Alternative vector graphics programs (not inkscape)

Hi all, I'm interested in learning vector graphics, but at a more basic level. I don't need all the power and complexity of Inkscape, and I've tried to learn it a few times without success. For reference, I'm a big user of paint.net (I know, free as in beer, not software, but it's what I'm used to) over gimp for most tasks, for the same reason. I don't need a lot of power out of my image editors, but easy and fast are key.

I get that Inkscape is supposed to be a free and easy alternative to Illustrator, but it feels difficult to me. I shouldn't have to Google a tutorial to draw an arc, but, as a beginner, I needed to last week. It feels like this is the case for every basic operation.

I'm going to be using this tool to make woodworking templates and laser cutting paths, so it can be very basic, but, especially for the laser cutting, it does need to be vector, and because of how important quality snapping is for the woodworking templates, vector makes sense there as well.

Because of this use case, I don't even need color support (though it would be very nice to have). I just need to be able to draw shapes, snap them together, sketch out curves and the like. All things Inkscape can do, but not things that are, in my opinion, intuitive to do in such a powerful tool.


https://redd.it/1nj2qt6
@r_opensource

Got blocked from GitHub org after delivering $200 bounty solution

Five years ago a maintainer put up a $200 bounty to add Windows UI Automation support for Dragonfly/Caster's accessibility. I took it and shipped in 2 days. Then I had to rebuild the work twice because the guidance kept changing. When I finally delivered what they originally asked for, I was blocked from the org for "AI usage", despite getting explicit approval to use AI responsibly and there being no written policy.

Quick background so you know where I'm coming from. I've been doing open source for about 4 months now. Usually maintainers are pretty reasonable. I've gotten write access to a few repos, contributed to some bigger projects. This is the first time I've run into anything this ridiculous.

Let me explain briefly:

The issue was clear: implement a UIA backend for dragonfly's accessibility API. The existing system used IA2 which had limited Windows support. They wanted something better.

I asked to work on it. Maintainer says "Please be responsible with AI if it is used" and gives me the green light. For context, I was using GitHub Copilot for code reviews, boilerplate, and drafting PR messages. Nothing more. All the actual implementation and technical research across their three repos was me.

First attempt: I proposed implementing it in dtactions (their utility library). Built a complete cross-platform accessibility adapter with Windows UIA support. Full test suite. Clean API. Ready to go.

Then the maintainer changes his mind: "One change from the original op is not to put it into dtactions. dtactions never really took off."

Second attempt: New guidance was "Dragonfly already has an accessibility controller which abstracts from the OS and grammars, which we already have a caster grammar. You could simply add it to a new controller there and everything would work."

So I pivot completely. Build a Caster grammar that calls dragonfly's existing accessibility controller. Different architecture, different approach. 214 lines of grammar code plus tests.

Third attempt: Submit the PR. Maintainer feedback: "The reference issue is describing about implementing another backend for the Dragonfly accessibility API."

Wait, what? Now they want a backend again? After explicitly telling me to use the existing controller?

I pivot AGAIN. Build a complete UIA backend. 483 lines. Thread-safe COM operations. Full dragonfly interface compliance. Real-world testing with Windows applications.

Then things went sideways. First red flag: maintainer accuses me of being an "AI bot" and closes the PR without review. This is after explicitly approving AI use and watching me implement three different approaches based on their changing guidance.

I push back professionally; called him out. Point out he approved AI usage. He reopens.

Then the dragonfly maintainer shows up demanding proof of "working with Caster, a Dragonfly SR engine and a specific UIA-enabled application." That's asking for a full speech recognition demo. For a backend implementation.

I provide a screen recording showing the UIA backend detecting real Windows applications, reading their properties, interfacing with the accessibility APIs. Exactly what a backend should do.

"You have not provided what I asked for. And that's because you can't."

Translation: they want me to set up an entire speech recognition pipeline. Microphone, speech engine, grammar system, the works.

