RetroFed Forum
Your home away from modern life.
What FOSS software do you wish existed?
Post Reply
AuthorMessage
♠️ Critical Nexus ✊🏿 reddthat.com PumpkinDrama@reddthat.com
Joined: 2023-09-23
(edited) Quote

A federated internet archive, I'm wondering whether I should build it myself. With so many journalists being banned for reporting the gaza genocide we need more ways to combat censorship.

101   Original
darkearth sh.itjust.works darkearth@sh.itjust.works
Joined: 2026-03-11
#2 · Quote Reply

A better jelu that actually works for me. It won't import my Goodreads file AND it's ugly af. If I had the skills I'd fork it myself, but alas.

4
Dessalines lemmy.ml dessalines@lemmy.ml
Joined: 2019-04-17
#3 · Quote Reply

Reviews in OpenStreetMap, so that google maps can have a real competitor.

Its not FOSS, but I use to use foursquare for years because of how good it was at finding good restaurants / things to do in a new city. Now that its shut down, there's no real alternative that comes close.

89
♠️ Critical Nexus ✊🏿 reddthat.com PumpkinDrama@reddthat.com
Joined: 2023-09-23
#4 · Quote Reply

A self-hosted media tracker that automatically curates all media (tags, descriptions, etc)

4
♠️ Critical Nexus ✊🏿 reddthat.com PumpkinDrama@reddthat.com
Joined: 2023-09-23
#5 · Quote Reply

A federated internet archive, I'm wondering whether I should build it myself. With so many journalists being banned for reporting the gaza genocide we need more ways to combat censorship.

24
quaff lemmy.ca quaff@lemmy.ca
Joined: 2022-01-07
#6 · (edited) Quote Reply

A better jelu that actually works for me. It won't import my Goodreads file AND it's ugly af. If I had the skills I'd fork it myself, but alas.

Ever look into bookwyrm?

8
technocrit lemmy.dbzer0.com technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com
Joined: 2024-02-19
#7 · Quote Reply

GarageBand. It's literally the only proprietary software that I prefer over open source DAWs.

Shouldout to LMMS, Audacity, etc. I appreciate and use these too. But GB makes things so easy...

17
technocrit lemmy.dbzer0.com technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com
Joined: 2024-02-19
#8 · (edited) Quote Reply

Reviews in OpenStreetMap, so that google maps can have a real competitor. Its not FOSS, but I use to use foursquare for years because of how good it was at finding good restaurants / things to do in a new city. Now that its shut down, there's no real alternative that comes close.

There are some people working on this and proposing some options.

IMO, as someone who regularly edits OSM, the maps need much more info and basic editing before reviews. I had to add many of my fave restaurants. Forget about reviews when the restaurants aren't even on there. Just saying. Maybe as it gets more users.

(Tangent: I was just in a foreign country where I didn't have much mobile data. But I had downloaded OSM maps beforehand and made edits beforehand for my trip. The only downside is that OSMand doesn't update their maps very often in some places so I almost never got to use all my edits. Overall though the offline maps were very helpful for navigation, etc.)

30
technocrit lemmy.dbzer0.com technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com
Joined: 2024-02-19
#9 · (edited) Quote Reply

A federated internet archive, I'm wondering whether I should build it myself. With so many journalists being banned for reporting the gaza genocide we need more ways to combat censorship.

I know lots of people are crypto-reactionaries... But there are like dozens of these projects in the (primarily open source) crypto space. The basic idea seems to be that a crypto-archive uses a blockchain for hosting and a cryptocurrency to fund it. I don't know how successful these projects have been. Here are a few quick examples from a search:

15
kazerniel piefed.world kazerniel@piefed.world
Joined: 2026-04-28
#10 · Quote Reply

software with 1:1 feature parity with Adobe InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop (except genAI crap)

13
kazerniel piefed.world kazerniel@piefed.world
Joined: 2026-04-28
#11 · Quote Reply

A federated internet archive, I'm wondering whether I should build it myself. With so many journalists being banned for reporting the gaza genocide we need more ways to combat censorship.

My main concern would be how to prevent tampering with archived pages - the owner of the second most popular site after Wayback Machine, archive.is, has been known to modify the content of archived pages for petty personal reasons. And without the sanctity of archives, the whole exercise loses its value as proof of records of the past.

11
GreatWhiteBuffalo41 slrpnk.net greatwhitebuffalo41@slrpnk.net
Joined: 2023-06-11
#12 · Quote Reply

Reviews in OpenStreetMap, so that google maps can have a real competitor. Its not FOSS, but I use to use foursquare for years because of how good it was at finding good restaurants / things to do in a new city. Now that its shut down, there's no real alternative that comes close.

