Today's Deep-Dive: LAUTI

If you ever found yourself just like drowning in information picture this you're

trying to find out

what cool stuff is happening right in your own town right yeah but you end up wading

through

i don't know ancient facebook groups local newspaper sites that haven't been

updated maybe

loads of random websites it's just it's overwhelming yeah so how do we cut through

all that noise how

do we actually stay connected with what's happening in our communities without you

know getting totally

swamped welcome to the deep dive were your shortcut to being well informed each

time we grab a whole

bunch of sources could be articles research just our own notes we boil it all down

to the really

important bits for you hopefully with a bit of fun and some surprising stuff mixed

in now before we

get into today's topic which i think is really interesting just a quick word from

our supporter

this deep dive is brought to you by safeserver.de safe server handles the hosting

for software like

the kind we're about to talk about and they support you in your digital

transformation

you can find out more at www.safeserver.de okay so let's unpack this our mission

today we want to

introduce you to a really exciting open source project it's called lauti it's

basically community

calendar software and we're going to break it down so it's super easy to get even

if terms like

open source or self-hosting are totally new to you think of it as um giving your

local community

a digital megaphone yeah and what's really fascinating about lauti is how it hits

that

information overload problem right on the head but it does it from a completely

grassroots community

first angle it's all about empowering local groups letting them share their own

events their own

stories instead of you know relying on these big maybe commercial platforms that

might not even

have the community's best interests at heart it flips the control back that's a

really powerful

idea to start with so okay let's get straight to it what exactly is lauti right i

see it described

as an open source community calendar for events groups and places and i'm really

struck by that

phrase non-commercial independent organizing platform why is that part so important

especially

when you compare to say using facebook events or something similar well it's

crucial because

those commercial platforms they often have other motives right like data collection

advertising

algorithms deciding what you see based on their profit lauti is built just to serve

the community

that's its only goal and the core idea it's actually much deeper than just being a

digital

calendar it's really a tool for communities could be a whole city or region even

just a specific

interest group to well make noise and be lauti the name lauti it comes from the

german word

loudspeaker oh loudspeaker exactly loudspeaker it's a term you hear a lot in

activist circles

especially for things like demonstrations where they use loudspeakers to amplify

speeches so the

name itself really hammers home the purpose amplify the community's voice it's

about collective

sharing not making money i love that that origin story really captures the spirit a

community

megaphone so what kinds of things actually end up on a lauti calendar is it super

broad or is it

better for certain types of events oh it's incredibly broad that's the beauty of it

you

can use it for pretty much anything a community might want to list political events

cultural stuff

demonstrations workshops local activism or even just you know regular meetups for

special interest

groups like a book club finding a place or a hiking group posting its next route it's

designed to be

really flexible to fit whatever a community needs to share that flexibility sounds

like a huge plus

for local organizers now with any platform the big question is always content who

actually gets to

add events how does say a local non-profit or even just one person get their event

onto la uti yeah

and that's where the whole community collaboration piece really comes in it's built

for registered

organizations or individuals and to make it easy to bring people on board admins

can just generate

invitation links simple as that so it's not just information flowing down from one

source la uti

actually supports different user roles you've got admins moderators and

contributors this means it's

genuinely built for teamwork it allows communities to kind of organize themselves

and let members add

events groups places it really helps build those direct connections and share

information collectively

within an area you know without a single gatekeeper that collaborative structure is

key isn't it

sounds like it's meant to be owned by the community using it so once the events are

in there

what can people actually do with it what are the key features that make it useful

day-to-day

well the basics are clear public lists you can see events you can see groups you

can see places

but when you look closer the event details are actually pretty sophisticated events

can be short

just a few hours or they can spend multiple days they can repeat daily weekly

whatever period you

need you can even have sub events under a main event and what's really neat is how

everything

connects events link to the organizing group and they link to a physical place each

with its own

profile so you don't just see what's on you see who's behind it and where it is all

tied together

gives you a much richer picture okay so the info is in there it's detailed but how

does lauti stop

that information from just being stuck inside its own little bubble or it's

something about open

standard feeds iqio you pull rss what's the power in using those how does that help

get the word out

that's a great question how do you make this info widely available without just

creating another

silo right well the use of open standards like iCal and rss is honestly massive iCal

for instance

that's the format pretty much any calendar app understands google calendar apple

calendar outlook

you name it and rss is just a simple way for websites to push out updates that

people can

subscribe to so with lauti users can choose different scopes for their feeds

meaning you

could subscribe to say just events from one specific group or maybe events

happening in

a certain part of town or the whole calendar and pull that feed right into your

personal calendar

or your news reader app ah so it integrates directly into tools people already use

exactly

it makes the information super accessible and portable and beyond those feeds laupi

also offers

an open rest api think of an api as like um a set of instructions that lets

different software

programs talk to each other this means developers can build new things using lauti

data they can

integrate it into other websites build specialized apps plus they're actually

working on a wordpress

plugin and they plan to have an embeddable javascript module which basically means

website

owners could easily show lauti events right on their own site without needing to be

coding

wizards that's brilliant for getting the information out there now thinking about

communities wanting

to adopt this how customizable is it can a town or a group really make it look and

feel like their

own or is it more of a standard look oh it's designed to be fully customizable in

its look

and feel using themes which is you know absolutely vital if a local community wants

to keep its own

identity its own branding admins can build their own front ends basically the

public facing part

people see they use pretty standard web tech for this go templates which are like

page blueprints

markdown for writing content easily and then css and javascript for all the styling

and interactivity

so they get really fine-grained control over how it looks and works and what's

really clever is

these themes you can deploy them directly or you can even tweak them right inside