When I question this impossible requirement:

"Yes, that is what I am requesting. Neither of us are comfortable with your posts or AI usage. This was not an issue four years ago when the issue in question was opened and, clearly, we need to have a written policy about it."

Let's break this down:

They admit they want an impossible demo
They're "uncomfortable" with AI usage they explicitly approved
They admit they have no written policy
They're enforcing rules that didn't exist

Then immediately blocked me from the entire organization.

I built three different implementations following their changing guidance. Each time they

moved the goalposts. When I finally delivered exactly what they originally asked for, they invented new requirements and blocked me for following their own AI usage policy.

If maintainers can retroactively enforce non-existent policies and change requirements mid-implementation, no contributor is safe.

Evidence:

[Issue #814](https://github.com/dictation-toolbox/Caster/issues/814) \- the original request
PR #950 \- my final implementation
Issue and PR comments showing the complete timeline
Blocking message \- proof of org ban

Is this acceptable maintainer behavior? Should contributors have recourse when maintainers act in bad faith? How do we prevent this from becoming the norm?

Because if this is where open source is heading, we have a serious problem.

https://redd.it/1nj68kq
@r_opensource

What is PyBotchi and how does it work?
https://github.com/amadolid/pybotchi

https://redd.it/1nj7irm
@r_opensource

Paywalls, licence switches… where’s the line for open source?

In the past two years a number of “open source” companies have quietly shifted from permissive licences to “non-compete” or pay-walled models. MariaDB introduced the Business Source Licence (BSL) in 2016; MongoDB, Confluent and Redis Labs followed; and HashiCorp switched Terraform to a non-compete licence. The justification is almost always the same: as these companies grow, the financial upside of being fully open diminishes, so they try to cut off “freeloaders” and capture more value. But the backlash is real: users and competitors fork projects and publish manifestos warning that licence switches create legal risk.

Red Hat’s decision to remove public access to RHEL source code has hit a similar nerve. SUSE’s Dr. Thomas Di Giacomo notes that RHEL exists only because of upstream projects like the Linux kernel, and Red Hat’s move has caused “significant concern within the open source community.” He argues that the freedom to access, modify and distribute software should remain open to all.

At the same time, many maintainers who make the code that powers our systems aren’t being paid. A 2024 Tidelift report found that 60 % of maintainers remain unpaid. The same report called this a “tragedy of the commons”: companies use free software without contributing code or funding. Burnout is inevitable; one developer with nearly three-quarters of a million downloads says he receives “no money at all.” Advocacy groups now propose that companies pay maintainers directly, for example; the OSS Pledge suggests $2 000 per developer per year.

So where’s the ethical line? At what point does gating features or switching licences move from sustainable funding to a betrayal of open-source values? Should we accept freemium models as a way to pay maintainers, or do they undermine the freedom that made Linux and FOSS so powerful? Curious how others here see it.

https://redd.it/1nj8oot
@r_opensource

Idea: logical fallacy detector

I don't build software but have an idea I think would help people (including me) - so throwing the idea out there for anyone interested:

TLDR: video logical fallacy detector

Problem:
Regardless of your political views, I think it's fair to say most Internet is an echo chamber for what you already think and many get their information for 30 second video clips.

Idea: (rough idea)
Browser plug in? that shows a small icon whenever a logical fallacy is used - straw man argument, appeal to authority, ad hominem, etc. ideally could be used when browsing YouTube or any other social media.
Small icon ideally would be clickable to give more info on why it's a fallacy, optionally fact checker as well.

I would gladly pay for a subnoscription to this. I have found similar but they are text only, and I believe a big misinformation issue is the short videos people watch.

