Talks and travels: FrOSCon, Germany – The lost outpost
My keynote, Decentralising Freedom: Open Source for Sovereignty, was the featured talk on day 2 of FrOSCon 2025.| The lost outpost
My keynote, Decentralising Freedom: Open Source for Sovereignty, was the featured talk on day 2 of FrOSCon 2025.| The lost outpost
Florian Mrugalla has released Absorbiere, a free sidechain ring modulation plugin available in VST3 format for Windows and macOS. Absorbiere takes an intelligent approach to solving one of the most persistent problems in mixing: uncontrolled peak levels that result from stacking multiple tracks. Rather than using traditional compression or volume ducking, Absorbiere uses sidechain-based ring [...] View post: Florian Mrugalla releases Absorbiere, a free sidechain ring modulation plugin| Bedroom Producers Blog
DiBiQuadro has released Mars800Free, a free amp sim plugin that emulates the classic Marshall JCM800 guitar amplifier. It’s available for Windows and macOS in VST3, AU, and AAX formats. If you’re after that gritty and bright British, Mars800Free is an excellent free option. This freeware single-channel amp simulates the EL34 power tubes with a precise [...] View post: DiBiQuadro releases Mars800Free, a FREE Marshall JCM800-style amp sim| Bedroom Producers Blog
If you’ve been looking for a new delay plugin, there’s been no shortage of options over the past week or so as Witch Pig releases Starscraper, a free pitch-shifting reverse delay plugin for macOS and Windows. We’ve had Harrison 3D Delay (free from Harrison Audio), a BPB exclusive offering 35% off Raccoon Audio’s EchoSnack Delay, [...] View post: Witch Pig releases Starscraper, a FREE pitch-shifting reverse delay plugin| Bedroom Producers Blog
Safari Pedals offers the Gorilla Drive ($49) warm analog-style saturation plugin for free via Bedroom Producers Blog until August 24th. Gorilla Drive is typically priced at $49, but BPB readers can claim a free license this week. To get your free copy, register with your email address via the link at the end of this [...] View post: Safari Pedals Gorilla Drive is FREE at BPB this week| Bedroom Producers Blog
Kilohearts has announced the addition of its latest plugin, Compactor, to the free Kilohearts Essentials range. Compactor joins existing freebies like Clipper and Shaper in the Kilohearts Essentials catalogue. If you aren’t familiar with Kilohearts Essentials, each addition is available as a regular (AU, VST2, VST3, AAX) plugin or as a Kilohearts Snapin, and completely [...] View post: Kilohearts releases Compactor, a FREE loudness maximizing plugin| Bedroom Producers Blog
Harrison Audio has released four new plugins, including 3D Delay. You can download one of them for free by subscribing to the developer’s newsletter. The four new plugins are Stunning Phaser, Dyno Mite, Spectral Gate, and 3D Delay. The freebie on offer is 3D Delay, a versatile delay plugin that delivers sounds inspired by classic [...] View post: Harrison 3D Delay plugin is FREE for Harrison Audio newsletter subscribers| Bedroom Producers Blog
SoundMorph is running a surprise deal that lets you get $99 off any product on their site using the code SoundMorphCash99. There’s no minimum required, so you can use the code to grab one of their premium sound design tools completely free of charge. The deal’s end date isn’t officially announced, and it could end [...] View post: Get $99 OFF any SoundMorph Product, get DUST, Wave Warper 2, or TimeFlux for FREE!| Bedroom Producers Blog
Developer Jonathan Higgins has released SoundThread, a free cross-platform node-based UI for the Composers Desktop Project (CDP), one of the most powerful (and previously most intimidating) free sound design toolkits around. CDP has been a hidden weapon for experimental sound design since the 1980s, famously used by artists like Aphex Twin. The problem is, though, [...] View post: SoundThread UI for CDP – Aphex Twin’s favorite tool just got a free modular GUI| Bedroom Producers Blog
Red Sounds has released deFORM 2, a free pitch modulation plugin for macOS and Windows. It is available for free for a limited time via VST Alarm. DeFORM 2 is a simple pitch modulator designed as a quick tool for achieving a lo-fi vibe. You get two LFOs: one sine wave and one irregular shape,| Bedroom Producers Blog
