The Programmer’s Fulcrum: 17 April, 2026

This article originally appeared on The Fulcrum. Welcome to this week’s The Programmer’s Fulcrum. It’s your weekly review of the essential news in the Open Media Network and Fediverse development communities with a focus on devastating big tech via Techno Anarchism. We aim to provide actionable content you can use to destroy Techno Feudalism each week. It has the additional benefit of weakening authoritarianism. IMHO, the best way to do that is to use tools from the Techno Anarchist Manifesto to build your own site(s) to participate in the Open Media Network. Then you should share it (them) via Real Simple Syndication (RSS), the Fediverse, and possibly a newsletter or podcast. This approach is similar to what some call the IndieWeb and its POSSE philosophy. The second best strategy is to have accounts on the Fediverse and use the hell out of them. And do the same with a RSS feed reader. We publish TPF on Fridays so you can enjoy it over your weekend. There’s good stuff in all of our categories, so please take the time to enjoy and bookmark the items most relevant to your goals. We hope you are inspired to create new ones. Or you can jump straight to your favorite section. Sites/Blogs/CMSs Tools Programming ActivityPub Fediverse More FYI, my opinions will be in bold. And may involve cursing. Because humans. Especially tech bros. And fascists. Fuck ´em. Featured Item(s) Jan Wildeboer has: Conway: Think Networks First, Actors Second Or why we need to work together to find the right language, terms, tools to understand what is happening and how to fix it in better ways. Together, not as lone geniuses. It’s an invitation to think and discuss. To agree on a framework to help us all progress, The Open Way. Alexi asks us to: Go create a website, start blogging, sign up to an independent forum, maybe create your own forum, or support those that do any of the above. Of course this is a bit of an ask, you’ll have to learn quite a few things if you are intending to run something of your own, but my goal isn’t to convince everyone. I am just trying to convince some people to help their community local or not and to eventually help the independent web thrive. More of the internet has to be independently run again if we want to stand any chance of regaining what we’ve lost. Create a space that you own, where you can display what you want, how you want. Link it up to other people using webrings and buttons. Just have fun! openweb.md Great advice. Conjure Utopia has a review: Cables of Resistance: the numbers don’t add up In a good way! Open Media Network – Site/Blog/CMS Joost de Valk opines: Defending the open web is not enough Personally, I view the Small Web, Indie Web, TAM, and OMN as Foundationesque efforts for a future after the techno fall or similar to the role of Islamic scholars preserving the knowledge that allowed the renaissance. The hard part will be open hardware. And electricity. Speaking of, DevShrine explores: Surfing the IndieWeb in 2026 Pika announces: Micropub API with iA Writer and Drafts Support PureBlog explores: Ignoring Files During Updates Jim Nielsen shares: Fewer Computers, Fewer Problems: Going Local With Builds & Deployments This is DIY. 🙂 I ran across Faircamp this week: Surfing the IndieWeb in 2026 If you are a musician or band with recordings you may want to check into it. Bear Field Notes examines: Integrating Bubbles with BearBlog Here’s how to add it universally: Embed the Bubbles vote count Ghost Murat Corlu built the: Ghost Theme Editor Useful. Right on cue Magic Pages announces: Edit your theme directly in Ghost Admin Although, it looks like you have to upgrade from the Starter to Pro plan to use this (as you will now have a “custom theme”). Disappointing. Publii Matt Sayar explains: Cutting GitHub from my site’s deployment workflow Micro.blog MicroBlog announces: Micro.blog 3.6.6 for iOS Back to top 👆🏼 Techno Anarchist / OMN Tools France announces: Souveraineté numérique : l’État accélère la réduction de ses dépendances extra-européennes The Guardian reports: Now you can break up with big tech at a bar: ‘cybersecurity disguised as a party’ The Open Shelf reports: Amazon Is Cutting Kindle Store Access on Pre-2013 Kindles. Your Device Isn’t Dead — Here’s How to Keep Reading. Dries Buyaert asks: What does ‘Buy European’ even mean? Small Web Here are a few curation resources I ran across recently: ʕ-ᴥ-ʔ Bear Roll Bear’s Discovery feed Bubbles I found these via Kagi’s Small Web app which is a great source on its own. Chat XWIKI has a case study: ChatEurope: trusted news via collaboration software and chatbot integration Browsers Servo announces: Servo is now available on crates.io Matt Smith reviews: Kagi – a paid search engine that supports the small web I have been using Kagi for search, translation, and browsing the small web for awhile. It’s worth the small amount of money to remove a lot of bullshit from your life. Mohamed Alashri says: JSON formatting in browser is useful Cloud Nextcloud has: Nextcloud Ethical AI rating: A transparent approach to privacy-first AI Of course, you can be 1,000% private, ethical, and moral by not using it. Dutch education system and municipalities strive for digital sovereignty Tuta announces: Tuta Drive launches in closed beta! A milestone in the development of Tuta’s post-quantum secure cloud. Writing Toni Notes notes: A small publication needs an operating model, not just good posts Creative Scribus announces: Scribus 1.7.3 Released Scribus 1.6.6 Released I just ran across this: Ubuntu Studio Linux/Open Android Linux announces: The 7.0 kernel has been released Linuxiac reports: FLX1s Meets the Big Screen This is looking more and more likely to be my next phone. Hackster reports: MNT Research Brings the Open-Hardware Reform to a Whole New Form Factor: Ultra-Slim Desktops And this could be my next “desktop”. 