Stories
Plain-language writing about the open-source software Malaysian businesses already depend on — where it came from, what the licences actually require, and what it costs to switch.
- Landmark Projects
The tools Rasmus Lerdorf wrote for his online resume, and gave away
In 1994 Rasmus Lerdorf wrote a few small tools to track visits to his online resume. He gave the code away in June 1995, other people rebuilt it, and today PHP runs a large part of the web. He says he never meant to write a language.
- Landmark Projects
The PHP behind your company website, and the update it needs now
Your company website may well be built page by page by PHP, free software no visitor ever sees, and on 21 October 2026 its makers told every user to update, so here is how it works and the one question to ask your web vendor or host.
- Landmark Projects
The student who called Linux "just a hobby", and the licence that changed it
In August 1991 a 21-year-old student in Helsinki said his new operating system was "just a hobby". A licence change a few months later let anyone build on it and sell it. It now sits inside the Android phone in your hand, and he still has the final say on it.
- Landmark Projects
The Linux inside your Android phone, and the date its fixes stop
Every Android phone is built on Linux, free open-source software. How a security fix travels from Linux to your phone, why every phone has an end date for updates, and the one question to ask before you buy phones for staff.
- Landmark Projects
The video software with a made-up author, and the volunteers who keep it running
FFmpeg, the free video software inside Chrome, Firefox and VLC, was first credited to a man who did not exist. The project says it is written "almost exclusively by volunteers", and in 2023 one of them answered a "high priority" ticket from Microsoft within about an hour.
- Security
The padlock on your website comes with an expiry date
The certificate behind the padlock in your address bar now expires faster every few years, and it proves less than most people think. What it means, who hands most of them out for free, and the two questions to ask whoever runs your website.
- Landmark Projects
The stranger who read a router's fine print, without owning the router
In 2003 a developer read the software file of a Linksys router he did not own and pointed out, in public, that free code inside came with a duty to share. Weeks later Linksys put some of the code online, an open router project grew from it, and five years later a dispute over Linksys code reached a New York court.
- Origins
The clock on your phone knows Peninsular Malaysia skipped half an hour
On the last night of 1981, Peninsular Malaysia's clocks jumped from 11:30 pm to midnight. Your phone knows, because volunteers keep a free, open-source record of the clock rules of places around the world. How it works, who looks after it, and why it matters for your e-invoices.
- Landmark Projects
The database with no server, and the error box that started it
Around 2000 a contractor on US Navy damage-control software got tired of one error message and wrote a database that needs no server. It is now on every phone, run by a small team whose code nobody owns.
- Landmark Projects
The lock on your WhatsApp is published for anyone to read
WhatsApp locks your personal chats with the Signal Protocol, first written down by two people, published by the non-profit behind Signal. How it works, who pays for it, and the chats it does not cover, including some chats with businesses.
- Economics
The day the internet found out who was maintaining it
In 2014 a bug in OpenSSL revealed that software securing about one in six secure websites had a handful of maintainers and almost no donations. Here is what is true, what is folklore, and what your business still carries.
- Economics
An OS for the age of agents, with no agent in it
Omarchy is free, well made and backed by a stated USD 21.7 million. It also ships no AI of its own — and the funding figure does not reconcile with the foundation's own list.
- Origins
What "free" actually means in free software
US$0, US$500 or US$3,400 a year for the same operating system. The ladder is public, and it shows you which line on your software invoice you are really arguing about.
- Economics
One man, twenty-one unpaid years, and the contract that fixed it
curl runs on your phone, in your car and on Mars. For about twenty-one years nobody paid the man who maintained it — and what changed that was a support contract, not a donation button.
- Licensing
The trigger is shipping, not using
The rule that decides whether your company ever owes anyone its source code — and the one licence that changes the answer.