Skip Windows 11 upgrades. Use immutable Linux instead.

May 02, 2026

This week we're discovering why data freedom matters as much as code freedom, learning how Don tested immutable Linux on decade-old library computers as a low-maintenance alternative to Windows 11 upgrades, exploring why AI code assistants represent copyleft's second liberation after 40 years, hearing what Danielle saw at the MCP Dev Summit about agentic AI's infrastructure being defined in the open, and building automated Linux backups that alert you when they fail.

We're also hearing from Jeremy Stanley on the podcast about balancing transparency with user safety in vulnerability management. This is edition #61 of the We ❤️ Open Source newsletter. Made and curated by Todd & Jason.🙂 

This week we'll look at...

Only a few seats remain

Join us May 5 in the Research Triangle

Only a few seats remain for our May 5 in-person meetup - hurry and RSVP if interested! Dr. Lisa Bradley, Senior Director of Product & Application Security at Dell Technologies, will deliver a great talk, the networking will be tremendous, food and beverages will be served, and the (free) swag will be plentiful. We hope to see you at Wake Tech's RTP campus.

Articles

Open source promises freedom. But if your data can't move, neither can you. This post makes the case for data portability as a first-class design principle and open source's biggest untapped competitive advantage. A must-read for anyone building or choosing open source solutions.

WHY WE ❤️ IT: Germany's Open Desk turned standalone tools into a complete suite using open APIs. That's the competitive advantage most projects miss.

Facing pressure to upgrade library computers to Windows 11? Don tested immutable Linux on decade-old hardware and discovered a secure, low-maintenance alternative that could save libraries thousands. Explore how Fedora Silverblue and Cosmic Atomic extend hardware life without breaking the budget.

WHY WE ❤️ IT: Don tested this on a four-year-old laptop with real library constraints. It actually works with minimal maintenance.

The agentic AI conversation has moved past GPUs. At the MCP Dev Summit, 146 organizations and 95 sessions made one thing clear: the infrastructure layer of agentic AI is being defined in the open, right now. Danielle Cook was in the room. Here's what she saw.

WHY WE ❤️ IT: Danielle was at the MCP Dev Summit and honestly, her take on orchestration and governance is the one you actually need to read.

For 40 years, copyleft freed source code but not users. The GPL required scarce technical knowledge to exercise freedom. Now AI code assistants collapse that barrier. Explore why open source AI represents the second liberation, democratizing not just code access but code mastery itself.

WHY WE ❤️ IT: The freedom to fork was always theoretical without thousands in labor costs. AI just collapsed that barrier. Stefano nails why this matters.

What's in your technology toolbox?

Backups that silently fail are worse than no backups. Learn Linux TV shows you how to build a production-ready backup system using rsync and systemd with version history, mount point checks, and Healthchecks.io monitoring. Get alerted immediately if backups stop working instead of discovering it too late.

From the We ❤️ Open Source Podcast

Working on security vulnerabilities in private is a time sink, but going public too early exposes users to nefarious actors. Jeremy Stanley explains why vulnerability management balances transparency with user safety, how to lurk in communities before contributing, and why his 35-year career came through relationships, not blind resumes.

Wrap Up

If you've made it this far (thank you!), check out everything we do, our YouTube channel with 1000's of open source talks, the many meetups we host around the southeast and NYC, the All Things AI spring event we co-host, and of course All Things Open, the largest open source tech conference on the US east coast.

We hope you learn something new this weekend!

- Jason & Todd

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