FYI today's talk was moved 10 minutes earlier to 17:10 CET

🚄 The Bonfire team is rolling into Brussels for FOSDEM 2026!

Come find us at one of Europe’s biggest free software gatherings, with over 8,000 people, dozens of devrooms, and all things open source. We’re giving two talks this weekend (and both will be livestreamed at the links below, so you can join from anywhere, with recordings up afterward):

Building Modular, Consentful, and Federated Social Networks
🎥 Social Web devroom
🗓️ Saturday, Jan 31st, 17:20–17:40 CET
🌐 Local time where you are

Modular Communication Tools on the Open Social Web
🎥 Decentralised Communication devroom
🗓️ Sunday, Feb 1st, 14:45–15:15 CET
🌐 Local time where you are

We’ll be sharing more about the why and how of Bonfire and our ecosystem, hands-on demos, announcing new alliances, and real stories from communities using Bonfire today.

We can’t wait to connect with the open source and fediverse crowd, swap ideas, and meet anyone passionate about building healthier, more flexible, and consentful digital spaces. Whether you’re a developer, community organiser, or just fediverse-curious, come say hi!

Hi everyone! We’re excited to share some updates:

Bonfire 1.0.1 is out! 🎉
This release is all about making your social web experience livelier, more connected, and truly yours. It brings features like following hashtags, scheduled posts, dashboard widgets, and more. This is the very first delivery from the maintenance work funded by your incredible support. Thank you for helping us reach this milestone and keep Bonfire thriving!

For details about the release see our latest blog post: Bonfire 1.0.1: Building Momentum

What’s next for crowdfunding?

If you're an existing backer, the pledge manager is now open. Please keep an eye out for updates there so we can start preparing rewards for you.

The campaign is open again for the next month. With core maintenance funded, every new pledge (or increased pledge from existing backers) now goes directly toward our first stretch goal: federated groups. Support or share our extended campaign to help fund community-owned, cross-instance spaces for real collaboration and self-governance.

Bonus good news: Thanks to a new grant, end-to-end encrypted messaging in Bonfire is now funded and in development!

Thank you once again for being part of the Bonfire movement! Your feedback, support, and community spirit make all of this possible. If you have questions or want to get involved, reach out or come say hello at FOSDEM if you’re in Brussels at the end of January!

With gratitude,
The Bonfire Team

Happy holidays, fediverse!

I got you a megathrust earthquake, soil liquefaction, spine-tingling papers about the way our networks confound knowledge, and a PDF in a pear tree. It's my wrap on a year of trying to make sense of how we make sense of what's happening to us.

https://www.wrecka.ge/landslide-a-ghost-story/

@ntnsndr @neilk @yunohost ps yunohost is currently outdated and needs some work- we reccomend using @coopcloud abra for setting up bonfire instances as of now :)

@michael @neilk @ntnsndr @yunohost great use case.
We also discussed how to implement caregiver control in bonfire with @box464 , here some details https://github.com/bonfire-networks/bonfire-app/issues/1490
Def open to chat :)

You can join the localisation efforts here: https://explore.transifex.com/bonfire/bonfire/

Thank you!

@LaBuS @jeppe

@Daojoan great piece! for what it’s worth I do think original, challenging thought is still happening but the exchange mechanisms like social media that we have built don’t work well - being told your wrong and being able to accept it, at least in principle, is an essential requirement for discourse that is challenging and could lead to better understanding… until we manage to create social media environments where being criticised or corrected feels like an opportunity, not a slap in the face we won’t, I think, be able to do better

@alisynthesis The initial idea is that all fediverse apps (clients and servers) should implement the standard for maximum interoperability. But it's definitely worth thinking about what we could do to make that possible in any case!

Soooo... #JustBetweenUs There's already some big stuff in the works for 2026:

The Social Web Foundation (@swf) has kicked off a project to bring real end-to-end encryption to the Fediverse. It's a big undertaking, with real financial backing from the @sovtechfund

Check out the announcement: https://socialwebfoundation.org/2025/12/19/implementing-encrypted-messaging-over-activitypub/

And, I'm very excited that #Emissary is one of the projects selected to participate in the work alongside the @bonfire team.

1/

We hope this will enable the fediverse to become a safer space for activists and communities to organise, coordinate, and collaborate meaningfully. By making secure, user-friendly messaging a core part of the fediverse, we can help lay the groundwork for decentralised networks where people can go beyond talking in the mythical ‘global town square’ and actually organise and accomplish things together.

RE: https://socialwebfoundation.org/2025/12/19/implementing-encrypted-messaging-over-activitypub/

Big news for the #Fediverse! End-to-end encryption is coming to #ActivityPub.

@swf with support from @sovtechfund is coordinating two interoperable implementations.

Bonfire is proud to be one of these first two projects, alongside #Emissary by @benpate

We think #E2EE should simply be the default for any private communications, and we’re especially thrilled to bring private, trusted collaboration to the fediverse.

#JustBetweenUs #Privacy #Encryption #SocialWeb

Implementing Encrypted Messaging over ActivityPub

https://socialwebfoundation.org/2025/12/19/implementing-encrypted-messaging-over-activitypub/

@newsmast
We have enjoyed every conversations with @FreddieJ and looking forward for having more to shape the future of federated digital spaces together 💜

Really cool that @bonfire get a shoutout in this as a future platform for community building in fandoms too!

RE: https://indieweb.social/@bonfire/115718731985031138

Final 10 minutes!

RE: https://indieweb.social/@bonfire/115718731985031138

As the Bonfire crowdfund draws to a close, the Scottish proverb "mony a mickle maks a muckle" seems especially appropriate.

Here's to building together, nurturing community and growing the commons!

@hrast yeah our work so far was supported by grants from NLnet and European Cultural Foundation

@hrast we've reached 100% for the primary goal (for maintenance) and now raising for the first stretch goal (for groups)

@ravelin Appreciate it! ❤️