235 Matching Annotations
  1. Jul 2025
    1. Abstract

      In May & June 2025, Duke University Libraries (DUL) staff successfully implemented Anubis, a configurable open source web application firewall (WAF), in order to stave off persistent onslaughts of AI-related bot scraping activity. During this pilot period (May 1 - June 10, 2025), aggressive bot scraping led to extended outages for three critical library platforms (Duke Digital Repository, Archives & Manuscripts, and the Books & Media Catalog), and in each case, implementing Anubis mitigated the problem.

      Permalink

      https://hdl.handle.net/10161/32990

      Citation

      Aery, Sean (2025). Anubis Pilot Project Report - June 2025. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/32990.

  2. Apr 2025
  3. Mar 2025
  4. Feb 2025
  5. Dec 2024
  6. Nov 2024
  7. Oct 2024
  8. Sep 2024
  9. Jul 2024
    1. When publicly distributed, the open-source code is hidden behind layers of indirection bypassing any packaging/integration effort, relying instead on virtualisation and downloading dependencies on the fly. Thanks to those strategies, corporations could benefit from open source code without any consequence. The open source code is, anyway, mostly hosted and developed on proprietary platforms.
  10. May 2024
  11. Apr 2024
  12. Mar 2024
  13. Nov 2023
  14. Sep 2023
  15. Jun 2023
    1. 10% more or less of academic libraries in the US use an open source system after all that time. And about either 17 or 14, I'd have the number in front of me for and to public libraries are using an open source I L S

      Percentage of open source ILS in academic and public libraries

  16. Apr 2023
    1. Twitter is a neat illustration of the problem with benevolent dictatorships: they work well, but fail badly. Because they are property — not protocols — they can change hands, and overnight, you get a new, malevolent dictator who wants to retool the system for extraction, rather than collaboration.

      Benevolent dictatorships: work well; fail badly

      Twitter is the example listed here. But I wonder about benevolent dictatorships in open source. One example: does Linus have a sound succession plan for Linux? (Can such a succession plan even be tested and adjusted?)

  17. Feb 2023
    1. I’m edging towards a new book, which is pretty formless at the moment, so I need a better solution for keeping my writing ‘chunks’ organised. I started playing around with a new piece of database software called Obsidian after recording an episode about it for the On The Reg podcast with my co-host Dr Jason Downs. Obsidian makes your notes more useful by ‘linking your thinking’. Basically, any word in an Obsidian note can become a link to another note, so, over time, your notes become like your own personal wikipedia. Obsidian also makes a cool visualisation of all the links between your notes, so you can surf through them, visually. Pages are represented as nodes; pages which have a lot of incoming links become bigger in the visual graph, literally showing you where an idea is ‘growing’:

      I'm not sold on Obsidian. I think TiddlyWiki has equivalent (and more) features (albeit requiring plugins for graphing), a more robust architecture, and a more open license.

      Horses for courses I guess, but depending on Obsidian's evolution, I suspect other writers might end up looking for alternatives.

  18. Dec 2022
  19. Oct 2022
    1. @route @twalpole as a community I think we're super grateful for your work on a CDP alternative to chromedriver/selenium, poltergeist etc. I do think collaboration could be very valuable though, although it would likely mean abandoning one of the projects and teaming up on the other, you both obviously have very deep knowledge of CDP and therefore would get a load more done than any of us "end users" trying to wade in there. The status for us on our Rails project is that Apparition fails with a ton of errors, they all seem related to handling timing events (accept_prompt doesn't work, opening new windows seems problematic etc etc etc) whereas Cuprite only rails with a cookie gem we're using (easy fixed) and doesn't support drag_to yet. So to me Cuprite seems more complete, but I don't know much about the internals.
    2. As a history mark, when back then I asked Thomas if he started to work on CDP, he said yes but never finished it, so I started this project from scratch which by now feels completed. After releasing it I only yesterday realized that he open-sourced his project and keeps working on it. I think it just feels hard to throw everything you have written to trash, but I wasn't proposed at the beginning to work together on common project and this is the reason Cuprite had began. Though since this project is completed I see no sense to work on something else especially for me, the only difference would be in Ruby implementation which is boring as you can do things in a different manner and CDP has issues too so the difference could be only how we workaround them.
    3. Haven't really looked through your code, so not sure what the difference is - I would guess not too much. I told you about my version when we were discussing the issues you were having on cuprite -- It was 70+ percent done so I released it and finished up most of the rest. I guess one difference is that you appear to be aiming at bleeding edge Chromium, whereas I'm more focused on things working on Chrome release since I think that's more important for people to test with (no customer is going to be running Chromium alpha).
  20. Sep 2022
  21. Jul 2022
  22. www.bookstackapp.com www.bookstackapp.com
  23. Jun 2022
  24. Mar 2022
  25. rom-rb.org rom-rb.org
  26. Feb 2022
    1. “Well, it’s Open Source, I guess I could go download the source code… but… meh, it’s so far out of my way, not worth it,” and the urge fizzles out. I think that a lot of potential human creativity is being wasted this way.

