Is there a Lemmy community for “someone should make this”? Similar to reddit’s r/SomebodyMakeThis.
And alternatively, this thread could serve as one: what are some software projects that I/others could take on? Ideally small enough in scope that I could make something partially usable in a weekend or two.
Previously I’ve just worked on whatever I found fun to program, but it would be nice to hear things that people actually want that don’t exist yet, and would be interested in trying it even when it is only partially finished. I’m not sure about others but I find my day job is often full of meetings or bureaucracy, and I don’t often get the satisfaction of seeing people happy with something that I built. (I wonder if this feeling is more common in other types of work)
It would help if you said what your interest and skills are. If I wanted a small GNU/Linux desktop or server thing I’d just write it myself. But I can suggest some Android apps since I’m not set up to write those at the moment.
There used to be a GNU project task list but it no longer has concrete suggestions, oh well.
Actually one desktop thing I’d like is a gnus.el back end for Lemmy (if you don’t know what gnus.el is, this project isn’t for you). I might pursue that someday but I’d rather that someone else do it so I can use it.
Another thing I could use: a Pandoc exporter for bbcode, for some other forums I visit. So I could easily convert Org or Markdown files to BB. Pandoc is written in Haskell so that could be an interesting language learning project too, if you don’t already use Haskell. There could be an Org exporter as well, or instead (written in Emacs Lisp).
Those are off the top of my head. Maybe I can think of a few other things too.
“Make this” evokes hardware projects for these. I have many ideas for those that I can’t really pursue myself, as I’m not a hardware guy and don’t have the resources for it.
Care to list a few? I’m not a “hardware guy” either, by training, but I happen to be fixating on microcontroller projects & KiCAD at the moment.
I’ll see if I can remember any interesting ones. One is a portable satellite messaging device using this:
https://blues.com/starnote/
Simplest case would be a small waterproof box with a battery and a board and MCU inside. UI would be a phone communicating by wifi. The box could run a web server so you would operate it with a phone browser and not have to install an app. Nicer version could have a minimal keyboard and display, like from a Lilygo Deck.
Note: this functionality already appears in a few high end phones (Iphone 15, Pixel 9) so it may make its way into more affordable phones after a while. Thus, the special hardware might stop being interesting. Meanwhile there are things like the Garmin Inreach which require over-expensive monthly subscriptions.
Another: a privacy oriented health monitor something like a fitbit (it wouldn’t have to be as small), that communicates with your computer or phone but doesn’t send anything to Google etc.
There were a few more. I may make another post later if any come to mind.