This is a mindset that is way too common, no one is entitled to your money but I think you should donate to projects you like and being open source doesn't mean you have to be poor

We often talk about the scouting rule of “always leave the campsite cleaner than you found it”, or in a software context “always leave the code a little bit better than you found it”.

If you see duplication in the code, then remove that before you leave the method. If you see poor variable names then fix those before you leave.

What we don’t talk about as much is how a culture of branching and Pull Requests (PR’s) actively discourages making small changes for that purpose. If I want to rename a method to make it clearer and know that making that little change is going to require real effort to go through a review process and manual merges, then I’m more likely to decide to just live with the original name, even if it is is poor.

Whereas if I can make that little refactoring and directly check it into mainline then it’s a very low effort change that contributes to the quality of the product. It’s become easy to do the right thing.

How many things do we have like this, that actively discourage us from doing the right thing?

For the past week, I've been so angry and disappointed in the Linux community for being quiet in regards to any kind of celebration to advancing accessibility, but suddenly becoming vocal and supportive when privileged people start writing about how bad accessibility on Linux is while portraying contributors as the devils who don't care about anybody.

I'm so exhausted. I'm so demotivated. The Linux community really doesn't care about accessibility on Linux. No wonder accessibility on Linux sucks. No one wants to work on it because they keep getting bullied and pressured.

https://tesk.page/2025/06/18/its-true-we-dont-care-about-accessibility-on-linux/

#a11y #Accessibility #Linux #FOSS #GNOME #KDE

My first paid software development job was on accessibility software. I remember visiting a user to help set up our code, and the sheer joy he had at being able to communicate more quickly than he had been able to for years.

Seeing the effort put into improving modern Linux accessibility is heartwarming. There's been almost 20 years of almost nobody caring. It's important. It's worthwhile.

Say thank you to the people doing that work. Stop amplifying the people saying that work isn't happening.

New blog post:
"Liberux Nexx: An interview with Liberux about their made-in-EU OSHW Linux Phone"
https://linmob.net/liberux-nexx-an-interview-with-liberux/

I had some questions, and @Liberux answered!

#LinuxPhones #LinuxMobile #LinuxOnMobile #MobileLinux #GNOMEonMobile #OSHW #madeInEU

"Making sense of software #licensing with @fsfe #REUSE: A beginner’s guide for #OpenSource developers" (article in the @fedora magazine):

https://fedoramagazine.org/beginners-guide-for-open-source-developers-for-software-licensing-with-fsfe-reuse/

My talk at @piwo is over.
TL;DR: Free Software won only in limited areas. Even in those, proprietary software is holding it by the throat.

But I forgot about 3 important words:

it's our fault.

It's the software industry that built all this closed software. We're complicit in taking away the control of the world from the regular person.

#freesoftware #piwo2025 #opensource

I published a new progress update for Jikaze, my Mahjong game. In this edition, I talk about starting to use Bevy and loading the Blender models in Bevy.

https://amenoasa.org/jikaze/jikaze-updates-2025-04-2025-05/

I will be scaling back Jikaze progress updates to every quarter in the year.

#riichi #mahjong #FreeSoftware #libresoftware

Devices like the PinePhone and Librem 5 are slowly carving out space for open mobile computing. These are not sleek consumer devices built for mass market appeal. They are platforms built by and for developers, hackers, and those who demand control over their hardware. With full root access, modular apps, and support for desktop-grade Linux distros like postmarketOS, Mobian, and Arch ARM, they challenge the locked-down nature of traditional smartphones.

While performance and battery life still lag behind mainstream phones, the focus is on freedom: running your own code, replacing parts, and escaping corporate ecosystems. For privacy advocates and tinkerers alike, Linux phones represent a small but significant shift in how we think about mobile tech.

#LinuxPhone #FOSS #MobileComputing #TechFreedom #RightToRepair #PrivacyTools

the fact that duckduckgo has an AI thing at the top of the search results which DOESN’T answer in character as a duck, or even quack several times between each sentence, is, i think, a shocking betrayal and a demonstration of utmost cowardice

You noticed how google search became unusably shit a few years ago?
Turns out that was on purpose

If you or anyone you know is looking to hire a passionate polyglot senior-level software developer that loves getting deep into interesting technologies and mentoring others, please get in touch! I'm available and looking for work!

My professional experience is mostly with Python and PHP on the back end, but I've got lots of experience with other languages and paradigms, and I'm an avid learner and really love sharing knowledge with teammates!

Please boost and share!

#GetHired #GetFediHired

Developments in #Jikaze for March of 2025 were pretty slow due to personal matters, though with #BevyEngine 0.16.0 hopefully around the corner, I'm hoping to get started with the client soon.

Development post: https://amenoasa.org/jikaze/this-month-in-jikaze-2025-03/

The textbook I mention is "Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach" by Jim Kurose and Keith Ross (https://gaia.cs.umass.edu/kurose_ross/about.php).

#riichi #mahjong #gameDevelopment

To be kind and fair to myself, I do want to avoid prematurely optimizing how I parse hands since premature optimization is the root of all evil 😉. For now, it seems fast enough on a single machine, though I can believe if my current implementation may not scale well. I'd have to benchmark how well it does with thousands of runs later, though my current priority is just having a playable version first.

I wasn't aware of these papers; I'll have to give them a read! I'm worried my naive design may be incompatible with whatever may be proposed but I'm sure a refactor will be worthwhile if it is necessary.

Thank you for your links!

I created a new post on my website to give some background/history into how Jikaze 🀄 came to be and what my goals with it are. I left out some historical details (like renaming the project from LibreRiichi to Jikaze) because I didn't feel like they were important enough to mention.

I hope to keep monthly updates about what's been going on in Jikaze.

https://amenoasa.org/jikaze/this-month-in-jikaze-2025-02/

#riichi #mahjong #FreeSoftware #blog #gameDev #OpenSource

After watching Emily Omier's #FOSDEM2025 talk on "How to Write a Killer README" (https://fosdem.org/2025/schedule/event/fosdem-2025-4990-how-to-write-a-killer-readme/), I went back to Jikaze's README and added a temporary logo and a small description of what the project is and its goals.

There's still room for improvement but it's a start.

https://codeberg.org/amenoasa/jikaze

Dealing with copyright and software licenses for your projects is complicated, but the FSFE has this handy spec called #REUSE (https://reuse.software/) to ensure this information is in accessible and consistent locations. They even have a handy tool to aid people into becoming compliant: https://reuse.readthedocs.io/.

I've been doing some housekeeping for Jikaze (https://codeberg.org/amenoasa/jikaze), to clean up unsafe direct indexing access and stuff like that. Hopefully there shouldn't be a need to do major refactoring when the #Rust 2024 edition lands later this week.
https://dev-doc.rust-lang.org/edition-guide/rust-2024/index.html

#riichi #mahjong

I've been cleaning up my mahjong_assets repo (https://codeberg.org/amenoasa/mahjong_assets) to make it more presentable. I've reworked some of the renders such as the point sticks (tenbou).

I've also added the basic geometry for a junk mat, though it's just basic shapes. The dimensions of it should be around 1:1. I don't plan on refining this model for now while I work on the automatic table model. Anyone is welcome to use this as a starting point though (Junk mat is licensed CC BY 4.0)

#riichi #mahjong #blender