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FossBase: Open Tech Tips
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FossBase Weekly Digest (June 25 - July 1, 2025):-

1. OpenSSF Welcomes New Members at Community Day NA 2025
The Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF), under the Linux Foundation, welcomed six new members from leading tech and security companies at its annual Community Day in Denver. The event highlighted efforts to secure open source software, with awards recognizing key contributors. This reflects growing industry commitment to FOSS security. source

2. Red Hat Boosts AI Inference with Open Source Libraries
Red Hat emphasized the role of open source software libraries in enhancing AI inference efficiency, particularly for large language models (LLMs). Collaborating with Nvidia on projects like vLLM, Red Hat aims to reduce GPU costs for businesses, showcasing FOSS's impact on AI scalability. source

3. Lyon, France, Shifts to Linux and FOSS Alternatives
Lyon, France’s third-largest city, is transitioning from Microsoft’s Windows and Office to Linux and open source alternatives like LibreOffice. This follows similar moves in Denmark and Germany, signaling a growing preference for FOSS in public sector IT infrastructure. source

4. Baidu’s Ernie AI Goes Open Source
Chinese tech giant Baidu announced plans to open source its Ernie generative AI chatbot, potentially disrupting the global AI market. This move underscores the increasing role of FOSS in advancing AI accessibility. source 1 | source 2

5. Avalonia UI Resolves Open Source vs. Commercial Tension
The Avalonia UI project, a cross-platform .NET UI framework, introduced a sponsorship model to eliminate conflicts between open source and commercial interests, ensuring sustainable development for FOSS projects. source

6. Open Source Android Apps Gain Traction
Recent articles highlighted several open source Android apps for productivity, task management, and more. These apps offer cost-effective alternatives to paid subnoscriptions, demonstrating FOSS’s value in mobile ecosystems. source 1 | source 2

7. Funding Challenges for FOSS Sustainability
Experts discussed the need for sustainable funding models for FOSS, proposing solutions like SaaS-like payments, government support, or corporate backing. The reliance on volunteer developers remains a critical issue for the ecosystem’s future. source

8. X11Libre Fork Gains Momentum
The X11Libre project, a fork of Xorg, saw its first release and was successfully run on OpenMandriva. Despite resistance from Red Hat/Fedora, support from distros like Devuan and OpenMandriva highlights ongoing FOSS community efforts to preserve X Windows.

9. Google’s Gemini CLI Targets Developers
Google launched Gemini CLI, an open source tool bringing AI capabilities directly to developers’ terminals. This release emphasizes FOSS’s role in making advanced technologies accessible to individual developers. source

10. Security Concerns with Open Source Tools
A report noted that cybercriminals are exploiting open source tools to target financial institutions in Africa, highlighting the need for robust security practices within the FOSS ecosystem. source
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Apple considers external AI partners to boost Siri smarts — Anthropic and OpenAI reportedly in early talks to replace in-house models

According to a report from Bloomberg, the company is considering using tech from Anthropic or OpenAI to right its struggles in AI.

This would be a massive change for Apple, which is currently using its in-house Apple Foundation Models to power its Apple Intelligence AI features.

The Cupertino, California-based company has reportedly spoken to the two companies about training their models so that they can be deployed on Apple's own cloud infrastructure. Apple hasn't decided if it's using external models, and it reportedly still has a version of Siri using its own models in development.


Source
Vivaldi 7.5 is here with colored Tab Stacks, DNS over HTTPS, and enhanced Mail, Calendar, and Dashboard features.

Vivaldi 7.5 has officially landed, as one of the browser’s most user-centered updates yet, with a sharp focus on visual organization, smoother interaction, and privacy enhancements.

The headlining feature is undoubtedly the arrival of colored Tab Stacks. Long a favorite among power users for keeping browsing organized, Tab Stacks can now be customized with user-defined colors, making it easier to visually differentiate between work, personal research, or any other group of tabs.


Source
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Gradia: Make your screenshots ready for the world.

Gradia is a new screenshot tool for Linux with a key difference: it’s not a tool for taking screenshots but making screenshots look better for use in app store listings, blog posts, social media posts etc., without needing to use fully-featured image editing software.

Source
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Packet: Quick Share client for Linux

A partial implementation of Google's Quick Share protocol that lets you send and receive files wirelessly from Android devices using Quick Share, or another device with Packet.

GitHub | FlatHub
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OpenDia: The open alternative to Dia
Connect your browser to AI models. No browser switching needed—works seamlessly with any Chromium browser including Chrome & Arc.


GitHub Repository
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FossBase Weekly Digest (July 7–13, 2025)

1. Surge in Malicious Open Source Packages
Sonatype’s Q2 2025 Open Source Malware Index reported a 188% increase in malicious open-source packages, with 16,279 threats across npm, PyPI, and Maven Central, 55% targeting data theft.
Source

2. Tether to Open Source Bitcoin Mining Software
Tether plans to open-source its Bitcoin Mining Operating System (MOS) by Q4 2025, aiming to enhance efficiency for small-scale miners holding 54.6% market share.
Source

3. Kanvas: New Incident Response Tool
Kanvas, a Python-based open-source incident response case management tool, was released with a simple desktop interface for cybersecurity workflows.
Source

4. Anubis Blocks AI Scrapers
Anubis, an open-source tool by Xe Iaso to protect websites from AI bot scrapers, has nearly 200,000 downloads, addressing privacy concerns in FOSS ecosystems.
Source

5. Linux Desktop Market Share Hits 5%
Linux achieved a 5% desktop market share, driven by adoption in government and enterprise sectors, a significant milestone for FOSS.
Source