Holy crap I forgot about four square!

5
gbzm piefed.social gbzm@piefed.social
Joined: 2025-06-10
#13 · Quote Reply

A good competitor to SimuLink for graphic system oriented coding and for MATLAB's code generation, all with a modern UX

4
darkearth sh.itjust.works darkearth@sh.itjust.works
Joined: 2026-03-11
#14 · Quote Reply

Ever look into bookwyrm?

i have one but it's not what i want

4
ryper lemmy.ca ryper@lemmy.ca
Joined: 2023-07-07
#15 · Quote Reply

A self-hosted media tracker that automatically curates all media (tags, descriptions, etc)

Have you looked at Yamtrack?

3
save_the_humans leminal.space save_the_humans@leminal.space
Joined: 2024-07-12
#16 · Quote Reply

Wish Linux on mobile was just as mature as on desktop.

64
hexagonwin lemmy.today hexagonwin@lemmy.today
Joined: 2026-02-07
#17 · Quote Reply

self hosted web archive that's flexible/robust enough (loading from multiple sources, auto scraping some site, search etc)

3
mmmm sopuli.xyz mmmm@sopuli.xyz
Joined: 2025-04-07
#18 · Quote Reply

Reviews in OpenStreetMap, so that google maps can have a real competitor. Its not FOSS, but I use to use foursquare for years because of how good it was at finding good restaurants / things to do in a new city. Now that its shut down, there's no real alternative that comes close.

I don't know if there's such thing but i wish there was a foss alternative for street view too

8
Alas Poor Erinaceus lemmy.ml zdhzm2pgp@lemmy.ml
Joined: 2024-12-18
#19 · (edited) Quote Reply

software with 1:1 feature parity with Adobe InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop (except genAI crap)

As far as InDesign---I don't think it will probably ever have 1:1 feature parity, but LibreOffice Writer has recently gotten some new features that allow for more fine-tuned word and letter spacing as well as glyph scaling. A paragraph composer is on the horizon as well. There's also Inkscape and Krita, but I'm guessing you probably already know about those…

EDIT: Also agitating for optical margin alignment on Writer; will see how that goes...

4
stuartml piefed.social stuartml@piefed.social
Joined: 2026-07-10
#20 · Quote Reply

  1. reverse image search, upload an image, find a matching image online.
  2. a broken link checker/scanner with email notifications.
  3. a domain name helper that uses combines two words using synonyms.
  4. a link saver like pocket but simpler (mobile version)
  5. a pixabay alternative that doesn’t allow AI or let it train AI
  6. A job listing website that is Anti-AI (No AI jobs)
6
reallykindasorta slrpnk.net reallykindasorta@slrpnk.net
Joined: 2024-04-19
#21 · Quote Reply

I dream of a Bottom Up Logistics software that would enable us to thoughtfully connect and eventually scale grassroots resource sharing efforts. If Farmer Bertha had unsold crops she could list them. Communities in need of certain resources would indicate this. People could commit the use of their time, equipment, etc. The software would do the work of calculating efficient routes and assignments to get everything where it was needed.

My inspiration is the various pet rescue consortiums I’ve found in every city I’ve lived in. People crossing the country to pick up a single dog from rural alabama to bring it to a shelter in california. People pooling money to buy trucks specifically so volunteers can cart needy dogs around. They don’t use fancy logistics but they make it clear to me there’s a lot of uncaptured goodwill out there, and I think that given an organized way to engage, people would jump at the chance to participate in scaling a sharing economy based on empathy for our fellow creatures.

18
kazerniel piefed.world kazerniel@piefed.world
Joined: 2026-04-28
#22 · (edited) Quote Reply

As far as InDesign---I don't think it will probably ever have 1:1 feature parity, but LibreOffice Writer has recently gotten some new features that allow for more fine-tuned word and letter spacing as well as glyph scaling. A paragraph composer is on the horizon as well. There's also Inkscape and Krita, but I'm guessing you probably already know about those… EDIT: Also agitating for optical mar...

Hmm thanks, but yea a word editor would probably be missing a ton of layout and image features. The closest I've found was Scribus but it seems pretty rough.

Yes, I tried Inkscape, but sadly found its UI very unintuitive. Also bc it only works with SVG files, it doesn't properly support CMYK colours.

I know of Krita, but I mostly use Photoshop for image editing, not painting. And it's the one of the three I use the rarest and has the most alternatives, so my main pain points are the other two, as long as the three programs work well together. (Which is another weakness in FLOSS software, they don't tend to come in "suites". Not to say that Adobe apps don't have a ton of little inconsistencies and idiosyncrasies, but at least they can smoothly work with each other's files.)

