Thinking about starting an OSS company, what are some difficulties - esp after securing customers/funding

Edit: I am thinking about an OSS company for an AI workflow management/notetaker .. takes meeting notes and turns them into requirements documents taking into account the company's priorities. I wanted to know some difficulties that founders face - does it take a lot of manual work to resolve issues? How do you know what to integrate first (if there were a lot of contributions for example)? I guess stuff like that :) Any advice appreciated!

Hi, I released today the Windows version of my messaging app. I would love to get feedback and improve the app.

You can get it here: https://github.com/ThriveEngineer/messages

Hello!

As per the title: any easy open source program to modifity basic attributes of a single file?

Thanks!

i want some better explaination about whats going on with organic maps in the recent days, organic maps is not fully open source? it will become closed-source?

Hi

It's a no brainer to include all 3rd part component that have such copyright notice in your own project but I have not figured out how deep I must go.

If a 3rd part library are using other libraries and their libraries are usually other libraries. How deep do I have to go and include copyright notices?

I'm looking for an Expense tracker/ Budget Manager app that is Open-Source or free. One particular functionality I am looking for is that it should have a tagging option as well. I have tried out Actual Budget and even 1 or 2 other apps and they do not have any tagging option or option for a custom field. Ideally the app would also have an Android app and/or a Linux Alternative as well. Self-Hosted options are welcome too.

Are there any FOSS software to use to view laptop software usage? Like time, ram, CPU etc?

I use windows 11.

If there's no free software, as long as it's open source that's the main thing I'm looking for. Only open source, free preferably but just open source is the priority.

Hi all -

I look at a lot of open source software licenses for my job, and I've recently noticed a trend where some developers have been "licensing" their software under the MIT license, but they've made the choice to delete their own copyright statement from their copy of the MIT license in their repository.

Example 1: https://github.com/serde-rs/json/blob/master/LICENSE-MIT

Example 2: https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/commit/2a8807e889a43c6b89eb6f2736907afa87ae592f

That seems like it'd make it difficult to actually follow the terms of the MIT license as "The above copyright notice" does not exist. Makes me not want to use these open source projects in my own projects as it seems like I am not able to identify the copyright holder or follow the terms of the license.

Has anyone else run into this? Am I overthinking this?

is anyone still maintaining this open source tool alternative for low-code/no-code retool alternative? https://github.com/openblocks-dev/openblocks

I have been a frontend developer and passionate about UX for a long time now. I've recently decided to start a journey in documenting everything I know and everything I'm learning from everyone in the UX field.

I just launched the open-source project "UX Patterns for Devs" - a collection of UX patterns for everyone but specially towards developers who want to understand how to build effective UI components accessible and usable.

Each page will be structured with these sections:

1. Overview - Introduction and use cases for the pattern
2. Use Cases - Real-world examples and scenarios where the pattern should be implemented
3. Benefits - Key advantages and value propositions of using this pattern
4. Anatomy - Detailed breakdown of the component’s structure
5. Best Practices - Guidelines for implementation, including do’s and don’ts
6. Code Examples - Code examples and technical considerations
7. Accessibility - ARIA attributes and best practices
8. SEO - Search engine optimization considerations and best practices
9. Browser Support - Information on browser support for the pattern
10. Testing - Guidelines for unit, integration, and accessibility testing
11. Resources - Additional documentation, articles, libraries…

I've already compile a lot of information about "Breadcrumbs" and "Buttons" and will continue adding more content every week!

I hope this will be useful and helpful to developers and more people in general!

Let me know if you have feedbacks, things you would like to see in the future!

Website: https://uxpatterns.dev/en
Github project: https://github.com/thedaviddias/ux-patterns-for-developers

Just posting here to let people know that a closed source freeware program, A Ruler for Windows, that I wrote and have updating for the last 18 years has today become open source!

Basically, its an on-screen pixel ruler and reading guide for Windows.

If your interested, it can be found here:

https://github.com/roblatour/ARulerForWindows/blob/main/languages/en/README.md

I am looking for a simple private navigation app that actually works and can find my address simple!

Any Ideas besides OSMand and organic maps?

Hey, Reddit! I’m excited to share something I’ve been working on: payloads_flipperZero, a GitHub repository filled with pre-configured payloads designed to unleash the full potential of the Flipper Zero!