EQ Academy is a gamified ear-training tool with 100 interactive levels designed to sharpen your ears and your technique. Whatever you’re studying, nothing teaches you more than hands-on experience, and that’s what you get from EQ Academy. EQ Academy is free to all Mastering The Mix newsletter subscribers; I know newsletter subscriptions and email addresses| Bedroom Producers Blog
AIR Music Tech has released Channel Strip as a standalone plugin for the first time (previously available as part of a bundle), and it’s free throughout July 2025. If you want a streamlined, mixing-oriented channel strip with all the essentials in one place, this freebie is well worth grabbing. Previously bundled with other AIR products,| Bedroom Producers Blog
Humanizer Midi by Audiowavez is a Windows-only plugin that makes your MIDI tracks less static by subtly changing the velocity and timing of the notes. If you’ve felt like your MIDI-generated melodies, chords, and rhythms sound clunky, hard, and robotic, you’re probably not alone. Think of how a real piano sounds when you play it.| Bedroom Producers Blog
Cakewalk has re-released Sonar as a free DAW for Windows users. This is the long-awaited (re)birth of Cakewalk’s old flagship digital audio workstation, now with a new price tag, interface, and some new rules. If you’ve been around the free DAW scene, you’ll remember Cakewalk by BandLab as one of the top choices, rivaling Waveform| Bedroom Producers Blog
Tag2upload? The tag2upload service has finally gone live for Debian Developers in an open beta. If you’ve never heard of tag2upload before, here is a great primer presented by Ian Jackson and prepared by Ian Jackson and Sean Whitton. In...| Jonathan Carter
Beer, cake and ISO testing amidst rugby and jazz band chaos On Saturday, the Debian South Africa team got together in Cape Town to celebrate Debian’s 31st birthday and to perform ISO testing for the Debian 11.11 and 12.7 point...| Jonathan Carter
Around a decade ago, I was happy to learn about bcache – a Linux block cache system that implements tiered storage (like a pool of hard disks with SSDs for cache) on Linux. At that stage, ZFS on Linux was nowhere close to where it is today, so any progress on gaining more ZFS features in general Linux systems was very welcome. These days we care a bit less about tiered storage, since any cost benefit in using anything else than nvme tends to quickly evaporate compared to time you eventually...| Jonathan Carter
WaveMind just released an update to their overdrive plugin, Shoeless Drive, in collaboration with YouTuber Rensington. The effect is in its 2.0 version, offering improved features and bug fixes, and might be a versatile drive unit for guitarists. Check out a demo here: The layout is relatively simple, and the heart of the plugin is| Bedroom Producers Blog
Tilr is a name we’ve heard multiple times this year, and it seems that one of 2025’s busiest plugin developers isn’t slowing down as they have just released REEV-R, a free convolution reverb plugin for macOS, Windows, and Linux. Since February, Tilr has given us Time1 and Gate1, Time-12 and Gate-12, and the very impressive| Bedroom Producers Blog
© 2025 Peter N. M. Hansteen| That grumpy BSD guy
Stone Voices now offers the Ambient Reverb 7 plugin as a free download for Windows and macOS, previously priced at $52.28. This isn’t the developer’s first foray into freeware reverbs. DReverb 2.0 is another excellent reverb from Stone Voices, widely regarded as one of the best algorithmic reverbs you can get without spending a cent.| Bedroom Producers Blog
Sweetwater is giving away Native Instruments Komplete 15 Select for free, a production suite typically priced at $99. The offer is exclusive to users based in the United States. Komplete 15 Select is available in three variations—Electronic, Beats, and Band Editions. Each edition includes 13 plug-ins tailored to a specific genre, covering everything from thumping| Bedroom Producers Blog
HyperspaceCore originates from JMG Sound’s flagship reverb plugin, Hyperspace, and serves as a successor to the discontinued Hyperspace CM (Computer Magazine Edition). Hyperspace has been around for years now, but a free version will be welcome news to anyone put off by the hefty price tag. Hyperspace developed a reputation as a reverb plugin that| Bedroom Producers Blog