4
zoontechnicon feddit.org zoontechnicon@feddit.org
Joined: 2024-08-10
#23 · Quote Reply

GarageBand. It's literally the only proprietary software that I prefer over open source DAWs. Shouldout to LMMS, Audacity, etc. I appreciate and use these too. But GB makes things so easy...

Have you tried Ardour?

8
Alas Poor Erinaceus lemmy.ml zdhzm2pgp@lemmy.ml
Joined: 2024-12-18
#24 · Quote Reply

Hmm thanks, but yea a word editor would probably be missing a ton of layout and image features. The closest I've found was Scribus but it seems pretty rough. Yes, I tried Inkscape, but sadly found its UI very unintuitive. Also bc it only works with SVG files, it doesn't properly support CMYK colours. I know of Krita, but I mostly use Photoshop for image editing, not painting. And it's the one o...

I hear ya. I have never had good luck with Scribus despite several dedicated tries. Still kind of learning Inkscape; I mentioned Krita instead of GIMP because it has full CMYK support. Depends on what your needs are I guess! 🙂

5
zoontechnicon feddit.org zoontechnicon@feddit.org
Joined: 2024-08-10
#25 · Quote Reply

reverse image search, upload an image, find a matching image online. a broken link checker/scanner with email notifications. a domain name helper that uses combines two words using synonyms. a link saver like pocket but simpler (mobile version) a pixabay alternative that doesn’t allow AI or let it train AI A job listing website that is Anti-AI (No AI jobs)

a link saver like pocket but simpler (mobile version)

Have you tried Wallabag?

5
Random Dent lemmy.ml CrabAndBroom@lemmy.ml
Joined: 2023-06-01
#26 · Quote Reply

An open source 2D animation suite that can compete with Toon Boom Harmony. I bought an (expensive) perpetual license for Toon Boom Harmony years ago, and then they moved to a ridiculously overpriced monthly subscription model and deactivated my license, essentially ripping me off for hundreds of dollars. So ever since then I've wanted something to come along and put them out of business.

17
Alas Poor Erinaceus lemmy.ml zdhzm2pgp@lemmy.ml
Joined: 2024-12-18
#27 · Quote Reply

I don't know if there's such thing but i wish there was a foss alternative for street view too

There's Instant Street View, tho it's just I guess a wrapper (???) for Google SV.

2
Alas Poor Erinaceus lemmy.ml zdhzm2pgp@lemmy.ml
Joined: 2024-12-18
#28 · Quote Reply

reverse image search, upload an image, find a matching image online. a broken link checker/scanner with email notifications. a domain name helper that uses combines two words using synonyms. a link saver like pocket but simpler (mobile version) a pixabay alternative that doesn’t allow AI or let it train AI A job listing website that is Anti-AI (No AI jobs)

1.Tineye? Not sure if it's FOSS tho...

4
slartibartfast141 piefed.zip slartibartfast141@piefed.zip
Joined: 2025-12-04
#29 · Quote Reply

I don't know if there's such thing but i wish there was a foss alternative for street view too

It's nowhere close to Street view's quality or quantity, but there is Panoramax

9
Alas Poor Erinaceus lemmy.ml zdhzm2pgp@lemmy.ml
Joined: 2024-12-18
#30 · Quote Reply

You can always check AlternativeTo for FOSS (and non-US based) software alternatives.

27
morto piefed.social morto@piefed.social
Joined: 2025-07-03
#31 · Quote Reply

Reviews in OpenStreetMap, so that google maps can have a real competitor. Its not FOSS, but I use to use foursquare for years because of how good it was at finding good restaurants / things to do in a new city. Now that its shut down, there's no real alternative that comes close.

As an openstreetmap contributor, I wish this so much. Every time I add places in there I ask myself if I'm doing something really useful anf if it's being actually used by anyone, or if I'm just wasting my time while thinking I'm doing a relevant thing because I know absolutely no one that uses it. Actually, the main osm site doesn't even show details about businesses, but just the icon

28
morto piefed.social morto@piefed.social
Joined: 2025-07-03
#32 · Quote Reply

Wish Linux on mobile was just as mature as on desktop.