the admin dashboard

so each community can really tailor it to fit their specific vibe or needs and

language is

important to you right it already supports multiple languages english and german

are there right now

when you set up an instance and the really good news is that user selectable

languages are planned

for the next big release that'll make it way more accessible globally plus

communities can actually

help translate it into more languages themselves using codeberg's weblate tool it's

an online

platform that makes group translation projects much easier okay this is where

things get really

interesting for me l-e-u-t-i is free and open source software f-o-s-s it's under

the agpl license

version 3.0 for someone maybe hearing these terms for the first time what does

being fos actually

mean in practice why is that such a big deal for a community tool like this right f-o-s-s

basically

means transparency and freedom think of it like a public recipe you can see every

ingredient you

know exactly how it's made you're free to use the recipe bake the cake tweak the

recipe share your

improved version you're not locked into one baker shop with f-o-s-s the source code

the underlying

instructions is open for anyone to look at use change and share this builds trust

because there

are no hidden bits doing weird things it's kind of owned by everyone through

collaboration which

really flips the script on traditional software where one company holds all the

cards for a

community this means they have the ultimate control they're not dependent on a

company that could

suddenly change the rules hike up prices or just disappear and that philosophy

connects directly

to privacy which is let's face it a huge concern nowadays l-a-o-t-i is described as

lightweight and

gdpr compliant what that means in practice is first it's built efficiently it doesn't

rely on lots of

external bits and pieces which helps keep data traffic down but the really key part

for users

is this no data from visitors is collected and only the necessary minimum from

registered users

that is a massive deal it means you as a user or an organizer don't have to worry

about your

community's data being hoovered up sold off used for targeted ads whatever this

strict approach

makes sure it complies with the eu's gdpr the general data protection regulation

which is

pretty much the global gold standard for privacy it just gives communities peace of

mind about

their members digital footprint wow that privacy focus is incredibly compelling it

means communities

can actually trust the tool they're using respects their users right from the start

instead of always

wondering what's happening behind the scenes with their data it feels like a really

direct answer to

problems we see with the big platforms okay so if people listening are getting

excited now thinking

hey my community could use this how do they actually get started what are the

options for

deploying it getting it running especially if maybe you're not a super techie

person yeah good

question they've thought about this offering several self-hosting options for

different skill

levels for beginners the recommendation is deploy easy and fast with coupe cloud

coupe cloud is

basically a set of tools designed to make deploying open source stuff simpler lauti

has a ready-made

recipe for it so you don't need deep server knowledge it sort of pre-packages

things for you

if you're comfortable with containers you can deploy with docker they provide a

ready-to-go

docker image docker you know packages software neatly making it run consistently

anywhere for

people using the nyx os operating system lauti is already packaged for it making

installation easy

there and then for the more technically adventurous you can always build from

source by grabbing the

code directly from their git repository on codeberg that's a free open source

collaboration

platform that's quite a range of options which is great covers different needs so

what does this

look like out in the wild are there real world examples we can point to where lauti

is already

being used to you know amplify those the local voices oh absolutely it's not just

theoretical

the project maintainers run their own instance at itopsef.info that serves the stuttgart

area

in germany though it's currently german only they're also talking with folks in

four other

cities who are gearing up to launch their own lauti instances soon and another

great live example

is carlsunruh and calls rue also in germany they're using it actively to help their

local

community organize and share events you can really picture it your city may be a

university a network

of neighborhood groups all using lauti as that one reliable hub for what's going on

sounds like it's

really gaining traction and active development too i saw the version 1.0 release

was pretty recent

may 1st 2025 that's after almost four years of work right so what's coming up next

what's on the

roadmap for lauti yes exactly v1.0 was a big milestone after a lot of work and yeah

development

is very active and the roadmap looks really exciting next up they're planning cms

improvements

basically making it even easier to manage content and customize themes they're also

building an

event publisher module the idea is this could automatically push event details out

to other

platforms maybe mastodon or telegram helping events reach an even wider audience

automatically

looking a bit further out they want to enhance the community features even more and

significantly

add activity pub support activity pub is the protocol that powers the fediverse the

network

of decentralized social platforms like mastodon peer tube etc integrating activity

pub would

mean lauti could talk to these other platforms events could flow seamlessly across

this open

interconnected web instead of being locked into one place that really connects lauti

to these

bigger movements towards a more decentralized internet and look if you're listening

and feeling

inspired there are loads of ways to help out you can give feedback maybe suggest

design ideas or if

you code you can check out the issues list on codeberg and contribute directly if

you need help

setting up your own instance there are tutorials available or you can just reach

out to the

maintainers via their website it really is a collaborative project so wrapping this

up what

does this all mean for you for your community we've seen lauti isn't just another

calendar app not at

all it's a really powerful open source tool built specifically to give communities

real control over

their own information and it does this while being serious about respecting privacy

and encouraging

people to work together it's kind of a pertinent reminder isn't it that sometimes

the most valuable

tools especially in our digital age come straight from the community itself built

by the community

for the community not just for profit yeah and it leaves you with a pretty

provocative thought i

think in this world that's so dominated by huge centralized platforms by these

overwhelming

streams of information what could it actually mean for your city your neighborhood

group your specific

community of interest to take back the reins of its own local information to

amplify its own unique

stories and to really genuinely make noise and be la uti if you want to learn more

about this

fantastic project maybe you read the documentation or find out how you can get

involved definitely

head over to lotti.org lauti.org you'll find all the details there contact info and

ways you can

contribute to this great open source effort and once again a massive thank you to

safeserver.de

for supporting this deep dive they provide the essential hosting and support for

digital

thanks so much for joining us for this deep dive

thanks so much for joining us for this deep dive