      This reminds me of physical tinkering, like building or fixing your own small furniture. That's also hard with the products we often buy today -- it's difficult to fix minature electronics which are meant to be replaced.

      But with software (esp. open source) it could be easier, as everyone can have the same tools. I very much resonate with the idea of tinkering more and using less standards.

  27. Dec 2021
    1. Standard algorithms as a reliable engine in SaaS https://en.itpedia.nl/2021/12/06/standaard-algoritmen-als-betrouwbaar-motorblok-in-saas/ The term "Algorithm" has gotten a bad rap in recent years. This is because large tech companies such as Facebook and Google are often accused of threatening our privacy. However, algorithms are an integral part of every application. As is known, SaaS is standard software, which makes use of algorithms just like other software.

      • But what are algorithms anyway?
      • How can we use standard algorithms?
      • How do standard algorithms end up in our software?
      • When is software not an algorithm?
  28. Oct 2021
  29. Sep 2021
  30. Jun 2021
    1. Users who have installed it decided to trust me, and I'm not comfortable transferring that trust to someone else on their behalf. However, if you'd like to fork it, feel free.

      Interesting decision... Seems like the project could have been handed off to new maintainers instead of just a dead-end abandoned project and little chance of anyone using it for new projects now.

      Sure you can fork it, but without a clear indication of which of the many forks in the network graph to trust, I doubt few will take the (massively) extra time to evaluate all options and choose an existing fork as a "leader" (or create their own fork) to go with continuing maintenance...

  31. Apr 2021
  32. Mar 2021
    1. Sorry you’re surprised. Issues are filed at about a rate of 1 per day against GLib. Merge requests at a rate of about 1 per 2 days. Each issue or merge request takes a minimum of about 30 minutes (across at least 2 people) to analyse, put together a fix, test it, review it, fix it, review it and merge it. I’d estimate the average is closer to 3 hours than 30 minutes. Even at the fastest rate, it would take 3 working months to clear the backlog of ~1000 issues. I get a small proportion of my working time to spend on GLib (not full time).
    1. If JavaScript were detached from the client and server platforms, the pressure of being a monoculture would be lifted — the next iteration of the JavaScript language or run-time would no longer have to please every developer in the world, but instead could focus on pleasing a much smaller audience of developers who love JavaScript and thrive with it, while enabling others to move to alternative languages or run-times.
  33. Feb 2021
    1. note that TRB source code modifications are not proprietary

      In other words, you can build on this software in your proprietary software but can't change the Trailblazer source unless you're willing to contribute it back.

      loophole: I wonder if this will actually just push people to move their code -- which at the core is/would be a direction modification to the source code - out to a separate module. That's so easy to do with Ruby, so this restriction hardly seems like it would have any effect on encouraging contributions.

    1. But all of these attempts misunderstand why the Open Source ecosystem is successful as a whole. The ecosystem of fairly standard licenses provides a level playing field that allows collaboration with low friction, and produces massive value for everyone involved – both to those that contribute and to those that don't. It is not without problems (there are many essential but unsexy projects that are struggling with funding), but introducing more friction won't improve the success of this ecosystem – it will just lead to some parts of the ecosystem to break off.
    2. It turns out that creating and using Free Software is not just good to individuals, but for businesses as well, for example by building upon publicly available components and by collaborating shared software. The term Open Source is a business-friendly rebranding of the Free Software concept. This line of thought was also widely successful, e.g. Firefox/Mozilla was an open sourcing of Netscape software.
  34. Jan 2021
    1. Unfortunately, this probably means a death knoll for this gem, at least I predict it will contribute to its slow trajectory towards insignificance/unknownness/lack-of-users.

      Why? Because it is already the less popular option in this comparison: https://ruby.libhunt.com/compare-premailer-rails-vs-roadie-rails

      and being actively maintained is an important factor in evaluating competing options.

      So of course people will see that the premailer option is the option that is still actively maintained, is still continuing to be improved, and they'll see that this one has been relegated to dormancy/stagnancy/neglect/staleness, which will only amplify the degree/sense of abandonment it already has from its maintainer (only now it will be its users that start to abandon it, as I now have).

