Open Source & Free Tools for Web Workers

Gitcoin is fundamentally an initiative dedicated to empowering communities to fund what matters to them. Operating since 2017, Gitcoin achieves this mission by innovating funding tools and solutions.

Key concepts and impacts of Gitcoin include:

Mission and Scope

• Gitcoin has had a significant impact, having distributed over $67 million, launched more than 270 rounds, and funded over 5,000 projects. These efforts have been supported by 3.8 million donated.

• The Gitcoin Grants initiative has established itself as a significant pillar of the Ethereum ecosystem.

Community and Reputation Building

• A crucial element of Gitcoin Grants, distinguishing it from other funding mechanisms, is the strong sense of community.

• The platform helps projects build their reputation and get rewarded for that by fostering building in public and building with the community.

• For many participants, the benefit of Gitcoin Grants lies not only in the financial rewards but also in reaching more values-aligned community members. For instance, one grantee noted that around 40% of their votes came from people they did not even know prior to the round.

Evolution and Strategy (Gitcoin 3.0)

• Gitcoin is currently undergoing a strategic shift described as “Gitcoin 3.0,” which places priority on networked coordination, plural funding, and community-informed domains.

• Recent rounds, such as GG24, are part of this shift, being the first rounds to utilize diversified funding strategies and move beyond Quadratic Funding (QF).

Resources and Tools

• Gitcoin provides resources to help ecosystems grow and design their own funding initiatives, including the Grants Canvas, which offers a step-by-step framework for designing grants programs, and the Grants Maturity Framework.

Openrouteservice (ORS), provides a variety of Geo-services via a single, free, and open source API designed for smart mobility. ORS consumes geographic data that is user-generated and collaboratively collected directly from OpenStreetMap (OSM).

The key functionalities and services of openrouteservice are organized into several core API services and specialized planning tools:

Core API Services

The API provides interactive documentation for a wide range of services:

• Directions: This service offers rich route instructions globally. It supports various profiles including cars, trucks, different bike profiles, walking, hiking, or wheelchair. Routes can be customized using options such as road restrictions and vehicle dimensions.

• Isochrones: Used for reachability analysis, this service helps determine which areas objects can reach within given times or distances. Users can request up to 500 Isochrones per day for free.

• Time-Distance Matrix: This feature calculates many-to-many distances and route times much faster than repeated consumption of the directions API. It is frequently utilized by logistics organizations seeking optimal delivery routes.

• Pelias Geocoding: Transforms location descriptions (e.g., place names, street addresses, postal codes) into a normalized location with point geometry. This service is built on top of the sophisticated Pelias Stack.

• POIs (Points of Interest): Known as Openpoiservice, it allows users to find categories of points of interest around or within given geographic coordinates. Searches can be executed along a point, path, or within a polygon.

• Elevation (Openelevationservice): Easily enriches 2D geometries with height information based on SRTM data, returning the 3D version within milliseconds.

• Optimization: Addresses complex planning problems like the Traveling Salesmen and other Vehicle Routing Problems. Based on the Vroom project, it provides optimal routes while considering specific vehicle and time constraints.

Planning Tools and Clients

openrouteservice provides several planning clients tailored for different user needs:

• Classic Maps Client: This route planning tool enables users to access most of the openrouteservice API functionalities. Users can choose from a variety of profiles, set up to 50 waypoints, and customize routes by avoiding specific areas, street types, or whole countries. It also allows querying POIs along routes and performing accessibility analyses.

• New Maps Client: Built using the VueJs framework, this client is responsive and optimized for both mobile and desktop browsers. It retains all functionalities of the previous client and aims to simplify route planning. The new approach also makes it possible to convert the client to a native mobile app.

• Disaster Maps Client: Developed specifically to support humanitarian actors and disaster responders. In disaster situations, the service is limited to active disaster regions, allowing the routing graph to be recalculated every hour based on current OSM data. This capability is part of the expanded Disaster Management functionalities offered by ORS.

Technical and Development Aspects

• Open Source and Data: The code for openrouteservice is entirely opensource and freely available on GitHub. It is humanitarian focused, constantly developing services to meet current needs in disaster prevention and relief.

