#open-standards — Public Fediverse posts

@joho @daniel

Signal is far worse than Matrix. It depends 100%  on AWS. If DJT tells Jeff B. to shutdown the service, that's the end. Of they ask to lock out certain users, such as #NicolasGuillou. There is not much @Mer__edith ccould do about it, I fear.

Anyway, #openStandards, such as #IETF #RFC6120 are the "#goldStandard", rather than centrally developed solutions, even if #freeSoftware (Delta, Matrix).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Guillou#US_sanctions

@nomi @Netzblockierer @KinkyKobolds

That being said, my favourtite Discord alternative is #Movim by @movim. #FreeSoftware based on #openStandards, esp. #Jabber/#XMPP. The next release will feature multi-user A/V calls, my favourite feature!

https://mov.im/community/pubsub.movim.eu/Movim/bye-bye-discord-hello-movim-FunzTy

@nomi @Netzblockierer @KinkyKobolds

I agree 100 %. Using #bigTech communication (and by network effect encourage friends and family to use it, too) is wrong for ethical, political and other reasons. But real life can make it incredibly hard, to live up ones own standards and people have different priorities. Still, we must educate about #freeSoftware, #openStandards, #federation, and #digitalSovereignty.

"There is no right life within the wrong one" — #TheodorWAdorno

https://framapiaf.org/@debacle/115804383499425330

"One of the advantages of LibreOffice is that the format is ISO-standardised and truly open. You get the best functionality in LibreOffice when you use ODF. We use ODF throughout. It’s clear that our external partners don’t do this to the same extent. This is where LibreOffice benefits from its ability to handle (read and edit) Office Open XML (OOXML) documents as well."

#LibreOffice #ODF #OpenStandards
#OpenSource

https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2026/08/14/why-and-how-the-austrian-military-moved-to-libreoffice-part-2/

Why RSS Never Really Died

https://deadparrotbbs.com/why-rss-never-really-died/

@[email protected] your question does not make sense.

My post was about the open web and free content, being freely accessible (viewable).

If you want to post a comment, you should do so on your personal site, and notify the original post via the Webmention protocol (a good CMS or content hosting service will do this automatically). One advantage of using open standards like Webmention is there is no need to register with other sites to use them on your own site.

You should own your replies, rather than expecting other websites to host them.

https://indieweb.org/own_your_replies

#indieweb #Webmention #openWeb #openStandards #webStandards #ownYourReplies #ownYourData

#TIL about the OPC (Open Platform Communications) Foundation, founded in 1994, which;

"... develops and maintains open interoperability standards that enable secure, reliable, and vendor-independent information exchange across devices, machines, production systems, enterprises, and the cloud. By eliminating proprietary interfaces and costly custom integrations, OPC technologies allow organizations to focus on innovation rather than connectivity."

https://opcfoundation.org/

#IOT #OpenStandards

“The #4opens are difficult to mainstream precisely because they redistribute power.

- #OpenData challenges information monopolies.
- #OpenSource challenges technological dependency.
- #OpenStandards challenge platform lock-in.
- #OpenProcess challenges hidden governance.

These are practical mechanisms for keeping communities in control of the systems they depend on. This is also why #DIY matters, communities that create their own media, archives, governance and infrastructure are much harder to absorb than communities dependent on external institutions. Autonomy creates resilience were dependency creates opportunities for co-option.”

https://hamishcampbell.com/if-power-stays-where-it-has-always-been-then-the-language-may-have-changed-but-the-system-has-not/

“Building a Free Internet of the Future”, monthly interviews with individuals and communities supported by #NGIZero (#NGI0) grants, as well as members and stakeholders of the NGI0 consortium. Funded by the European Commission, NGI0 supports projects related to #freesoftware, open data, #openhardware and #openstandards.
#DrFed is a web-based platform for developing and #debugging implementations of #ActivityPub– an open standard and protocol for decentralised networking.”
https://www.apc.org/en/news/drfed-reducing-complexity-and-enabling-more-people-shape-fediverse

The fact that there now is an open data standard for job applications highlights the increasing role technology plays in hiring. Let's hope we don't forget the human behind the application.
#hr #ai #openstandards
https://www.opensourceforu.com/2026/07/ai-recruitment-standard-simplifies-hiring/

It turns out, being platform-agnostic and built on open standards has a bonus feature built in. Schedule Us doesn't just make it ridiculously easy to put something in your calendar -- it makes it simple to put something in anyone's calendar.

https://scheduleus.online/news/put_events_anyones_calendar
#calendar #openstandards #schedule #ai

Have you heard about the 🇪🇺 #EuropeanInteroperabilityFramework (EIF) and the #InteroperableEuropeAct (IEA)?

In its feedback regarding the review of the #EIF, the FSFE :fsfe: is calling for #FreeSoftware and #OpenStandards to be the default when procuring and creating interoperable digital public services

Find out more: https://fsfe.org/news/2026/news-20260730-01.html

📖 Read our position: https://download.fsfe.org/policy/consultations/EIF%202026/European%20Interoperability%20Framework%20-%20review.pdf

📄 I have published my summary of the Internet Research Task Force (IRTF) activities at #IETF126 in Vienna.

