Microsoft donates DocumentDB to the Linux Foundation
Plus: GitHub’s Spec Kit pushes spec-driven AI coding, it's back to BASIC for Microsoft, and more
Hi folks,
The big story this week, as far as Forkable is concerned at least, is the Linux Foundation bringing DocumentDB under its wing — it also represents a rare moment of unity among the cloud hyperscalers.
Elsewhere, GitHub pushes a spec-driven approach to AI coding, Microsoft offers up its retro 6502 BASIC for open source preservation, WordPress teased an AI block generator, and much more.
As usual, feel free to reach out to me with any questions, tips, or suggestions: forkable[at]pm.me.
Paul
Open issue
Clouds unite on DocumentDB at the Linux Foundation
The Linux Foundation announced that it’s bringing DocumentDB into its umbrella of open source projects.
The database project, which Microsoft open-sourced back in January, is designed as a document-oriented NoSQL system with a “developer-first” focus, positioned as an open alternative to commercial incumbents like MongoDB. DocumentDB is built on PostgreSQL, adding document-style flexibility on top of a trusted relational database.
The project has racked up some 2,000 stars on GitHub since launch, with growing developer engagement and bug reports, feature requests, and forum activity from the Postgres community.
Notably, all three major cloud vendors — Microsoft, AWS, and Google — now support the project, signaling rare alignment in a world where licensing kerfuffles have often fractured open source databases.
“It’s great that Microsoft, AWS and others are joining forces to work on DocumentDB,” said Bruce Momjian, a founding member of the PostgreSQL core development team. “Microsoft and AWS already work together to enhance Postgres, so it is logical they would use the high-quality Postgres source code and leverage its extensibility to meet the need for an open source document database.”
Read more: Linux Foundation blog
Patch notes
GitHub pushes spec-driven AI coding
GitHub open-sourced Spec Kit, a toolkit that treats specs as living, executable artifacts to guide AI agents (Copilot, Claude Code, Gemini CLI) through “specify → plan → tasks → implement.”
It’s a structured antidote to vibe-coding, aiming for fewer surprises and more reliable results.
Read more: GitHub blog
Microsoft goes back to BASIC
Here’s a retro treat for y’all: Microsoft published the 6,955-line assembly code for its 1970s 6502 BASIC, a beginner-friendly programming language that shipped on early home computers.
Available under an MIT license, the release preserves a key piece of computing history while giving open source enthusiasts something to tinker with.
Read more: The Register
Meta and Reliance plan joint venture in India
Meta announced a joint venture (pending approvals) with India’s Reliance to build Llama-based enterprise AI across areas such as sales and support, pairing its “open-ish” Llama models with Reliance’s data-center footprint to cut inference costs.
Read more: Meta press release
WordPress teases Telex, an AI block generator
Automattic’s Matt Mullenweg demoed Telex, an experimental tool that turns prompts into Gutenberg blocks users can install as a plugin.
Early tests are rough, but the goal is a more accessible, open source path to custom site pieces.
Read more: TechCrunch
Kong buys OpenMeter to power ‘agentic era’ monetization
Kong announced that it’s acquiring OpenMeter, an open source and SaaS platform for usage-based metering and billing.
The company’s pitching the deal as a way to enable “agentic era” monetization, reflecting how metering and billing are becoming central concerns as teams scale both open source and commercial AI agents and APIs.
Read more: PR Newswire
Metal3 enters CNCF incubation
Bare-metal Kubernetes management project Metal3.io graduated from sandbox to incubation at the Cloud Native Computing Foundatoin (CNCF).
Read more: CNCF blog
Vercel lays out open SDK strategy
Vercel has pledged “open by default” frameworks and SDKs with permissive licenses, built to avoid lock-in while still working on Vercel.
Fast-glob report sparks supply chain scrutiny
Security firm Hunted Labs says that the popular Node.js package Fast-glob poses a national-security-grade risk because it’s a single-maintainer dependency embedded across thousands of projects, despite there being no known CVEs (common vulnerabilities and exposures).
Read more: Hunted Labs
And finally…
Meet ZEReader, the hackable e-reader
If you’ve ever wanted a hackable e-reader, a German engineering student has developed ZEReader, an open-source project that swaps the usual Android or Linux base for the lightweight Zephyr real-time operating system.
The prototype already handles .epub files, remembers your place, and renders simple HTML — all running on bare-bones microcontroller hardware. The project also publishes open schematics for things like the charging circuit, microSD slot, and display driver, so anyone can tinker or spin up their own version.
This isn’t a polished product you can buy — you’ll need to source the parts yourself and follow the provided designs. But for DIYers, ZEReader is a flexible playground to hack, adapt, and extend.
Read more: Open source, flexible e-reader [Hackaday]