Right. VBA or this may not be the best tools for the job but when IT restricts what can be used then VBA or excel python could be great examples of Shadow IT.

Python 3.13 is adding support for removing GIL, via PEP 703

The article mentions that the letter indicated intent to petition with the USPTO to cancel the Javascript trademark due to abandonment. Hopefully that is successful since that seems to be the best outcome short of Oracle willingly forfeiting it.

I really like that it is a static website being updated and built on a schedule from github actions.

I use my IDE for basic things, but anything more involved i use git directly. It's really not as intimidating as it's made out to be. I'm no expert by any means but i know enough to get around and read the docs when i need help

Open source is generally understood as libre, and an OSI approved license.

I think you're thinking of source-available.

Additional reading: https://news.itsfoss.com/open-source-source-available/

Anyway, thanks for the list!

Umami has a free tier of their cloud hosting.

It would be much more customer and developer friendly to allow linking a service portal instead of providing a phone number. I would go insane if a user called me directly every time one of my projects had a bug or some perceived (non)issue. No, that's not how this works.

It's once per year, easily dismissed, and can be permanently disabled. Seems entirely reasonable for a piece of free software that someone would use everyday

Yes, oracle will reclaim your server if it falls under certain thresholds for the resources you've signed up for. So it might be better to request less resources then you need but this will somewhat complicate things if you want more resources in the future since iirc you can't simply resize.

One way to get around all of this though is convert to pay as you go (PAYG). PAYG gets the same always free allocations and you only pay for use above that, and oracle won't reclaim PAYG (at least not my server for ~4 years). Just set up a budget of a $1 and then alerts to email you if you reach 1% of your budget. If you somehow go over your free resources it'll tell you.

Lastly in some cases oracle just straight up loses your data or disables your account. As always practice 3-2-1 backups (don't rely on the free rotating backups on their servers as your only backup).

It's some hoops to jump through but i was paying $5/ month for a digital ocean droplet and the oracle server has been running for 4 years now, and i also have scaled up one project and started a few others that wouldn't have all fit on my droplet. Other than the threat of reclaiming my resources before i switched to PAYG I've been pretty happy with it.

Ive been meaning to move to codeberg, self hosted forgejo, or sourcehut so this will only accelerate that if things get worse.

tldr - lesson learned. buy a new domain and move over to it.

but for those who want to learn something new - you are only renting your domains. If you fail to pay by the registration date then you generally get a grace period to pay more money to renew it. If you fail to pay before that period expires then the domain will be released. Some companies like godaddy will automatically buy the domain for another year (or more). But even if Godaddy doesn't then it still goes up on a list of expiring domains and there are backorder services that will try to buy the domain or auction them off.

So in the end it doesn't really matter what registrar you use. If you do not pay, it goes back to a list where people can see it is expiring and then you'll get some people who either want to legitimately use that domain or more likely they are wanting to try to sell it to you or someone else for more than they buy it for.

And I saw someone mention file a complaint. I'm sorry to say that if you did not have money to renew the domain then you aren't going to be able to do that either. This is called Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) and the fee is between $1500-4000 for 1 to 5 domains.. Additionally, just because you file a complaint does not mean the issue will be resolved favorably or timely. These complaints can last years, and there is no guarantee you will get the domain back.

This is why you should always pay your domain rental fee. And if you don't, then you need to either be willing to pay a ton of money to get it back or you will need to move on. Sorry its a tough lesson to learn but if you're just a student then you probably weren't using this to run a business or anything so in the end you are quite fortunate.