Brainstormed the idea with gpt to get an elevator pitch:
“Think of this like a fact-checker for arguments. It’s a browser add-on that watches YouTube / X / Facebook/ etc with you and pops up a small symbol whenever someone is using a trick in reasoning — like attacking the person instead of the idea, pretending there are only two choices, or jumping to conclusions without evidence. You’d just click the symbol to see a quick, plain-language explanation of what happened. To build it, you’d tap into video captions (or speech-to-text if captions aren’t there), run the text through an AI trained to spot these reasoning tricks, and overlay the results on the video player in real time. Start simple with YouTube and the most common fallacies, then grow it into a tool for all major video platforms.”


https://redd.it/1njcimy
@r_opensource

Experienced contributors, what is something you would tell yourself to do sooner if you were starting out again?

Title, looking for learnings or suggestions on the open source journey

https://redd.it/1njcftg
@r_opensource

Meta Platform

Hello Guys!

I’ve wondered why everybody in my area uses Meta’s Messenger and Facebook instead of Signal, Element, or others. They are much more private, lighter, and easier to use. I couldn’t persuade anybody. If you had to convince your family members, how would you do it?

Thank you for your reply.

https://redd.it/1njfndv
@r_opensource

A new experiment: making Protobuf in C++ less painful (inspired by the old “why is Protobuf so clunky?” thread)
https://github.com/illegal-instruction-co/sugar-proto

https://redd.it/1njfncb
@r_opensource

Just open-sourced my first major project: PUNKT3 - A personal website template that works with any CMS

# 🎯 Introducing PUNKT3 - My First Open Source Project!

Hey guys :) I'm excited to share PUNKT3 (pronounced "Punkte" - German for "dots"), my first major open-source project that I've been working on.

> https://github.com/ludwig-loth/punkt3

It may not be much or innovative, but I'm proud of it. It started as my personal portfolio website, and it grew into something more generic. I hope you'll like!

## What is PUNKT3?

It's a backend-agnostic personal website template built with Nuxt 4 and Tailwind CSS. The entire design philosophy revolves around dots/points, creating a unique and cohesive visual experience.


## 🚀 Key Features

- True backend flexibility - Works with Directus or any CMS through adapters (for now Directus is implemented, feel free to contribute and add more adapters)
- Beautiful dot-based design system I call it cozy retro brutalism
- Fully responsive with mobile-first approach
- Built-in i18n (German/English out of the box)
- SEO optimized with proper meta tags and structured data
- fully TypeScript

## 🔌 The Adapter System

This is what I'm most proud of - you're not locked into any specific CMS:

// Just implement these methods for your CMS of choice
class YourCMSAdapter {
    async getLandingPageData(): Promise<Landing> { }
    async getProjectData(): Promise<Project[]> { }
    async getCVData(): Promise<CV> { }
    // ... etc
}

---

If you have ideas, suggestions or tips and tricks for the open source repo itself, just let me know :)

https://redd.it/1nji1qr
@r_opensource

StaticLink = links, notes, pics in one QR. Open-source & private. Feedback welcome!

Hey Reddit! 👋

I’ve been working on a project called StaticLink and I’d love you to check it out. It’s a tool I built to bundle links, notes, pics, anything basically, into one neat package and share it instantly via a QR code. No accounts, no ads, no tracking, everything stays private and local.

I put a lot of work into making it fast, simple, and reliable, and it’s designed for all kinds of uses:

Trips & festivals: share itineraries, maps, playlists
Quick work/class handoffs: no cables, no setups
Events & teaching: share everything in a single QR
Personal offline bundles for later

It’s free forever, open-source, and you can use it in your browser or download it for Windows/Linux or as a PWA.

I’d love for you to try it and let me know about any bugs or improvements! Check it out here: GitHub or Web app. If you want to know more, check out the Promo site.

https://redd.it/1njk6sl
@r_opensource

Best lightweight and fast REST client? Abandoning Postman

I want to ditch Postman. What are you using and why?

So far I've heard of Insomnia, Bruno, httpie, hurl.

https://redd.it/1njpfdb
@r_opensource

How to make Dev containers work for vscodium flatpak

Hi All,

I've been using the vscodium flatpak for a while and am very happy with it. However, I've recently been trying to spin up a dev container and run into a bit of a brick wall.