If you love tinkering with your Flipper Zero like I do, you’ll find this repo super handy for automating tasks, testing security setups, and having some fun with your device.

What I’ve Included:

• 🛠️ A collection of ready-to-use payloads tailored for Flipper Zero
• 📄 Scripts to simplify security assessments and experiments
• 🔄 A growing library of tools and payloads for different use cases

Why I Made This:

I wanted to make it easier for Flipper Zero users to jump right into action without the hassle of setting everything up manually. Whether you’re into hacking, security research, or just exploring, this repo has something for you!

👉 Check it out: payloads_flipperZero GitHub Repo

I’d love to hear your feedback, suggestions, or even see how you’re using the repo in your projects. Let’s build something awesome together!

Hey everyone!

I’ve just launched a new GitHub repository, cybersources, which compiles a diverse range of cybersecurity resources.

This repo is designed to be a go-to place for professionals, learners, and hobbyists alike. It includes:

• Tools for penetration testing, incident response, and network analysis.
• Step-by-step tutorials to boost your cybersecurity skills.
• Industry standards and best practice references.

Whether you're a seasoned expert or a beginner, I hope you find it useful.

Feel free to explore, contribute, and share your feedback!

Let’s build a strong cybersecurity community together! 🚀

👉 [Link to the repository]

Looking forward to your thoughts and suggestions! 😊

Hi all,

This community-driven event is hosted by Schrödinger Hat, a non-profit spreading open source love. If you are passionate about open source or you have projects or experiences to share, you might like the 4th edition of Open Source Day!

📅 Date: 21 March 2025

🌍 Location: Nana Bianca, Florence, Italy

🎟 Cost: Free for all – thanks to donations and sponsors.

Why attend?

• Engage with open source maintainers, developers (junior to senior), engineers, and enthusiasts.
• Learn from speakers and network with the community.
• Enjoy conversations in a welcoming, inclusive environment.

Call for Papers is open!

We’re looking for speakers who are excited to share their knowledge about anything open source: tools, projects, workflows, challenges, and beyond. Whether you're a seasoned speaker or new to the stage, we’d love to hear from you!

👉 Submit your talk: https://sessionize.com/open-source-day-2025/

👉 Learn more about the event: osday.dev

Thanks and if you have questions we are open to answer!

When I was a Windows user I had a need in sending some files with SCP. I looked up for open-source software that supports it, some website (or was it LLM?) recommended WinSCP. Without reading any further, I open Microsoft Store and see a rather hefty price tag on the app (MS Store does not support purchases from my my country anyway). So I search "Open-source alternative to WinSCP".

Wait, this website says it is open-source?

Oh, it's free for download from their official website?

Why put the price tag then?

That evening I discovered a common strategy among open-source products: Make a Store version of their product paid so people who are ready to trust Microsoft, but not some random website to manage their bank account information could support their product.

Seems like a good idea, with the best of intentions. But some people (e.g. former "iPad kids") nowadays only use MS store to download things: wizards are too hard for them. Some computers are only able to install apps from this store ("S" editions of Windows, where wizards are disabled for additional security. Something you would install to a PC of a child or an elderly person).

Such a person, being recommended "LibreOffice" for being "open-source" ("such a strange word...") after seeing the price would not bother with figuring out if there is a free version of this suite on the official website (I already saw this confusion happening in Reddit comments). They would just move on, type "Office suite" into the search bar, sort by "Free of charge"...

"Okay, what's first in the list... "EasyOffice"? Surely that's not a lazy LibreOffice fork with some features made paid-for. "WPS Office"? Surely that's not a proprietary Chinese office suite working with .docx under the hood that will send all my data to CCP. "Apache OpenOffice"? Surely it's a modern and up-to-date solution".

At the end of the day such a strategy hurts the userbase of FLOSS products more than it helps with additional funding.

So, was hoping for some thoughts. I am trying to see if there is a way to convert hand drawn floor maps, kinda like: https://www.reddit.com/r/floorplan/comments/1aepd6n/are_there_any_tools_that_can_magically_turn_my/

Into something more like: https://cubicasa-wordpress-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2019/07/simple-stylish-1024x991.png

Stable Diffusion models tend to hallucinate too much to generate something even midly resembling the original drawn layout.