To be fair, it's not much of linux's fault, but mostly due to shitty hardware restrictions and proprietary drivers

27
morto piefed.social morto@piefed.social
Joined: 2025-07-03
#33 · Quote Reply

My main concern would be how to prevent tampering with archived pages - the owner of the second most popular site after Wayback Machine, archive.is, has been known to modify the content of archived pages for petty personal reasons. And without the sanctity of archives, the whole exercise loses its value as proof of records of the past.

maybe that would be a rare case of some blockchain-like structure being actually useful? But without any kind of tokenization, of course

7
morto piefed.social morto@piefed.social
Joined: 2025-07-03
#34 · Quote Reply

A foss decentralized marketplace that costed very little or nothing at all to small stores to participate, to fight back against amazon and others

It would be nice to have the same, but for uber-like drivers

46
MentalEdge sopuli.xyz MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz
Joined: 2023-06-13
#35 · (edited) Quote Reply

A foss decentralized marketplace that costed very little or nothing at all to small stores to participate, to fight back against amazon and others It would be nice to have the same, but for uber-like drivers

Also food delivery.

In Finland, there used to be "pizza-online" which was really just a directory and ordering system for restaurants that already did delivery themselves.

They took a very small comission, as the site didn't really do anything except connect restaurant and customer (and provide a review platform). For a long time, they didn't even have an app.

You'd log in, select a restaurant, browse their menu and place an order. The order goes to the restaurant, and after that the site's job was done.

It was massively succesful. Every hole in-the-wall pizza place was on there. Finding good food was easy and cheap, and the restaurants reached more customers than ever. And the platform including reviews led to competition in not just price, but quality.

Then pizza-online sold to foodora, and they got shut down, and participating restaurant were no longer allowed to deliver themselves, and the cut taken by the platform skyrocketed.

23
vas lemmy.ml vas@lemmy.ml
Joined: 2025-08-12
#36 · Quote Reply

As an openstreetmap contributor, I wish this so much. Every time I add places in there I ask myself if I'm doing something really useful anf if it's being actually used by anyone, or if I'm just wasting my time while thinking I'm doing a relevant thing because I know absolutely no one that uses it. Actually, the main osm site doesn't even show details about businesses, but just the icon

I'm a sporadic/infrequent openstreetmap contributor, too - although I'm not second-guessing these contributions. Useless or not, I do use OSM all the time personally, so reason stands somebody before me did a good job and helped me a lot.

Admittedly, some of the people who use OSM around me use it because at a certain moment I've explained them the advantages. (I live in Europe and people frequently use other modes of transport besides the car, so OSM is legit frequently the better choice.)

10
SillySized lemmy.ml gray@lemmy.ml
Joined: 2025-07-31
#37 · Quote Reply

Something that could view and edit org files and connect to any/most cloud services

5
im_fine_sandy nord.pub im_fine_sandy@nord.pub
Joined: 2026-08-05
#38 · Quote Reply

You can always check AlternativeTo for FOSS (and non-US based) software alternatives.

I've found myself using this a whole lot. It really is great for finding foss and / or non-US alternatives.

6
morto piefed.social morto@piefed.social
Joined: 2025-07-03
#39 · Quote Reply

Also food delivery. In Finland, there used to be "pizza-online" which was really just a directory and ordering system for restaurants that already did delivery themselves. They took a very small comission, as the site didn't really do anything except connect restaurant and customer (and provide a review platform). For a long time, they didn't even have an app. You'd log in, select a restaurant,...

In Finland, there used to be “pizza-online” which was really just a directory and ordering system for restaurants that already did delivery themselves.

Something like that would be very nice too!

Then pizza-online sold to foodora, and they got shut down, and psrticipating restaurant were no longer allowed to deliver themselves, and the cut taken by the platform skyrocketed.

Oh no...

9
morto piefed.social morto@piefed.social
Joined: 2025-07-03
#40 · Quote Reply

I'm a sporadic/infrequent openstreetmap contributor, too - although I'm not second-guessing these contributions. Useless or not, I do use OSM all the time personally, so reason stands somebody before me did a good job and helped me a lot. Admittedly, some of the people who use OSM around me use it because at a certain moment I've explained them the advantages. (I live in Europe and people frequ...

I'm from Brazil, and the people around here love to swim and bathe in big tech, unfortunately. I tried talking about osm with a lot of people, but everyone keep using google no matter what :(

But recently, I have been giving less attention to adding businesses and more into other things related to navigation, which I know are used by some

6
KryptonBlur slrpnk.net KryptonNerd@slrpnk.net
Joined: 2024-01-18
#41 · Quote Reply

An open source 2D animation suite that can compete with Toon Boom Harmony. I bought an (expensive) perpetual license for Toon Boom Harmony years ago, and then they moved to a ridiculously overpriced monthly subscription model and deactivated my license, essentially ripping me off for hundreds of dollars. So ever since then I've wanted something to come along and put them out of business.