Beat and Erica Synths have teamed up to create NOCTURNA, a collection of 66 free impulse responses crafted from their Echolocator and Nightverb hardware units. This is a cool set of unusual reverb impulses, especially if you’re interested in exploring convolution reverb beyond the basic bread and butter sounds. If you’ve ever used reverb impulse| Bedroom Producers Blog
When it comes to large volume of data management, health in general and health informatics in particular are in the top of the list. In this post I’d like to bring the attention on how we can…| MeanMicio
Hello, friends! I’ve been using a brilliant tool called Ventoy, recently, and I wanted to tell you guys about it. When I started out in my Linux journey in 2014, I learned to flash a single I…| Shaffan's Blog
Welcome to another month of rambling status reports. Not much in terms of technology this month, my work at Codethink is still focused on proprietary corporate infrastructure, and the weather is to…| Sam Thursfield
A few years ago, I joked about FLOSS activists refusing to use closed-source firmware devices needing to build…| Flameeyes's Weblog
© 2025 Peter N. M. Hansteen The system you develop and maintain does not exist in isolation. Providing SBOMs for our work is o...| bsdly.blogspot.com
There are enough updates to last year’s “In Search of Foundational FLOSS Freedom(s)” to make a blog category of its own, or almost so....| Interpeer Project
The OpenBSD packet filter PF was introduced a little more than 20 years ago as part of OpenBSD 3.0. We'll take a short tour of PF features and tools that I have enjoyed using.| That grumpy BSD guy
We have been used to hearing that free and open source software and enterprise environments in Big Business are fundamentally opposed and do not mix well. Is that actually the case, or should we rather explore how business and free software can both benefit going forward?| That grumpy BSD guy
Effective FX is an independent, experimental audio tech studio based in Baltimore, Maryland. Their latest release is Poltergeist, a free experimental modulation effect for macOS and Windows. Poltergeist is a multi-stage effect that definitely fits the experimental category. The plugin generates fractal-like phasing patterns using the incoming audio at multiple stages. That short description already| Bedroom Producers Blog
Tubeshifter is a free analogue-style tube saturation plugin for macOS and Windows from the developer Frostwave Audio. Frostwave Audio is a Nordic developer founded by Reidar Schæfer Olsen, who later partnered with sound designer Niklas Eurén. Reidar Schæfer Olsen is perhaps better known as Danheim, an acclaimed Nordic folk artist whose penchant for epic Viking| Bedroom Producers Blog
If you want to add more interesting harmonic content to your tracks, we have a great free plugin for you today. Resonator is a free plugin from Thony Audio, a seemingly new developer. That’s safe to assume since their website looks brand new. Nevertheless, Resonator is an exciting plugin that’ll be a great addition to| Bedroom Producers Blog
FKFX Audio’s Dyna usually costs $29.99, but it’s available to download for free for a limited time. The limited-time offer is part of an introductory promotion lasting until 2025. So, if it’s New Year’s Eve, 2024, and you’re partying like it’s 1999, and you suddenly remember it’s about to be 2025, and you end up| Bedroom Producers Blog
Over the weekend Wire Grind Audio dropped Rasp, a Windows-exclusive plugin that can add grit, noise and a raspy sound to tracks. Now you might be thinking that sounds a whole lot like distortion, but the dev explains that while Rasp sounds similar to distortion, it is not a conventional distortion effect. Wire Grind Audio’s| Bedroom Producers Blog
PSP Audioware released PSP Chamber, a freeware reverb plugin for Windows and macOS (Intel and Silicon). The plugin is inspired by classic hardware verbs and is available in AU, AAX, VST, and VST3 formats. As you might have guessed from the name, PSP Chamber emulates the acoustics of physical spaces of different shapes and sizes| Bedroom Producers Blog
Fine Classic Plugins has released Subtle Spaces, a reverb plugin for macOS and Windows. and the developer’s first free plugin. Subtle Spaces is a new convolution reverb effect with a simple and intuitive GUI. The featured IRs (impulse responses) include sixteen rooms and spaces of various sizes. The various shapes and sizes of the rooms| Bedroom Producers Blog
