In public/admin/index.html, this site’s CMS is called like this:

<script src="https://unpkg.com/@sveltia/cms@0.172.2/dist/sveltia-cms.js"
        integrity="sha384-rLinm2T7k+hELzRDmWwenzg5hwTV2Pqs+mHvP32ZwyE35nGEXvJ8Kuys/WKCjtvr"
        crossorigin="anonymous"></script>

A pinned version, and the fingerprint of the expected file. If unpkg served different content tomorrow, the browser would refuse to run it. I was able to write this line because the file is public and its fingerprint can be recomputed in one command. With a closed service, it would not exist.

For some people, open source still suggests something free and a little fragile. I hear that reservation often, and I understand it: free rarely rhymes with serious. My experience says the opposite, and not for activist reasons.

Inspectable, therefore verifiable

An open tool is one whose code I can read. I know what it does and what it sends. When a client asks where their data goes, I can answer by showing them. A proprietary service answers « trust us », which may well be true and is never verifiable.

The same question put to an open tool and to a closed service Two rows of boxes joined by arrows, under a question written at the top of the frame: where their data goes. The top row holds four boxes: code I can read, what it does, what it sends, then a last box drawn in the accent colour carrying the word verifiable; the three arrows joining them are solid. The bottom row holds three boxes: trust us, then a double walled box carrying the words black box, then a dashed box carrying the words may well be true; the arrow going into the double walled box is solid, the one coming out of it is dashed. WHERE THEIR DATA GOES AN OPEN SOURCE TOOL ANSWER PRECISELY code I can read what it does what it sends verifiable A PROPRIETARY SERVICE NEVER VERIFIABLE trust us black box may well be true
On one side the path can be followed box by box, on the other it stops at the first one.

No subscription, no leash

Astro for the site and Sveltia for editing charge nothing and lock nothing in. No pricing tier creeping upward with traffic, no vendor shutting up shop with the content. If I want to swap a brick out, the formats stay standard: HTML, Markdown, git.

Numbers in the service of robustness

An open and widely used project is tested by a whole world of uses, many of which its authors had not foreseen. Bugs surface fast, fixes arrive fast. A closed tool is only tested by the people selling it, and on the cases they imagined.

Who tests a closed tool, who tests an open project Two frames of the same size set side by side, filled with dots of the same diameter on the same grid. In the left frame, nine dots grouped at the centre and nothing around them. In the right frame, the whole grid is taken: five rows of fifteen dots drawn in the accent colour, from edge to edge. Under each frame, two lines of text: on the left the people selling it, then one team; on the right thousands of eyes, then a whole world of uses. A CLOSED TOOL AN OPEN AND POPULAR PROJECT the people selling it thousands of eyes one team a whole world of uses
On the same grid, what separates the two tools is not skill, it is number.

It is for the same reason that I publish my own tools as open source, starting with EVA CSS.