Leo Gaggl

Making, thinking (and still some coding). Life long learner. Interested in distributed, local and small-scale regenerative food & tech, coops.
Working with long-range wireless sensor networks (LPWAN) and integrations thereof.

Last Notes

2026-09-21 06:07:32 UTC

The Lake Between Mountains
A tranquil lakeside scene at Afritzer See near Feld am See, with lush green hills and a clear blue sky. The calm water reflects the surrounding nature perfectly.
#lake #nature #serenity #mountains #water #CCBYNCSA4
https://social-coop-media.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/media_attachments/files/117/307/529/727/858/072/original/3b18482b889002e3.jpg

2026-09-09 07:48:56 UTC

In 2011 I wrote "Facebook - good riddance!" and never looked back. This post is the opposite: no relief.
What kept me on Flickr was never the company. It was an open licence and a shared habit of attribution. That practice deserves a home no company controls.
So I'm building FediFlick (AGPL): one composer, five destinations, Flickr among them. A second home for that practice, not a replacement.
Not a good riddance post. A thank you.
https://gaggl.com/blogs/2026-09-09-not-a-good-riddance/
#Flickr #Fediverse #OpenEducation #CreativeCommons #DigitalSovereignty #OpenSource

2026-09-01 03:48:14 UTC

Reticulum was never meant to be a Python project. One implementation of a protocol spec is a single point of failure with good branding.
Four independent Rust stacks exist: Leviculum, Ratspeak, Beechat, FreeTAKTeam.
Why it matters: a native Rust core needs 2 to 5 MB RAM, not 35 to 60 MB for embedded CPython, and survives the Android culling that kills Python daemons.
The real risk isn't Rust. It's fragmentation with no shared conformance suite.
https://gaggl.com/blogs/2026-09-01-one-protocol-many-engines/
#Reticulum #Rust #LoRa #MeshNetworking #DecentralisedNetworks #OpenSource

2026-07-15 03:25:33 UTC

In 1976, Bill Gates called hobbyists thieves for sharing software they'd written for each other. A property claim, not a philosophy. It's happening again, bigger.
The digital commons wasn't destroyed; it was absorbed: a free fix for cut services, industry-funded R&D, cloud enclosure that stops copyleft triggering.
AI goes further: it trains on the commons, floods it with slop, and isolates contributors chat by chat.
https://gaggl.com/blogs/2026-07-14-what-the-commons-built/
#DigitalCommons #OpenSource #AI

2026-06-30 08:21:56 UTC

You paid $250 for a thermostat. Three years later, the company was acquired. The device still worked. The servers it depended on didn't.
This is not bad luck. This is the business model. And it's the same model being applied to agricultural technology, farm management software, and precision irrigation platforms.
https://sein.com.au/articles/your_smart_home_is_a_rental/
#Selfhosted #HomeAssistant #LocalFirst #Privacy #OpenSource #SmartHome #IndieWeb

2026-05-29 05:19:41 UTC

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@nprofile…2ugj Yes. I ended up there too: https://gaggl.com/blogs/2026-02-25-lpwan-meshes-reticulum-deep-dive/
Also looking into Reticulum/Meshcore bridges and backhaul.

2026-05-23 08:28:50 UTC

After years of hands-on testing — from early Meshtastic nodes to running Reticulum across remote South Australian properties — I've learned that choosing off-grid mesh networking technology isn't purely technical. It's philosophical. LPWAN series: a detailed, honest comparison of Meshtastic, MeshCore, Reticulum, and ClusterDuck Protocol, born from failed experiments and the occasional moment of genuine excitement when a packet hops across several kilometres of Australian bush.
https://gaggl.com/blogs/2026-02-04-lpwan-meshes-choosing-the-right-technology/
#LPWAN #LoRa #Meshtastic #Reticulum #IoT #MeshNetworks

2025-04-20 00:10:34 UTC

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@nprofile…zwgs You're 💯 right on that. I am still salty with Nokia for the capitulation and sellout. Both Maemo and Symbian were far superior (other than some UI shortcomings) to all the other stuff out there.

2025-02-14 06:48:29 UTC

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@nprofile…erxa back-end in python? beautiful. how about ingesting data points from environmental sensors? 😀

2025-02-13 06:28:21 UTC

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@nprofile…erxa Wow. That's great. Thanks for sharing. Could have been great for some past projects with our little not-for-profit: https://gdf.org.au/mount-burr-wetland-restoration/14/06/2021/
Will certainly check this out.