My new festive habit

Over the past few years I’ve been turning to open source software to escape the deluge of enshittification and pernicious data mining that is the reality of so much of today’s software.

In January of 2024 I took a short-term bet on Readwise to nurture a more frequent and meaningful reading habit. I hoped that paying an annual fee upfront would give the the monetary motivation to make the investment worthwhile. Needless to say, I’ll be renewing my subscription again this year.

Since then, I’ve felt a pang of guilt every time I’m presented with the donations page of an open source project. “I’ll do it next time” I say, knowing full well I’ve never delivered on this promise. Sure, open source software is free to the consumer but they are labours of love by the people who make them who pour countless hours of their own time.

It’s about time I put my money where my mouth is.

So from now on, around the festive period or shortly afterwards, I’m going to give back to the open source developers that have made life more productive and less intrusive.

The first of which is Paul Robert Lloyd’s Indiekit – the utterly superb IndieWeb server. Paul has designed and built an beautiful and accessible product, written excellent documentation and is incredibly responsive. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in IndieWeb and the Activity Pub protocol.

It’s a small gesture, which will change with my circumstances, but it feels good to spread a bit of joy to those who deserve it.