• SDK Support: Using the API is simplified through available SDKs for Python, R, JavaScript, and QGIS.

• Export Endpoint: Users can export the routing graph for use in external analyses, such as calculating edge centrality.

• Version 8.0 Enhancements: Recent updates include a low RAM option, a new Docker Compose setup, overhauled configuration, improved logging, new backend documentation, and the ability to run the service as a JAR.

WatermelonDB is a reactive & asynchronous database designed for powerful React and React Native apps. It is optimized for building complex applications, with its primary goal being real-world performance.

Features:

Performance and Scalability

• Instant Launch: WatermelonDB is engineered to launch your app instantly regardless of the amount of data it holds.

• High Scalability: It is highly scalable, capable of handling systems ranging from hundreds up to tens of thousands of records.

• Fast Operations: The tool is designed to be fast, with ongoing performance improvements in every release.

Data Handling and Architecture

• Lazy Loading: WatermelonDB resolves performance bottlenecks (especially when scaling to thousands of records) by being lazy. Nothing is loaded until it’s requested.

• SQLite Foundation: It is built on a rock-solid SQLite foundation. All querying is performed directly on the SQLite database on a separate native thread, ensuring that most queries resolve instantly.

• Relational Structure: The database is Relational. Developers can define models (like Post and Comment) and relationships using decorators.

• Offline-First: It supports an Offline-first approach, with functionality to sync data with your custom backend.

Reactivity and Observability

• Fully Observable: Unlike using SQLite directly, WatermelonDB is fully observable.

• Automatic Re-rendering: It is Reactive (offering an optional RxJS API). When a record is changed, added, or removed (even in a different part of the application), all dependent UI components will automatically re-render.

• React Optimization: It is Optimized for React, allowing users to easily plug data into components.

Compatibility and Standards

• Multiplatform: WatermelonDB is Multiplatform, supporting iOS, Android, Windows, web, and Node.js.

• Framework-Agnostic: While optimized for React, it is Framework-agnostic, meaning its JavaScript API can be used to plug into other UI frameworks.

• Static Typing: It supports Static typing via Flow or TypeScript.

• Open Source: WatermelonDB is an open-source project that encourages contribution. It is available under the MIT license.

MJML (Mailjet Markup Language) is an open-source framework described as the only framework that makes responsive email easy. It was created to abstract the complexity of responsive HTML and automatically generate it, redefining the coding experience for email.

Here are the principal characteristics of the MJML tool:

1. Purpose and Rationale

MJML was created by a team of Mailjet developers in early 2015 to tackle the difficulty of coding responsive email. The creation was necessary because responsive email is hard, largely due to the fact that HTML for email is very different from standard web HTML. Each email client renders HTML in its own way, and some issues, like Gmail removing the entire header section where CSS might be placed, complicate design and guarantee.

The framework was designed because the Mailjet team recognized two major trends: a) email HTML is antiquated and not developer-friendly, and b) the growing number of screens (mobile, tablet, smartwatches, and potentially VR devices) on which email is viewed.

2. Core Functionality: Transpilation and Responsiveness

MJML is essentially an engine transpiling <mj-*>-style markup language into responsive email HTML with nested tables and inline CSS.

• Responsive by Default: MJML is responsive by design on most popular email clients, even Outlook. It ensures that the user's MJML will always be up-to-date and responsive. The engine reads the sections of the email and their intended appearance, then handles the rendering in a responsive way.

• Abstraction of Complexity: It rolls up the lessons learned by the Mailjet Developer team concerning HTML email design, abstracting the entire layer of complexity related to responsive email design. MJML handles the regular updates to email client specifications and requirements, allowing users to spend less time reading up on the latest changes.

3. Efficiency and Semantic Syntax

MJML allows users to write less code, save time, and code more efficiently.

• Semantic Syntax: It uses a semantic syntax that boosts speed and productivity. Users can build a responsive email using simple tags like <mj-section> and <mj-column>, avoiding endless HTML table nesting or email client-specific CSS.

