Drew DeVault’s blog features sharp commentary on open source, software engineering, programming languages, ethics in tech, and the social impact of technology.
372 articles from this blog
A personal account of facing organized online harassment from Kiwi Farms, detailing doxing, threats, and bigotry, and the author's strategy to address it calmly.
A developer rewrites their blog using Zine, a new static site generator, after moving from Jekyll and Hugo over 15 years.
Using tar with SSH as a simpler alternative to rsync for transferring files between hosts.
A personal eulogy for Vim, reflecting on its creator Bram Moolenaar and the impact of the text editor on the author's life.
A critique of the dogmatic adherence to Test-Driven Development (TDD), comparing its 'cult-like' following to trends in software engineering.
A developer details the redesign of their microkernel, Hermes, from scratch, focusing on improved design and SMP support.
A critical analysis of FUTO's funding practices, questioning their use of 'open source' and alleged promotion of problematic figures.
A critique of JavaScript's dependency management after a major supply-chain attack, arguing for systemic change but predicting stagnation.
A developer explores embedding the Wren scripting language into Hare programs, detailing the process and showcasing the resulting hare-wren library.
Overview of Himitsu 0.9, a secret storage manager for Linux, covering its new GTK4 prompter and Secret Service API integration.
A guide for FOSS community leaders on handling reactionary agitators, contrasting ineffective and effective response strategies.
A tech worker argues that unionization is essential for survival in the tech industry, citing economic threats and mass layoffs.
A developer analyzes the in-flight map software on British Airways, examining its technical implementation and how it displays international borders.
A call to action for tech workers to resist the rise of fascism, which is increasingly enabled by technology and the tech industry.
A Firefox addon that compares prices relative to different incomes worldwide, highlighting purchasing power and wealth inequality.
The author discusses using linkhut, a bookmarking service, to share interesting links and projects as an alternative to social media, and encourages others to join.
A developer's frustration with aggressive LLM crawlers causing outages and consuming resources, detailing past abuse like crypto mining and Go module mirror issues.
A call to discuss transparency and governance issues at FOSDEM '25 following the cancellation of a controversial sponsored keynote talk.
A protest is planned at FOSDEM '25 to disrupt Jack Dorsey's talk, citing objections to his company's sponsorship and advocating for more transparent event processes.
A critique of Jack Dorsey's keynote at FOSDEM, arguing billionaires and their harmful ventures are unwelcome in the free software community.
