Our Relationship with Open Source

At Vibratom Studios, we build tools to empower creators, developers, and thinkers. But we don't do it alone. Our entire ecosystem is built on the shoulders of giants: the global open-source software (OSS) community.

From the operating system that runs our servers to the libraries that power our most innovative features, open-source is the invisible backbone of everything we do. This post is our opportunity to say thank you and to shed some light on our relationship with this incredible community.

What is Open Source?

Open-source software is software with source code that anyone can inspect, modify, and enhance. It’s developed in a collaborative, public manner. Think of it as a community garden, where anyone can plant a seed, water the plants, or harvest the produce, and everyone benefits from the collective effort.

This is in contrast to proprietary (or "closed-source") software, where the source code is a closely guarded secret.

How Vibratom Studios Uses Open Source

Our applications are a mosaic of powerful open-source technologies. Here are just a few examples:

• Linux, Docker, and Kubernetes: The entire infrastructure that serves our websites to you runs on a powerful combination of open-source projects. These technologies allow us to build, deploy, and scale our services efficiently and reliably.
• React and Next.js: The beautiful, fast user interfaces you experience are built using React, a library for building user interfaces created by Facebook and open-sourced in 2013. We use it with Next.js, an open-source framework that provides a robust structure for our applications.
• FFmpeg (in Uniform): Our file converter, Uniform, uses the incredible power of FFmpeg, compiled to WebAssembly. FFmpeg is a legendary open-source project that can decode, encode, and transcode almost any media format imaginable. It's the "secret sauce" that gives Uniform its universal capabilities.
• Lucide Icons: The clean, modern icons you see across our suite come from Lucide, an open-source icon toolkit that is free, community-run, and focused on simplicity and consistency.

Using these open-source projects allows our small, focused team to stand on the shoulders of giants. We can focus on our unique vision—creating a unified, user-friendly ecosystem—without having to reinvent the wheel for every single component.

Our Philosophy: Giving Back

Our relationship with open source isn't a one-way street. We believe that if you benefit from the community garden, you should also help tend to it. We contribute back in several ways:

1. Bug Reports and Feedback: When we encounter bugs or have ideas for improvements in the libraries we use, we actively file issues and provide detailed feedback to the maintainers. This helps make the tools better for everyone.
2. Financial Contributions: We allocate a portion of our revenue to financially support the open-source projects and developers that are critical to our success. It's our way of ensuring these projects remain healthy and sustainable.
3. Building Free Tools: Our primary contribution is our work itself. By providing our entire suite of applications for free, we are giving back to the broader community of creators and learners. We're using open-source to create more free value in the world, in the same spirit that OSS was founded on.

The open-source ethos—collaboration, transparency, and the free exchange of ideas—is woven into the DNA of Vibratom Studios. We are deeply grateful to the thousands of developers around the world who have dedicated their time and expertise to building the tools that make our work possible. Thank you.