The report covers the Applied Networking Research Workshop (ANRW), the IRTF Open Meeting, and all 14 Research Groups—from AI networking and Internet architecture to routing, transport, privacy, sustainability, quantum networking, and more.

One aspect that makes the IRTF particularly valuable is its research model. Rather than organizing around individual publications, the IRTF is organized around long-lived research communities where researchers, engineers, implementers, operators, and standards experts collaboratively explore fundamental Internet challenges over many years.

At a time when AI is transforming how research is written, reviewed, and disseminated, sustained technical dialogue and open collaboration are becoming increasingly important.

🔗 https://dirk-kutscher.info/irtf/ietf-126/

#IRTF #IETF #Networking #Internet #Research #OpenStandards

True platform independence means zero vendor lock-in. Premium Sponsors like webcloud 7 champion digital freedom by supporting the Plone Foundation’s software conservancy and open standards. Thank you for power-boosting our mission! 💻

See what they do: https://webcloud7.de

#PloneSponsor2026 #OpenStandards #CloudHosting

From internet routing and web protocols to accessibility, digital payments, encryption, federated social platforms, and electric vehicle charging, the technologies they maintain underpin the digital systems we rely on every day.

Learn more and meet the people behind the code: https://www.sovereign.tech/news/meet-the-first-sovereign-tech-standards-cohort

#OpenSource #OpenStandards #DigitalInfrastructure

(2/2)

Jede öffentliche IT-Beschaffung sollte eine Exit-Strategie enthalten. Datenexport, offene Schnittstellen, alternative Betriebsmodelle und Migrationskosten gehören vor Vertragsabschluss auf den Tisch. Wer erst beim Anbieterwechsel darüber nachdenkt, hat den #vendorlockin bereits unterschrieben. #Vergabe #OpenStandards #Digitalesouveränität #ITGovernance #Verwaltung

🆕 blog! “Scattered thoughts on social geolocation”

I want to be able to share my location with my friends on social media. Twitter (RIP) had a way to attach an optional location to a post. Facebook still lets me check in to venues. But neither ActivityPub (Mastodon) nor AT Protocol (BlueSky) allow me …

👀 Read more: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/07/scattered-thoughts-on-social-geolocation/
⸻
#ActivityPub #BlueSky #fediverse #FourSquare #geolocation #json #openstandards #OpenStreetMap

Scattered thoughts on social geolocation

I want to be able to share my location with my friends on social media. Twitter (RIP) had a way to attach an optional location to a post. Facebook still lets me check in to venues. But neither ActivityPub (Mastodon) nor AT Protocol (BlueSky) allow me to do that.

I've been banging on about this for a while so was delighted to be invited to chat with the GeoSocial Task Force on their monthly call.

But, before I start, please remember that these proposals are not mandatory. If you don't want to share your location, then please don't share your location. This is an optional feature which shouldn't be used by people with a strong need for privacy.

We were primarily discussing the nascent Geographical Microsyntax proposals.

Firstly, I love the idea of being able to share my location. I want my friends to know I'm in town for a gig. I want people to think I'm cool because I'm seeing some experimental theatre. I want to virtue signal that I'm giving blood.

Similarly, I want to be able to find social media posts by location. What's happening right now in Paris? Did anyone else hear that sonic boom in London? Which cool people are also at this gig with me?

But, I do think these proposals have some issues which need to be addressed.

User Research

The primary thing missing from the proposal is any form of understanding what users want to do with a geotagged post.

You see a post like:

Hanging out with friends. I just checked in to Leicester Square.

What do you expect to happen when you click that link?

• See who is at the location?
• Read more information about the place being discussed?
• Find all posts at that specific address?
• Discover posts which are close to there?
• Something else?

What other things do people want to do with geotagged posts?

• Find all posts within 5Km of me?
• Discover users who have posted near me?
• Get emergency alerts for the city I'm in?
• See what's trending in a specific country?

Without knowing what people might want to do with this information, it's rather hard to design a service which meets their needs.

To micro or not to micro?

Where I disagree with the proposals is the idea of using inline text as a form of microsyntax.

Proposals like "I am in /London/ eating ice-cream" or "Checked in to Leicester Square L:N123456" fail for a couple of reasons.

Things like #hashtags and @mentions developed organically on social networks before they were eventually adopted by the platforms themselves. It is rare that a top-down diktat can be used to tell people how they should be formatting their posts.

More importantly, people are crap at formatting things consistently! Every event I go to has people using #Event alongside #Event2026 or #Event26 or a hundred variations.

Even if users could format it consistently, names are ambiguous. Is 🌐:Paris the one in France or Texas?

I'm strongly of the opinion that text is for text, not syntax.

