FOSS Academic Workflow, 2025 Edition

15 Mar 2025

It’s been a while since I blogged about how I do all my academic work using free and open source software – otherwise known as the “FOSS Academic Lifestyle Dream.” In fact, the last time I wrote about this was 2020!

I am now wrapping up my latest book, Move Slowly and Build Bridges, which is a critical study of Mastodon and the fediverse. That book is the culmination of years of academic research. In this post, I will focus on how I wrote that book.

Linux

I have not done anything productive with a Windows or Mac machine for… a very long time. Since 2013, probably? Anyway, I use Linux. These days I’m using Fedora with KDE Plasma, but by the time you read this I could be using something else. In any case, it’s the OS for the FALD.

Zotero

No surprises here. For me, since about 2008, it’s always begun with Zotero. So much of my work requires documenting websites, blog posts, journal articles, and other digital artifacts, and Zotero makes that easy. It integrates with my web browser, LibreWolf – which makes sense, because LibreWolf is based on Firefox.

Zotero also is essential for adding citations to documents. In terms of my latest book, it has made life very easy. Usually, copyeding book manuscripts involves hours of editing citations – adding missing page ranges, missing cities (for books), that sort of thing. Not this time. I think Zotero has improved in how it grabs metadata from the web. My copyeditor had very few author queries for citations in Move Slowly.

Zettlr

For many years, Zotero was the only Z-software for me. (Zoom definitely does not count). But over the course of writing my latest book, Zettlr elbowed its way into the workflow.

Previously, I would use Zotero to take notes on artifacts. I still do. But note-taking in Zotero isn’t very synthetic – it focuses on single artifacts. That’s great for taking detailed notes on a book or article, but not so good for working out thoughts based on several artifacts.

Zettlr fills that role very well. It’s Markdown-based, so I can just fire it up and start writing down thoughts. It supports #hashtags, so I replicate the tagging I do in Zotero to start linking ideas together.

LibreOffice Writer

However, while Zettlr promises that you can go from notes to publishable documents, I’m not quite there with it yet. For writing up polished documents, I turn to LibreOffice Writer. It integrates extremely well with Zotero, so I use it to compose the drafts and final drafts of books and journal articles.

Nextcloud

Nextcloud is the Swiss Army knife of the FALD. I run my own Nextcloud server, and there’s so much I can do with it:

• Nextcloud Talk: This video chat system was central to my interview-based research process. Since I was interviewing people who build, run, and participate in federated social media, I did not want to use Zoom or Teams – we’ve already seen those systems invade people’s privacy and turn everything into AI. Nextcloud Talk is under my control and so I can ensure my interviewees that our conversations are private.
• Nextcloud Appointments: I’ve already written about how great this system is. For scheduling interviews, I can just share a link to my Appointments page, they can pick a time that works for them (and doesn’t conflict with my Nextcloud calendar), and they automatically get a Nextcloud Talk link via email. It’s brilliant.
• Sharing: Nextcloud makes sharing files – like informed consent documents or drafts – super easy. It also helps with collaborating with other authors.
• Sync: Obviously, this is central. My files are ready to go on any of my computers, whether at home or at the office. In addition, if I’m away from either but able to get online, I can login to Nextcloud and edit Markdown files if I need to take notes.

MARP

Very often I need to present my work to audiences. For years I’d use LibreOffice Impress or – ugh! – Google Docs to make slides. Not now. Now I use MARP, which generates slides from Markdown files. I’ve written scripts that automate turning files I edit in Zettlr into slides and notes, and these can be easily shared online – with accessibility features like alt text!

Tuba

These days, you gotta promote your work. I’m on the fediverse, of course, and I traditionally have posted using Mastodon’s web interface. Lately, however, I’ve been using a desktop client called Tuba to post. It’s great – I can set it to “slow mode” where posts come in only when I refresh the interface, and it’s easy to switch between multiple accounts.

Jekyll over Git

Finally, you’re reading this on a static Jekyll blog pushed to the web via Git. While I’ve had some issues with Jekyll, when it’s working, it’s very easy: just type out a Markdown file, push it via Git, and it’s online.

Back It Up

As the wisdom goes, if your files are in less than three different places, they’re nowhere. I use Syncthing to sync files across my network (which itself runs over a Wireguard VPN). I also pay for a Borg Base account, using Vorta to encrypt and back up my files.

FOSS Academic Lifestyle Dream Still In Effect

It’s 2025. A lot of stuff is going wrong. But while tech oligarchs seek to run our lives, there are paths of escape. You don’t have to replicate my entire workflow. But if you want to explore escape routes from Microsoft, X, Apple, or Google, try one of the above. Try out Zotero, or maybe take a chance on running a Nextcloud server. Maybe try using LibreOffice instead of Google Docs or Microsoft Office.

Take a step in the direction of the FOSS Academic Lifestyle Dream. It won’t fix the world, but it’s a start.

Post Tags

• Goal 1
• fald
• workflow