What about OpenToonz? AFAIK Studio Ghibli used it

12
morto piefed.social morto@piefed.social
Joined: 2025-07-03
#42 · Quote Reply

A good competitor to SimuLink for graphic system oriented coding and for MATLAB's code generation, all with a modern UX

Scilab's Xcos is pretty doable depending on your area of work

2
NewNewAugustEast lemmy.zip NewNewAugustEast@lemmy.zip
Joined: 2025-06-19
#43 · (edited) Quote Reply

A foss decentralized marketplace that costed very little or nothing at all to small stores to participate, to fight back against amazon and others It would be nice to have the same, but for uber-like drivers

I think what you want is a CO OP. It would be nice if the software was FOSS of course.

But a coop would make things like uber type services be worker owned.

Also members can make decisoons.

8
quaff lemmy.ca quaff@lemmy.ca
Joined: 2022-01-07
#44 · (edited) Quote Reply

i have one but it's not what i want

Fair enough! What features are ya looking for?

1
TruePe4rl lemmy.ml TruePe4rl@lemmy.ml
Joined: 2024-07-28
#45 · Quote Reply

A foss decentralized marketplace that costed very little or nothing at all to small stores to participate, to fight back against amazon and others It would be nice to have the same, but for uber-like drivers

I would like to see such a thing. But I would add API for accessing it with a dedicated app. Allows for better performance and features like filtering across multiple shops at once an even allows integration in scripts.

4
noodlejetski (he/him) piefed.social noodlejetski@piefed.social
Joined: 2025-05-26
#46 · Quote Reply

There's Instant Street View, tho it's just I guess a wrapper (???) for Google SV.

from the About button:

Simply type an address or place name to instantly see it in Google Street View.

2
Teagan lemmy.blahaj.zone IntroSkeptic@lemmy.blahaj.zone
Joined: 2026-08-10
#47 · Quote Reply

As an openstreetmap contributor, I wish this so much. Every time I add places in there I ask myself if I'm doing something really useful anf if it's being actually used by anyone, or if I'm just wasting my time while thinking I'm doing a relevant thing because I know absolutely no one that uses it. Actually, the main osm site doesn't even show details about businesses, but just the icon

Wherever you are, your contributions are very well appreciated! I live in a very small town and use OSM. Idk who mapped this place, but having maps away from Google in such a small place makes me happy. Again, wherever you are, you are contributing to a cause that can help free people from big tech monopolies and actually advances human society forever.

You are part of the reason people like me who don't have time to contribute to such efforts can use these apps anyways. Part of the reason adoption is possible. Part of the reason OSM can grow beyond just whatever you're documenting.

Thank you, really. <3

7
vas lemmy.ml vas@lemmy.ml
Joined: 2025-08-12
#48 · Quote Reply

I'm from Brazil, and the people around here love to swim and bathe in big tech, unfortunately. I tried talking about osm with a lot of people, but everyone keep using google no matter what :( But recently, I have been giving less attention to adding businesses and more into other things related to navigation, which I know are used by some

Personally, I exercise the "growth mentality" here. Meaning, I don't compare with a target value such as "I've converted 10% of the Earth population to OSM". Instead, I compare with OSM as it was 6 months ago. This approach gives peace of mind and steady progress for me personally.

10
pineapple lemmy.ml pineapple@lemmy.ml
Joined: 2024-11-06
#49 · Quote Reply

As an openstreetmap contributor, I wish this so much. Every time I add places in there I ask myself if I'm doing something really useful anf if it's being actually used by anyone, or if I'm just wasting my time while thinking I'm doing a relevant thing because I know absolutely no one that uses it. Actually, the main osm site doesn't even show details about businesses, but just the icon

Just wanted to add, when I'm travelling I very much enjoy it when a town has up to date cafes/restaurants. That's why my highest priority when I contributing to OSM is adding cafe/restaurant information.

8
trepli lemmy.ml trepli@lemmy.ml
Joined: 2026-03-26
#50 · Quote Reply

I don't know if there's such thing but i wish there was a foss alternative for street view too

I also use Mapillary, I guess it is similar to Panoramax, cause it has the app and it's well done.

2
TerHu lemmy.dbzer0.com TerHu@lemmy.dbzer0.com
Joined: 2025-06-11
#51 · Quote Reply

I want FOSS camera firmware so bad.
imagine what we could do with them then! obviously that why it’s not foss…

11
Post Reply Page 1 of 3   Goto page 1, 2, 3 Last »
Back to top