    1. Would you work for free? It is a simple but loaded question that requires additional context. Is it working to help a friend do something? Is it work that you would enjoy? Does the act of working for free give you some level of satisfaction? Your gut reaction to the question may have been a hearty, “No,” but many people volunteer for a variety of things all the time, so people will work for free when there is something in it they enjoy.
    2. These developers are not greedy or selfish for wanting funding for their projects. To the contrary, they want funding to keep the project alive. A person has to eat, after all. Funding the project is a means of changing the maintainer’s timeshare—allowing themselves to put time into the project that otherwise would be used for other employment. There is only so much time in a day that a person can otherwise give.
    3. Funding should not be a struggle for open source projects. We embrace open source into our codebases frequently but have yet to fully embrace the idea that funding it actually helps us too. The bug fixes and feature requests need to be implemented, tested, and reviewed by someone who themselves can only put so much time into the project.
  35. Dec 2020
    1. You can also purchase a Nextcould hosting service, which on one hand may not seem any different from giving your photos over to Google or Apple, but there's a significant difference: Nextcloud storage is demonstrably encrypted, with source code to prove it.
  36. Nov 2020
    1. Express - 19 $ 🏃‍♀️ Skip the Review Queue 🕒 Published in 3 days 💌 Full Customer Support 💚 Support the team

      Wow, after seeing how this site works, I don't like much like it anymore.

      Esp. this below:

      Choose your preferred publish date - 9 $ Feature your project on top for 14 days and get an additional tweet - 19 $

      I hope there is/will be soon a more open/free alternative (like the "awesome" lists that use GitHub PRs instead of an opaque/proprietary submisison form).

  37. Oct 2020
  38. Sep 2020
  39. Aug 2020
    1. GitLab is moving all development for both GitLab Community Edition and Enterprise Edition into a single codebase. The current gitlab-ce repository will become a read-only mirror, without any proprietary code. All development is moved to the current gitlab-ee repository, which we will rename to just gitlab in the coming weeks. As part of this migration, issues will be moved to the current gitlab-ee project.
  40. Jul 2020
    1. A growing number of platforms, vendors, and partners support the AMP Project by providing custom components or offering integration with AMP pages within their platforms.

      I guess AMP is actually open-source software, but it still feels like it's something non-standard. I guess it's just an alternative open standard to the "main" web open standards.

  41. Jun 2020
  42. May 2020
    1. The folks at Netlify created Netlify CMS to fill a gap in the static site generation pipeline. There were some great proprietary headless CMS options, but no real contenders that were open source and extensible—that could turn into a community-built ecosystem like WordPress or Drupal. For that reason, Netlify CMS is made to be community-driven, and has never been locked to the Netlify platform (despite the name).

      Kind of an unfortunate name...

  43. Apr 2020
    1. Becouse of CanCan, StateMachine and others I deside to create OpenSource organization to maintain gems. People disappear, lose their passion about coding, get new interests, families, children. But if us many we can support gems much longer. I dont pretend to be an expierenced ruby developer, but I can do administarative work: managing teams, members, approve simple pool-requests. If you think it good idea and want to support some inactive gems, not life time, maybe just a little - welcome to organization.
    1. 1Password wasn’t built in a vacuum. It was developed on top of open standards that anyone with the right skills can investigate, implement, and improve. Open tools are trusted, proven, and constantly getting better. Here’s how 1Password respects the principles behind the open tools on which it relies:

      I found it ironic that this proprietary software that I have avoided using because it is proprietary software is touting the importance of open tools.

    1. Changing things doesn't necessarily imply improving them and it's improvement we should strive for, otherwise change is pointless.

      I'd even go further and argue why change things at all in first place ? And that's why Open Source Software is better in this debate too. Don't change your software just for the sake of change.

    1. So what will happen with these projects from now on? All of the projects above have one thing in common: they were created and maintained by passionate individuals who wanted to make positive contributions to their communities. Without these individuals and their efforts, these projects would not have become what they are today. Therefore, it is only fair that Plataformatec gives these individuals control of these projects moving forward.
  44. Mar 2020
    1. Piwik PRO uses a fork of Piwik open-source software (similarly to RedHat using the Linux kernel and multiple open source tools), however we currently seamlessly integrate a part of open source Piwik in our proprietary platform via APIs. Moreover, Piwik PRO controls all the changes to the code used in its Analytics Suite and since 2016 has been maintaining and developing its own fork of “Piwik” alongside the proprietary modules of Analytics Suite.
  45. Feb 2020
    1. "We are at a time where some people doubt the validity of science," he says. "And if people feel that they are part of this great adventure that is science, I think they're more inclined to trust it. And that's really great."

      These citizen scientists in Finland helped identify a new type of "northern light". Basically, 2 people were able to take a shot of the same display at the same second, 60 miles apart, allowing for depth resolution.

  46. Jan 2020
    1. In many cases, the projects exist, and the developers are eager to do the work, but schedules and the demands of producing sustainable income prohibits focus on the effort. What's needed is a relatively small amount of funding to facilitate that focus.

      True that! I'd love to work on open-source projects like this if only I could feed my family while working on them...

  47. Dec 2019