By making any purchase on Plugin Boutique this December, you can nab yourself a free copy of either UAD’s Oxide Tape Recorder ($149), Karanyi Sounds’ Vapor Keys ($49), Izotope’s Nectar 4 Elements ($49), or Pitch Innovations’ Rhythm Box ($29). All four plugins are macOS and Windows releases, and the December offer will expire on January| Bedroom Producers Blog
Chaos Audio is offering seven pedal plugins for free in their Freebie Plugin Bundle, which includes reverb, drive, delay, and EQ. I don’t know about you, but I find it harder to find guitar pedal-style plugins. There have been lots of amp sims but not too many emulations of pedals. There are, of course, other| Bedroom Producers Blog
If you’re new to reading this blog, you might not already be aware of my efforts to develop end-to-end encryption for ActivityPub-based software. It’s worth being aware of before you co…| Dhole Moments
I’m finishing typing up this blog entry hours before my last 13 hour leg back home, after I spent 2 weeks in Busan, South Korea for DebCamp24 and DebCamp24. I had a rough year and decided to take it easy this DebConf. So this is the first DebConf in a long time where I didn’t give any talks. I mostly caught up on a bit of packaging, worked on DebConf video stuff, attended a few BoFs and talked to people. Overall it was a very good DebConf, which also turned out to be more productive than...| Jonathan Carter
I very, very nearly didn’t make it to DebConf this year, I had a bad cold/flu for a few days before I left, and after a negative covid-19 test just minutes before my flight, I decided to take the plunge and travel.| Jonathan Carter
Inspired by the fine Debian Local Groups all over the world, I’ve long since wanted to start one in Cape Town. Unfortunately, there’s been many obstacles over the years. Shiny distractions, an epidemic, DPL terms… these are just some of the things that got in the way.| Jonathan Carter
Last month, the Debian project released Debian 12, with the usual low-key fanfare that Debian usually announces a release with. Even though we shipped with some bugs we’d rather not have (which are at least fixable over the next point releases), the feedback for Debian 12 has been nothing short of overwhelmingly good. From users to the independent Linux blogs to the YouTubers to the tech news sites, the vast majority of feedback so far is that it’s not just one of Debian’s most importan...| Jonathan Carter
Last night I attended the first local Linux User Group talk since before the pandemic (possibly even… long before the pandemic!)| Jonathan Carter
This year I attended Debian Reunion Hamburg (aka MiniDebConf Germany) for the second time. My goal for this MiniDebConf was just to talk to people and make the most of the time I have there. No other specific plans or goals. Despite this simple goal, it was a very productive and successful event for me.| Jonathan Carter
It wouldn’t be inaccurate to say that I’ve had a lot on my plate in the last few years, and that I have a *huge* backlog of little tasks to finish. Just last week, I finally got to all my keysigning from DebConf22. This week, I’m at MiniDebConf Germany in Hamburg. It’s the second time I’m here! And it’s great already. Last year I drafted a blog entry, but never got around to publishing it. So, in order to mentally tick off yet another thing, here follows a somewhat imperfect (I ha...| Jonathan Carter
It sometimes happens in people’s lives that someone tells them something that sounds true and obvious at the time. It turns out that it actually is objectively true, and it is also obvious, o…| Aharoni in Unicode
A personal reflection on how I moved from my Debian home to find two new homes with Trisquel and Guix for my own ethical computing, and while doing so settled my dilemma about further Debian contributions. Debian‘s contributions to the Continue reading Coping with non-free software in Debian→| Simon Josefsson's blog
As a maintainer of several software packages I often find myself copying text snippets from the README file into different places (savannah, github, freecode, emails, etc). Recently I had a need to generate a list of software packages that included Continue reading BLURB: Software repository metadata convention→| Simon Josefsson's blog
