“Public money flows around Open Source instead of into it. Governments should contract with Open Source maintainers and builders, not middlemen who merely resell it.”
Remote
Vlad-Stefan Harbuz
@vladh@merveilles.town
hometown 4.2.17+hometown-1.1.2
I'm a researcher working on software and philosophy that contributes to the public good, in Edinburgh.
❄ Building opensourcepledge.com, endowment.dev, thanks.dev
❄ Philosophy PhD researcher: ethics & epistemology of Open Source
❄ Love cats + birds
73 Followers
127 Following
25 Posts
Joined January 11, 2022
website:
current work:
research:
University of Edinburgh philosophy dept; https://ideology.group
location:
Edinburgh (prev. London, Basel, Berlin, Manchester, Bucharest)
Here's my FOSDEM 2026 talk about phantom binary dependencies 👻 — software packages we depend on without realising it, which leads to security and sustainability issues.
Binary Dependencies: Identifying the Hidden Packages We All Depend On · Vlad-Stefan Harbuz
I tried to go for a full day without using Open Source software. It didn't go well.
A Day Without Open Source (It Didn't Go Well)
So freaking excited to launch the Open Source Pledge!!! Companies rely on the work of Open Source maintainers. Those maintainers should get paid, and we're celebrating the companies who do the right thing. Fediverse friends, tell your employer to #paythemaintainers!
“Sovereignty is not about where a company is headquartered or where software was originally written. It is about who ultimately controls the technology.
The right question to ask about any technology: can someone take the software away from me?”
Replying to
@cas @mirandah is a psychology/philosophy PhD researcher who just did an excellent talk at FOSDEM 2026 about the psychology of Open Source teams. I think she would be a valuable voice to have on board.
By the way, if you end up doing any open calls, or community consultation, I'd love to join. Good luck!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcxqISedSnI
Burnout in Open Source: A Structural Problem We Can Fix Together - Miranda Heath - FOSDEM 2026
Replying to
Huge thanks to @andrewnez@mastodon.social and @sethmlarson@mastodon.social for their help 🙏
Replying to
@nikitonsky@mastodon.online this is a genuine question because I really don't know about this stuff. I know you said you're running this in a VM (great!) — but do people run this kind of stuff, with unlimited/unpredictable disk access, directly on their machines unsandboxed?
Replying to
@pintoch@mamot.fr I think you will enjoy Miranda Heath's talk in the Community devroom later in the day! @mirandah@mastodon.social
Replying to
Great article, great points, thanks so much @msavoritias for sharing and @320x200 for writing 🙏
Replying to
It's really difficult to read Tailwind's creator talk about how he “feels like a fucking idiot”, as if it's his fault.
More here: https://adams-morning-walk.transistor.fm/episodes/we-had-six-months-left
I tried to go for a full day without using Open Source software. It didn't go well.
A Day Without Open Source (It Didn't Go Well)
What a great post from @opensourcepledge@fosstodon.org member Zerodha, who are giving $1 million to Open Source projects. 🙏
“FOSS projects that the world depends on ought to receive financial backing as the norm, [and] collective societal recognition is owed to maintainers.”
What a great post from @opensourcepledge@fosstodon.org member Zerodha, who are giving $1 million to Open Source projects. 🙏
“FOSS projects that the world depends on ought to receive financial backing as the norm, [and] collective societal recognition is owed to maintainers.”
Replying to
@wolfpld@mastodon.gamedev.place Thanks for sharing. I tried to look this up and I too could not find any serious restrictions that come as defaults, which does make me worried for users.