftwareAdvent (thanks, @neil), I'll open with remind(1)
While it took several articles and a couple attempts before I switched over to using it, once you taste the power of what it can do, it's hard to go back to less-capable calendaring tools.
While the classic "garbage day is on Thursday unless there was a holiday earlier in the week, in which case it moves back to Friday" scenario is a nice little demo of its power, one of the best examples from my daily use is the kids' school calendars:
• the teen has an A/B schedule which doesn't mesh nicely with calendar days, week-days, etc
• similarly, our elementary-age kiddo has a 4-day cycle schedule for her "specials" class
But remind's nonomitted() function makes quick work of both of those, taking into consideration weekends, the school holidays, and using PUSH/POP directives for high-school testing days that impact his A/B schedule but not her 4-day cycle. I've never encountered another calendar that handled all the edge-cases with so little effort.
It's a little rocky interchanging with other calendars (you have to use rem2ics to create .ics files to share, and pulling in others' iCal is non-trivial and doesn't seem to maintain the fidelity of remote events).
But otherwise, this runs a great deal of my life schedule.
Event alert! 6 February 2026 — Cambridge
"After Section 28: LGBTQIA+ Rights in an Age of Censorship and Backlash" is an urgent day of discussion and action on the growing censorship of LGBTQIA+ lives, and lessons we can learn from Section 28.
Tickets available here https://buytickets.at/aftersection28/1907726
“Excuse me is this the backpack to Roosjesdaal?”
“Yes via Brussel-Midi”
Alt...
Rosahaj in backpack asking OV a question
You can become a sustainer and read more about what we've been up to here:
We're a small group of UK-focused hackers, from far and wide across the country, looking to bring some of the CCC spirit back home with us!
We're hoping to grow a grassroots community, fostering spaces and meetups aimed at keeping the chaos spirit flowing 1st Jan to 26th Dec.
We'll be looking to meet and connect with other UK-focused hacking communities and like-minded groups.
We're looking forward to seeing you at #39c3 and online!
Stay tuned for more info on how to find us.
| Fruit: | 0 |
| Vegetable: | 8 |
| Both: | 1 |
Closed
Unsolicited advice [SENSITIVE CONTENT]
This may or may not help, but there's a public bridge at aria-net.org which lets you join Matrix rooms and 1:1 chats, without a Matrix account or server, from XMPP.Like all bridges, I'm never 100% confident it's working properly on the other end! But, it's worked quite well for me so far.
Can a toddler be a terrorist?
A shocking new report has found that babies and toddlers have been referred to the UK's controversial counter-terrorism scheme Prevent hundreds of times since 2016.
ORG has shown that data collected under the Prevent programme is widely shared and retained for years even when referrals are marked ‘no further action’. Lives are being impacted from an absurdly young age.
Read more from Hyphen:
https://hyphenonline.com/2025/11/12/babies-referred-to-prevent-counter-terror-islamist/
Other changes:
"Completely open source" → "based on open standards"
Specific deadlines → open consultation period
Technical specs (OpenAPI) → general principles
Fixed roadmap → iterative development
“What if everybody did it?” is the cornerstone of Kantian ethical morality: “Take every action, as if, by acting it's willed into universal law”.
… which is a fancy way of saying “Do onto others as you would have do unto you”.
So, I'm totally ok with a “what if everyone did it?” analysis.
& I'm not sure there is even a utilitarian comeback here.
Cc: @AnnieBuddy @evan
I’m glad @servo exists, is hosted by the European arm of the Linux Foundation, has excellent engineers from @igalia paid to work on it, and is funded by @nlnet.
Web browsers are a crucial component of how we access to (and share) information. The status quo is not okay, and it’s likely to deteriorate further.
Every now and then it hits me how invisible the advantages of being part of the EU can be. For instance despite bringing billions of phones to Brussels for FOSDEM for multiple years at this point, I only realised today that this only is possible thanks to freedom of movement for goods and people within the EU. I think too many don't appreciate the small things like this enough, like not having to choose between leaving some of your belongings with the border control or missing out on an event.
Websites often pressure users to change browsers needlessly.
I run Firefox ESR 128.14.0.
https://www.firefox.com/en-US/firefox/128.14.0/releasenotes/ says it's nary 3 months old. Yet my bank says:
> “Your browser is no longer supported. For…improved security, update to…latest version.”
Reading bank's FAQ it's b/c they only support last 2 #Firefox releases (ignoring ESRs).
Web designers once aspired to “graceful degradation” — but that principle slowly declined in fashion since ≈ 2011.
Today, those who aspired to it now shun it.
⏰ NEXT WEEK ⏰
We're going beyond the screen and hosting a meet up IRL. Whether you're a supporter or just curious, everyone is welcome to pop down.
Hear from our team, mingle and join the movement!
🗓️ Monday 10 November
🕡 6:30-9pm GMT
📍 Newspeak House, London, UK
Sign up ➡️ https://www.openrightsgroup.org/events/org-london-meet-up/