Two factor authentication (2FA) is an amazing invention. For one thing, it can significantly increase the security of your online accounts without significantly increasing the hassle of logging in. Additionally, the most popular 2FA algorithms are available in both free software and proprietary software implementations. This weekend, I reverse engineered Symantec's proprietary 2FA token solution with the goal of creating a free software alternative. Motivation Why did I do this? Well, like ma...| Cyrozap's Tech Projects
Assumed Audience: anyone who cares about the success of free and open-source software. A New Rustacean listener sent me a note lamenting the way Mozilla’s transition from IRC to Discord—i.e., from an open protocol to a proprietary service. For many advocates of free software, this is a deeply unsettling move. The kind listener who sent me an email pointed to Matrix, an open-protocol service, and noted: “perhaps the default web interface is slightly less slick, but there’s not much in ...| Chris Krycho
In which application development and packaging are discussed, vis-a-vis old and new practices| halting problem
The new tablet UI for Firefox on Android is now available on Nightly and, soon, Aurora! Here’s a quick overview of the design goals, development process, and implementation.| Lucas Rocha
I joined Mozilla 3 years, 4 months, and 6 days ago. Time flies!| Lucas Rocha
Up until now, Probe relied on dynamic view proxies generated at runtime to intercept View calls. Although very convenient, this approach greatly affects the time to inflate your layouts—which limits the number of use cases for the library, especially in more complex apps.| Lucas Rocha
I’ve always been a big fan of Picasso, the Android image loading library by the Square folks. It provides some powerful features with a rather simple API.| Lucas Rocha
We’ve all heard of the best practices regarding layouts on Android: keep your view tree as simple as possible, avoid multi-pass layouts high up in the hierarchy, etc. But the truth is, it’s pretty hard to see what’s actually going on in your view tree in each UI traversal (measure → layout → draw).| Lucas Rocha
With all the recent focus on baseline grids, keylines, and spacing markers from Android’s material design, I found myself wondering how I could make it easier to check the correctness of my Android UI implementation against the intended spec.| Lucas Rocha
What if writing custom view recycling layouts was a lot simpler? This question stuck in my mind since I started writing Android apps a few years ago.| Lucas Rocha
If you ever built an Android app, you have definitely used some of the built-in layouts available in the platform—RelativeLayout, LinearLayout, FrameLayout, etc. They are our bread and butter for building Android UIs.| Lucas Rocha
Here are some recent updates to our Free Tools and Libraries page:| Ada Resource Association
The ARA congratulates Dr. Peter Chapin on his receipt of ACM SIGAda’s Robert Dewar Award, which acknowledges outstanding contributions to the Ada community. Dr. Chapin was a major contributor to the Vermont Tech Lunar CubeSat project (cubesatlab.org) whose software was written in SPARK/Ada. The Vermont Tech CubeSat was launched in November 2013 and successfully completed its full two-year mission, the only one out of twelve academic CubeSats to do so. Dr. Chapin attributes the software’s ...| Ada Resource Association
Best general-purpose Operating System QubesOS is still (and has been for some years) the most secure general-purpose operating system for computer users who wish to protect their privacy and mainta…| usability | security | freedom
It’s now mid-2016. How should we be communicating with people with some semblance of privacy/decency, without having others record and monetize our every thought or feeling put in words? By n…| usability | security | freedom
blog.grobox.de -| Torsten's Thoughtcrimes
blog.grobox.de -| Torsten's Thoughtcrimes
blog.grobox.de -| Torsten's Thoughtcrimes
blog.grobox.de -| Torsten's Thoughtcrimes
blog.grobox.de -| Torsten's Thoughtcrimes
blog.grobox.de -| Torsten's Thoughtcrimes
It was wonderful to see an outpouring of support for Conservancy last week at LCA 2016. A number of speakers highlighted Conservancy during their...| stumbles.id.au