So I tried to go for a programmatic approach, once I have a semi decent computer generated mimic of the hand drawn image I could iterate with an agent to add labels, making refinements.

I tried:

1. Pass the image to an LLM with instructions to return drawing instructions for pycairo or shapely. (failed, even GPT4o failed pretty badly in the instructions. Almost like it could understand the image but did not have spatial understanding (would love anyone's understanding of this))
2. Tried ezdxf for CAD drawing since i thought maybe the issue was with the LLM generating pycairo instructions. (also failed, even worse than the pycairo instructions)
3. Now on to converting it to a SVG as a vectorized representation using VTrace which can more easily detect lines, polygons, etc. Feed this into (via translating function) pycairo to get a set of instructions that need to be followed to draw this. Next pass the instructions to an LLM to edit back and forth until a good product is achieved. HOWEVER, I am still unsure whether the LLM will actually be able to understand or provide helpful feedback to edit the instructions for drawing (can it even?)

So reaching out, anyone run into anything similar? any open source models attempt to emulate what I am doing? any thoughts on the process? or any models etc that can help here.

Thanks

Hi all, I'm part of the early founding team of a fintech startup. We are trying to build a digital wallet that enables users send funds between wallets, pay for products/services using their wallet, have a cashin & a cashout capability.

Could you please recommend me an OS backend software that's able to manage wallets and be able to power the basic functionality of a digital wallet with a proper ledger system that's able to keep track of the wallet balance & transactions done.

Thanks for your input.

is there a way to download all maps at once in organic maps

I'm in the dumb but fun process of building 26 open-source macOS apps, one for each letter of the alphabet. Today I finished (U) Uno, you drop files (almost any file type) or folders and they merge into either a PDF or a prompt for AI. I'm currently improving the performance when dropping more than 10-20 files.

Github link to download:https://github.com/nuance-dev/uno

I'm almost done with 2 more apps, a universal file converter (drop an audio - it turns to video, drop an image it turns to PDF, etc) which is taking a while, and a release date tracker. I started building in public around 2 months ago and it's been one of the best decisions of my life.

Hi everyone!

I'm a senior engineer with 11+ years of experience, currently working at a startup. Over the past year, I've been building an open-source UI library for React. What started as a hobby project to learn the ropes of building a library has turned into something I truly love doing, and I want to take it to the next level.

That said, working solo comes with its challenges. Without co-collaborators or contributors, I've been tackling everything myself—code reviews, decisions on git strategies, and everything in between. I haven’t yet found driven engineers interested in contributing, so it's been a one-person journey so far.

I’m curious to hear how other solo OSS developers handle this. How do you:

• Perform effective code reviews on your own?
• Decide on git merging strategies without another pair of eyes?

I’m sure I’m not alone in this, and I’d love to hear any tips or advice from the community. If you're willing, feel free to check out my repo (linked below) and critique it—I’m open to all feedback and eager to improve.

Repo: rad-ui/ui

The website is meant for people that look for jobs on HackerNews "Who's Hiring" threads and want to focus more on fresh ads and companies, or to quickly look up ad history of any company.

Github repository: https://github.com/nemanjam/hn-new-jobs

Demo website: https://hackernews-new-jobs.arm1.nemanjamitic.com

I used Algolia API as a data source, along with scheduled task that parses new threads few times at the beginning of each month. The extracted data is then stored in SQLite database for fast querying, and the results are cached with Keyv for faster page responses. I will see in the future how much traffic the website receives and if this stack is performant enough. For the website I used Next.js app with default ShadcnUI components and charts. I just wanted a quick functional prototype to test how much public interest is there for an app with functionality like this.

If you are interested in more implementation details you can find them in the Readme file on Github.

The project is free and open source. Feel free to use, self-host, fork and modify, and contribute. I would love to hear your impressions and suggestions and look forward to discussing features and technical details.

I want to play old videogames with my friends in a local network just like hamachi does, but we want it to be an open source software.

Any recommendations? Thanks in advance!!!

Hi, Today I released a messaging app that works with your email, and it is Open Source. It is also available in the Nothing style, but you can choose also the normal style. https://github.com/ThriveEngineer/messages