As this is Vscodium the dev-containers plugin is out as that's propriety to microsoft and therefore only available to VsCode users. No bother, containers tools is open source and podman and pod-manager are open source. However, due to the isolation of the flatpak all the tutorials I can find then use vscode's remote development plugin, which is again a proprietry Vscode exclusive, to connect to the container.

Is there an open source alternative I can sub in for the "remote development" plugin or some other way I make dev containers work on the vscodium flatpak.

Thanks,

https://redd.it/1njt70f
@r_opensource

I made an open-source medication and supplement tracking app
https://github.com/dizzafizza/Meditrax

https://redd.it/1njslt3
@r_opensource

IBM AI Releases Granite-Docling-258M: An Open-Source, Enterprise-Ready Document AI Model
https://www.marktechpost.com/2025/09/17/ibm-ai-releases-granite-docling-258m-an-open-source-enterprise-ready-document-ai-model/

https://redd.it/1njvf2h
@r_opensource

fixing ai bugs before they happen, for open source maintainers: a semantic firewall you can paste
https://github.com/onestardao/WFGY/blob/main/ProblemMap/GrandmaClinic/README.md

https://redd.it/1njwyy6
@r_opensource

Looking for projects to contribute to (French translator)

Hi all! Sorry if maybe slightly off-topic, but I'm looking for some cool projects to contribute my translation skills to. I've got over 3 years of professional translation experience (French to English and English to French) for a big company in the UK under my belt and I've currently got some spare time, so would love to help out!

Any ideas of where I should look for any such projects? Feel free to link me to anything interesting and open source that's looking for help! :) cheers!

https://redd.it/1njzznz
@r_opensource

I built a community-driven list of free & open APIs with examples – looking for contributors!

Hey everyone,

I just launched a new open-source project on GitHub: [**Awesome Open Data APIs**](https://github.com/Humayun-glitch/Awesome-Open-Data-APIs) 🚀

The goal is simple:
👉 Create a **community-driven collection of free & open APIs**, neatly categorized (Finance, Weather, Space, Education, etc.), with **examples** in Python & JavaScript so anyone can get started quickly.

Why?

* Finding good free APIs is often a pain (outdated lists, broken links, no examples).
* This repo is meant to be a **living, maintained resource** for developers, students, and hobbyists.
* Anyone can contribute new APIs, fix broken ones, or add examples – beginner-friendly PRs are welcome.

📂 Repo includes:

* Curated list of APIs by category
* Example code snippets (Python & JS)
* JSON files with structured API metadata
* Easy contribution guidelines

If you know a cool free API, please consider adding it! 🙌

🔗 GitHub Repo: [github.com/Humayun-glitch/Awesome-Open-Data-APIs](https://github.com/Humayun-glitch/Awesome-Open-Data-APIs)

I’d love your feedback – what categories or features would make this the most useful for you?

Thanks!

https://redd.it/1nk177m
@r_opensource

PinePods: self-hosted podcast management system that allows you to play, download, and keep track of podcasts
https://www.pinepods.online/

https://redd.it/1nk3pjz
@r_opensource

Release 0.20 · hubleto/erp
https://github.com/hubleto/erp/releases/tag/0.20

https://redd.it/1nk7vt9
@r_opensource

Built a tiny Go string-case lib (sx) + looking for project ideas 👀

Got bored and hacked together a small Go lib: https://github.com/gomantics/sx

It’s basically string case utils (camelCase, snake_case, kebab-case, etc), inspired by scule from unjs.

Thinking of doing more little weekend libs. I feel like Go’s missing a solid OAuth2 server library (esp. for MCP OAuth servers), but I’m open to other ideas too - maybe even some small full-stack apps.

Would love feedback on sx + any ideas you think the Go world needs 🙌

May be this is just me prepping for hacktoberfest 😂

https://redd.it/1nkaw6h
@r_opensource