6. Xlibre Fork Advances
Xlibre, a fork of X.org X11 server, released updates to support legacy FOSS applications, gaining traction with distros like Devuan.
Source

7. FOSS Weekly Newsletter Highlights
FOSS Weekly featured Xfce customization, CoMaps, disk cleanup tools, and deprecated Linux commands, providing practical FOSS guides.
Source

8. Upcoming FOSS Conferences
SciPy, Beam Summit, DebConf, GUADEC, and FOSSY were highlighted as 2025 events to foster FOSS collaboration and innovation.
Source

9. Open Source AI CLI Tools Gain Popularity
Google’s Gemini CLI, an open-source AI tool for developer terminals, saw increased adoption alongside FOSS tools like Ollama.
Source

10. LibreOffice 25.2 Beta Released
LibreOffice 25.2 Beta introduced improved dark mode, accessibility enhancements, and new noscripting features for FOSS productivity.
Source
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Rio is a hardware-accelerated GPU terminal emulator. It is designed to be fast and efficient, with a focus on performance and usability.

Rio is built using the latest technologies, including Rust and WebGPU, to provide a modern and responsive user experience. It supports a wide range of features, including split panes, tabs, and customizable themes.

Rio is open source and available for Windows, macOS, and Linux.


FlatHub | GitHub | Website
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Intel’s Cost-Cutting Measures Lead to Clear Linux Shutdown

Intel has abruptly ended support for Clear Linux OS, a high-performance Linux distribution optimized for Intel hardware, as of July 18, 2025. The project, which focused on cloud computing, DevOps, and security, will no longer receive updates or security patches, and its GitHub repository is now read-only. Intel recommends users migrate to another actively maintained Linux distribution to ensure security and stability. Despite the shutdown, Intel remains committed to supporting the Linux ecosystem through other open-source projects.

Source
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You Can Now Disable All AI Features in Zed

Zed developers have finally added a way to easily disable all AI functionality if so desired.
There is now a "disable_ai" global setting that can be enabled to turn off all AI features -- beginning in today's preview build and expected to be in a stable release next week.


Source
Firefox 141 can now organize your tabs into groups using AI, and more

You can now partially automate the organization of multiple tabs in tab groups with AI support. A local AI model (which doesn’t send any information to the cloud and thus preserves privacy) can automatically group similar tabs and suggest suitable names for the tab group. Mozilla will be gradually rolling out this feature over the next few weeks.
Furthermore, if you use the vertical tabs layout introduced in Firefox 136, you can now create more space for even more tabs by minimizing the toolbar at the bottom of the sidebar.


Mozilla plans to release the next versions—including Firefox 142 and Firefox ESR 140.2, ESR 128.14, and ESR 115.27—on August 19th, 2025. Firefox ESR 128 will receive its last update in August, as will Firefox ESR 115 (subject to Mozilla’s pending decision).

Source
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Proton launches privacy-respecting encrypted AI assistant Lumo

Lumo is based on open-source large language models (LLMs) and utilizes Proton's open-source encryption scheme. Proton also released the tool's complete source code, so it's fully transparent to the community.

Lumo's default setting is not to search online, delete all chats upon closing, and not store conversations on the server-side.

"Other AI companies keep a record of all your conversations on their servers, leaving this information vulnerable to data leaks or exploitation for profit," reads the announcement.

"Lumo doesn't keep any logs of your conversations server side, and any chats you save can only be decrypted on your device."

Lumo's interface resembles those of mainstream LLM services, while the tool supports file uploads with full encryption support.


Source
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Figma’s AI app building tool is now available for everyone

Figma Make, the prompt-to-app coding tool that Figma introduced earlier this year, is now available for all users. Similar to AI coding tools like Google’s Gemini Code Assist and Microsoft’s GitHub Copilot, Figma Make allows users to build working prototypes and apps using natural language denoscriptions, instead of needing to have innate coding skills.

While Figma initially launched it in beta for “Full Seat” users — the subnoscription tier required to unlock all of Figma’s design products — Figma Make can now be accessed by all Figma users, with limitations in place depending on the user’s subnoscription plan. The ability to publish designs created by Figma Make, which is currently still in beta, will be restricted to users with Full Seat access. Users on View, Collab, Dev, and free Starter Seat plans will be limited to experimenting with Figma Make in their personal drafts.


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The Debian Wiki is set to get a revamp as the project transitions to MediaWiki, leaving behind the aging MoinMoin platform.

Members of the Debian project have launched an ambitious new initiative: to rebuild the Debian Wiki from the ground up using a whole new solution—MediaWiki, a modern, free, and open-source platform for collaboration and documentation that’s widely used across today’s web.

Source
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Euphonica is a new, visually striking Music Player Daemon (MPD) frontend for Linux, built with Rust, GTK4, and libadwaita. It emphasizes a modern, album art-focused UI with animated flourishes and efficient background blur powered by libblur’s stack blur. Key features include a responsive interface, MPD password storage in the login keyring, and efficient command processing. It supports browsing by album, artist, and folder, with planned genre-based browsing and advanced querying. Designed for Beets-tagged libraries, it fetches accurate metadata and supports MPRIS integration. Currently in early development, it’s only tested on Arch Linux and requires building from source, with AUR and Flathub releases planned.

Source
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Picture Desktop Widget for GNOME Shell

A GNOME Shell extension that creates a desktop widget which displays a random image that switch after a given time by choosing a picture in a given folder. The widget can be resized, moved and the corner radius can be changed. The timeout for a new image is also customizable.

GitHub | Gnome Extensions