Openness 🆚 Centralisation

Saying that you're on a specific point on the globe doesn't always provide useful information. Even with altitude, it isn't always possible to work out if your in the Starbucks or the Costa next door. Do you want to say you're in a train station, or a distinct platform, or even a specific train journey?

There are various services which offer unique IDs per loosely-defined place.

Google Maps provides a Place ID for every thing that it knows about. There's a similar service from FourSquare. But both of those are closed and proprietary systems - they can only be updated by the company that creates them.

Wikipedia's Wikidata has IDs for lots of places, similarly OpenStreetMap has nodes with names which can be used to identify locations.

But all of these suffer from the same flaw; they are centralised.

If Google kills its service then all those Place IDs die.

This has happened before. Yahoo used to run the Where On Earth IDentifier service but discontinued it.

While OSM and Wikipedia are great projects, they're still centralised. If you're banned from OSM, you can't create a new node.

So, to my mind, the primary way of identifying a place has to use a fully open, globally agreed, and unrestricted standard.

Location Plus Plus

The obvious choice is latitude and longitude as defined by WGS 84. It allows for arbitrary precision anywhere on the planet.

No one can stop you issuing lat/long just because a country is under sanctions. The standards community can't revoke your access to it. The co-ordinates are well understood by almost all software.

There are some alternatives. Google's Plus.Codes build on top of lat/long to make something more human readable. But, crucially, human readability is not the issue here. This is metadata which should never be shown to a human. If a user interface wants to format a lat/long they can do so as a Plus.Code or any other format.

GeoJSON

There are dozens of competing ways to mark up a location.

It seems sensible to me that, given most major social media protocols use JSON, adding GeoJSON would be the simplest way to add geographic information to a post's metadata.

At its most basic, a single "Point" can be shared like so:

{
    "type": "Feature",
    "geometry": {
        "type": "Point",
        "coordinates": [-0.13005,51.5103]
    }
}

It can have as much or as little precision as needed.

If the place being checked into has a name, it can also be added - this could be used for display purposes within the message

{
    "type": "Feature",
    "geometry": {
        "type": "Point",
        "coordinates": [-0.13005,51.5103]
    },
    "properties": {
        "name": "Leicester Square"
    }
}

The properties can be as complex as the sender wants. For example it could add Wikidata references, OpenStreetMap IDs, telephone numbers, or some cool new thing which hasn't been invented yet.

Here's a maximalist example of checking in to a park:

{
    "type": "Feature",
    "geometry": {
        "type": "Polygon",
        "coordinates": [
        [
                [-0.1303791,51.5099976],
                [-0.1295305,51.5100444],
                [-0.1297077,51.510947 ],
                [-0.1308786,51.5105859],
                [-0.1308893,51.5105793],
                [-0.1303791,51.5099976]
            ]
        ]
    },
    "properties": {
        "name": "Leicester Square",
        "WikiData": "Q848912",
        "OSM": "4082589",
        "GooglePlaceID": "ChIJPcTFENIEdkgR94E58rgB69o",
        "PlusCode": "9C3XGV69+4X",
        "Quinfrob": "🌐89451_𰻝",
        "address": {
            "road": "Leicester Square",
            "neighbourhood": "St. James's",
            "quarter": "East Marylebone",
            "suburb": "Covent Garden",
            "city": "City of Westminster",
            "ISO3166-2-lvl8": "GB-WSM",
            "state": "England",
            "ISO3166-2-lvl4": "GB-ENG",
            "postcode": "WC2H 7NA",
            "country": "United Kingdom",
            "country_code": "gb"
        }
    }
}

What's Next

My personal opinion is that the following needs to happen:

• Talk to some users - find out what they might use this for.
• Work with privacy advocates to reduce possible harms (for example, being able to redact a location from a previously shared post).
• Discuss with developers about how they'd work with this metadata.
• Clients should start adding GeoJSON metadata to their posts, even if it can't be displayed yet.

You can read the minutes of the meeting and I'd encourage you to join the next call.

Making A Locked Down WHOOP Wearable Work Without A Subscription

“The goal of the so-called OpenStrap project is not to re-create the WHOOP app. Rather, the algorithms and processing methods are developed from scratch, based on public research. It’s all calculated locally on a 1 Hz interval, based on the data the WHOOP 4.0 device feeds the app. As such, the heal...

See https://gadgeteer.co.za/making-a-locked-down-whoop-wearable-work-without-a-subscription/
#opensource #openstandards #technology

Proprietary formats are tools for vendor lock-in. Moving toward open standards is essential for academic digital sovereignty. 📄🔓 #OpenStandards #LibreOffice #HigherEd #Sovereignty #FOSS
https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2026/07/17/microsofts-main-tool-for-lock-in/

Once again, The Document Foundation has released a reminder of why Microsoft's Office file formats are among the strongest tools for locking users into proprietary formats. Remember: choose genuinely Open Standards.
#openstandards #digitalsovereginty #vendorlockin
https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2026/07/17/microsofts-main-tool-for-lock-in/