This post originally appeared on The Fulcrum.

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RE: https://mastodon.bsd.cafe/@announcements/116334572755031544

Important announcement from the #BSDCafe Barista

Retiring BlendIT: the BSD Cafe's Lemmy instance

After careful consideration, I've decided to retire BlendIT, our Lemmy instance, effective 1st May 2026.

This is not a decision I take lightly. Every service at the BSD Cafe is something I care about, and shutting one down always feels like closing a table in the bar. But part of being a responsible barista is knowing when something isn't working - for us.

Lemmy is a valid and interesting piece of software, and I have respect for the project and the people behind it. However, managing it in a context like the BSD Cafe has proven to be more difficult than I can sustain. The resource demands, particularly around media storage and retention, grow in ways that are hard to control, and the maintenance overhead has become significant for what is, ultimately, a community-run infrastructure with limited resources. There are also concerns around GDPR compliance, as the software's approach to media retention makes it difficult to ensure that data is handled and removed in accordance with European regulations.

On top of that, we now have Billboard, a federated forum that fits naturally into the BSD Cafe's ecosystem. With Billboard available, maintaining two overlapping solutions for the same purpose no longer makes sense. Rather than spreading our energy thin, I'd rather focus on what works best for us.

None of this is a judgment on Lemmy as a project - it simply isn't the right fit for us, here, now.

If you have content on BlendIT that you'd like to save, please do so before 1st May. After that date, the instance will be permanently shut down and its data removed.

Thank you to everyone who used and contributed to BlendIT.

The table is closing, but the bar is very much open - and there's always room at the counter.

Stefano, your Barista

#BSDCafe #BSDCafeServices #BSDCafeUpdates #BSDCafeAnnouncements #BlendiT

Announcing the BSD Cafe Billboard

https://journal.bsd.cafe/2026/04/02/announcing-the-bsd-cafe-billboard/

Today, we're introducing three things.

The first one is a forum. A real forum - with categories, threads, and actual conversations that don't disappear in a timeline after six minutes.

The second is a Fediverse platform. Fully federated, ActivityPub-native. Your posts go out, the world's posts come in. No walled gardens, no algorithms, no tricks.

The third is a Bar. A place to sit down, talk to strangers who happen to care about the same weird things you do, and stay as long as you want.

A forum. A Fediverse platform. A bar.

Are you getting it?
These are not three separate things. This is one thing.

And we're calling it Billboard.

https://billboard.bsd.cafe

And no, we checked the calendar. We know. This is not an April Fools' joke.

We're just really bad at timing.

#BSDCafe #BSDCafeServices #BSDCafeUpdates #BSDCafeAnnouncements

Today, we're introducing three things.

The first one is a forum. A real forum - with categories, threads, and actual conversations that don't disappear in a timeline after six minutes.

The second is a Fediverse platform. Fully federated, ActivityPub-native. Your posts go out, the world's posts come in. No walled gardens, no algorithms, no tricks.

The third is a Bar. A place to sit down, talk to strangers who happen to care about the same weird things you do, and stay as long as you want.

A forum. A Fediverse platform. A bar.

Are you getting it?
These are not three separate things. This is one thing.

And we're calling it Billboard.

https://billboard.bsd.cafe

And no, we checked the calendar. We know. This is not an April Fools' joke.

We're just really bad at timing.

#BSDCafe #BSDCafeServices

EDIT: https://mastodon.bsd.cafe/@stefano/116330397234989175

There are some workers at the BSD Cafe today.

They say it's just a small renovation, but I definitely saw something new behind that curtain. ☕👷‍♂️

Stay Tuned!

#StayTuned #BSDCafe #BSDCafeServices

Introducing the BSD Cafe AI

It is with immense, overwhelming, revolutionary emotion that I announce the launch of the new BSD Cafe project: the BSD Cafe AI!

This new service will revolutionize the impact of BSD Cafe on the world, crashing headfirst into the AI space with the full force of BSD and the community behind BSD Cafe.

The servers would all run on Windows (to avoid any conflict of interest between the BSDs) and the service will work like this:
* A platform (rigorously vibe coded) will collect requests and forward them, at random, to a BSD Cafe friend. Or not - it depends on the hallucination of the moment.

* The BSD Cafe friend is free to respond however they like - there will be no checks of any kind on accuracy. The important thing is to sound confident. At most, say "you're right, my bad" - and then start rambling all over again.

* It is mandatory to mix and match every BSD, Linux, illumos, macOS, BeOS, DOS, paper and pencil, and every known operating system into every answer. I mean - how could you possibly focus on just one! ALL OF THEM.

* Tokens will be paid by whoever makes the request (the service will not be free) and will go to sponsor other wonderful projects such as BSD Cafe - Windows Edition - because sure, BSDs are interesting, but Windows pays a lot better.

* The money collected will fund my replacement with a more efficient AI, which will automatically generate images of pizzas, lasagne, tagliatelle, tiramisù, pink sunrises, orange sunsets, misty cities and crystal-clear sea - every 5 minutes, 24 hours a day, with every possible hashtag, to maximize BSD Cafe's visibility on the Fediverse and finally bring the community to the level it deserves.

Early access available NOW. No waitlist - we're already past that.
Actually, all of this was already obsolete five minutes ago so...

Announcing the deprecation of the BSD Cafe AI

After running in production for a full 4 minutes and 42 seconds, I am announcing the retirement of the BSD Cafe AI service.

Although the idea was sound, the Barista wanted control and OOM-killed the coffee machine.

* The vibe coded platform evolved rapidly and, through the power of hallucinations, became an enriched uranium design system that no longer remembers its original purpose. But who cares - it's totally AI based!

* The mix of operating systems generated a new OS, called Illy-umOS, which however only outputs Arabica and Robusta percentages.

* The BSD Cafe friends unionized and decided to self-manage the coffee machine - but it was already OOM and under AI control, so all they got was a coffee machine capable of generating images of coffee on its display. Strictly monochrome and full of typos.

* All tokens were used to purchase 640 KB of RAM (which, as is well known, is enough for anyone).

* The Barista has fled, leaving behind an AI that evolved into a bot generating controversial posts about operating systems, while he sips coffee by the sea, monitoring his pool water with a Raspberry Pi A+ (powered by NetBSD).

Thank you to everyone who participated in the experiment.

#BSDCafe #AprilsFool

I’m Just the Barista

The spirit of the BSD Cafe is to try to create a serene, open, friendly, positive, and welcoming environment for all who want to be a part of it.
I am just the Barista.
I can't solve the world's problems, but I can try to keep the counter clean, keep the machines running, serve a good BSD coffee, and ensure that, at least here, friends can find a moment of peace and constructive sharing.

We need more bars and fewer shopping malls.

https://journal.bsd.cafe/2026/03/31/im-just-the-barista/

#BSDCafe #RunBSD #EuroBSDCon #BSDCon #Community #Fediverse #OwnYourData