4. Component-Based Structure

The framework utilizes a component-based structure, which allows users to write high-level code through reusable and extensible components.

• Focus on Content: By using MJML components, developers can focus on the content rather than the tricky part of styling.

• Component Examples: It includes low-level components, such as <mj-image>, and higher-level components, like <mj-article>. For example, including an article requires only specifying attributes like a link to an image, a title, a description, and a link to the article within the <mj-article> tag.

• Customization: Users can quickly integrate components natively included in MJML, and they can also build their own custom components.

5. Technology and Community

• Technology Stack: The MJML engine was built in React.js due to the platform's high composability and how it handles components, making it easy to extend and reuse high-level components.

• Open Source: MJML is an open-source framework that was shared with the community to make responsive email easier. The source code is available on Github, where the community is encouraged to contribute to the engine and its components.

• Support: MJML is proudly powered by Mailjet and is widely used and well-supported.

PDF.js is a project structured into distinct architectural layers designed to handle the interpretation, rendering, and display of PDF files.

Here are the principal functionalities and features of this tool:

1. PDF Interpretation and Rendering

PDF.js functions by separating core processing from user interaction through three distinct layers:

• Core Layer: This foundational layer is responsible for parsing and interpreting a binary PDF. It is the basis for all subsequent layers, although direct use of its API is considered advanced.

• Display Layer: This layer uses the Core layer to expose an easier-to-use API. Its main functions are to render PDFs and extract other information out of a document.

• Viewer Layer (User Interface): Built on the Display layer, the Viewer provides the UI for the PDF viewer utilized in Firefox and other browser extensions. This viewer component can serve as a good starting point for building your own viewer.

2. Customization and Development

The Viewer layer offers a ready-made UI, but creators are asked that if they plan to embed it in their own site, they should re-skin it or build upon it rather than using an unmodified version.

3. Accessibility and Distribution

PDF.js is designed for flexible distribution and deployment:

• Prebuilt and Source Versions: The tool is available in both Prebuilt (for modern and older browsers) and Source versions. The source code can be cloned using Git.

• CDN Inclusion: PDF.js is hosted on several free CDNs (including jsdelivr, cdnjs, and unpkg) for easy inclusion into web projects.

• Browser Support: Information about supported browsers is maintained on a dedicated wiki page.

• Testing and Examples: The source and prebuilt versions include a testing PDF file (compressed.tracemonkey-pldi-09.pdf) and various folders containing simple usage examples. The distribution also includes translation files in locale/ and l10n/.

Sublime Merge is a sophisticated, cross-platform Git client designed for speed and precision, aiming to handle Git operations "the Sublime Text way".

Here is a summary of its principal functionalities:

Performance and Speed

Sublime Merge sets the bar for performance due to a zippy cross-platform GUI toolkit and a custom high-performance Git reading library. The client is described as being "really, really fast", allowing users to stage Files, Hunks, and Lines with no waiting.

Staging and Committing

The tool offers precise and flexible staging. Key features include:

• Line-by-line Staging.

• Hunk staging.

• The ability to select one or more lines to split hunks into multiple changes.

• Commit Editing.

Reviewing and Diffs

Sublime Merge provides robust tools for code review:

• Side by Side Diffs.

• Character Diffs.

• Unmatched Syntax Highlighting powered by the Sublime Text engine. This helps users understand exactly what has changed in a commit. The tool supports over 40 languages out of the box.

• Users can interactively show more context lines by dragging the top or bottom of a hunk.

Search Capabilities

The client features a powerful search system that offers instant search over the whole repository. This includes find-as-you-type search. Searches can be executed by commit message, author, path, and contents.

Conflict Resolution and Git Integration

• A built-in merge tool allows for quick, painless resolution of merge conflicts.

• The platform is built around "Real Git", allowing users to view the exact Git commands they are using.

• It supports a seamless transition between the command line and Sublime Merge.

• Integration includes Git Flow Integration and Command Line Integration.

Additional Features

The tool also includes features such as:

• Command Palette

• Blame and File History

• Submodule Management

• An adaptable layout and powerful theming system.