9to5Linux reports: Zorin OS 18.1 Boosts Windows App Support by 40%, Improves Window Tiling Zorin is the distribution I use as it’s the only one I’ve ever been able to install. It’s on an old iMac. Linux Mint Will Adopt a Longer Development Cycle Starting with Linux Mint 23 Linuxiac reports: France Launches Government Linux Desktop Plan as Windows Exit Begins Tres, tres bon! Hosting / Serving This week’s featured OMN tool Inkscape Inkscape is a Free and open source vector graphics editor. Inkscape Back to top 👆🏼 OMN Programming Git Schalk Neethling explores: Pushing to GitHub and Codeberg Simultaneously with Git Henry Catalini Smith examines: Lessons learned from the Forgejo v15 release blocker Speaking of, Forgejo announces: Forgejo v15.0 is available Markdown Axolotl Thoughts looks at: Personal wikis HTML Accessibility is Political has: Old advice – Hiding Content Has No Effect on Accessible Name or Description Calculation Squarespace Engineering shows us: How To Use Standard HTML Video & Audio Lazy-Loading on the Web Today CSS Karl Koch explores: On scroll-driven reveals CSSence examines: Animating emojis Witty blog name. CSS Tricks looks at: 7 View Transitions Recipes to Try I like most of these. Of course, it may because I’m also a video editor. Frontend Masters explores: Building a UI Without Breakpoints Webkit examines: Name-only @container queries: a solution to the naming wars Web Components Mozilla looks: Under the hood of MDN’s new frontend AKA reason 9,768 that React is absolute shit. Schalk Neethling is: Introducing masonry-gridlanes-wc: A Native-First Masonry Web Component AI The Komoy Noise Research Unit advises: Antagonize yerself! This is the same reason I went through the pain of coding bootcamp as a journalist/content creator. NerdyDev explains: Why AI Sucks At Front End To be fair, most “programmers” suck at frontend and most frontend frameworks are shit. And AI’s building off the garbage it stole from them. Other This week’s featured programming tool Pears Unleash the Power of P2P. Pears Back to top 👆🏼 ActivityPub Ben Werdmuller notes:: One size fits none: let communities build for themselves Yep. Dominik Chrástecký opines: ActivityPub: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly ActivityPub for WordPress announces: 8.0.0 — Smash That Like Button WordPress is making better progress on ActivityPub integration than Ghost is. Ben W is: Shipping v0.1.0 for bookwyrm.koplugin! David Revoy explores: Unified Vs Split-panels: experimenting with publishing digital comics on the Fediverse This week’s featured ActivityPub featured tool Platform 6 It’s more of a resource this week, but Platform 6 supports crowdsourcing for co-operative development. Platform 6 Back to top 👆🏼 Fediverse Hamish Campbell shares: EU taking the open web path? Paths and Patches announces: Apps for Change: four flavours This is a great service for non-profits and more organized communities. Technically Good has: A Blast from the Past: “Looks just aren’t as Important Online as IRL” Holos has: Federation & Moderation Policy Holos will update its E2EE model to align with the shared spec FediLab announces: E2EE is coming to the Fediverse. Every effort will be made for Fedilab to be among the first Android clients to support it. Fedilab 3.38.1 has been published! HolosDiscover now uses IFTAS denylists for moderation Speaking of, IFTAS exposes: Suspected Portal Kombat Accounts Mastodon has: Trunk & Tidbits, March 2026 Sovereign Tech Agency funding 90,000 of this will go to efforts with other ActivityPub platforms. Connected Places has more: FR159 – Sovereign Tech Agency funds Mastodon Kelson Reviews Stuff reviews: RSS Parrot Back to top 👆🏼 More Matrix shares: This Week in Matrix 2026-04-10 RSS ReadBeanIceCream has: Manage Your Own Attention with RSS RSS Gets You Off the Platform; Curation Gets You Off the Drug Matt Duggan notes: You can absolutely have an RSS dependent website in 2026 Absolutely true. Ale Hsu says: Your RSS posts might only live half as long as everyone else’s Death and Gravity announce: Reader 3.22 released – new web app Other Federated Social Media Euronews reports: Eurosky: Europe aims to rival Big Tech with its own social media ecosystem Eurosky is: Introducing Portal It’s great that you no longer have to go through Bluesky! Connected Places reports: On ATProto’s verification and coordination authority Underreacted shares: ATProto made simple: granular permissions Steve Simkins examines: Indexing Standard.site A Warm Space explains: page.parts dev log 1 Nick Gerakines is: Introducing attested.network: Proof of Payment for ATProtocol Steve Woodson looks at: Adding Bluesky Activity to an Eleventy Blog Democracy Tech Free Knowledge has: Democratic Technology: Building Alternatives to Techno-Authoritarianism eMail / Newsletters Ghost announces: Welcome email design settings Good stuff and we’ve updated ours. Spectral Web Services is: Introducing the newsletter digest builder! CTAs That’s it for this week. Please share The Programmer’s Fulcrum. Follow us on Flipboard or at @thefulcrum@thefulcrum.dev on the Fediverse or at thefulcrum.eurosky.social for daily coverage. Read, live, and share The Techno Anarchist Manifesto! And please build something for a community! 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