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Owncast Newsletter May 2025
Kit Rhett Aultman
12–15 minutes
5th Anniversary Spectacular!!!
The Owncast cat, wearing an Owncast hoodie, peeking over a large sign that says "5 Years of Owncast!"
In This Issue
A Note From The Editor
Owncast, Five Years On
Maho Pacheco On Installing Owncast On A Livestream
Featured Streamer: INPC, The Kali Mera Show
Closing Remarks
A Note From The Editor
Whooo...this is a big chonker of a newsletter because we've got so much to celebrate. While it's not possible to easily quantify what a milestone five years is for a FOSS project, I can say I've been around long enough to know it's rare and special for a project to still be steaming along, working in all kinds of public and private settings. And it's even bigger to think of what lives it's touched and how. I started out using Owncast as a way to stream my DJ practice sets. Now, I don't DJ on Owncast very often...because practicing for audiences on Owncast gave me the confidence to get gigs, and my new side-hustle crowded out my time to stream! If it weren't for Owncast, I wouldn't be a gigging DJ. All that's to say, it's impossible to imagine all the ways a project like this changes lives.
For the sake of brevity, the rest of this personal note is quick hits:
The Owncast project has changed Fediverse accounts. Go follow owncast@social.owncast.online RIGHT FREAKING NOW!
Owncast 0.2.3 has been released, so go get your upgrades!
We've finalized the code for the next release of Owncasts for Roku, and it'll be published as soon as Kit sits down to start the process!
There's a brand new Owncast merch store, and sales support the project, so go get yourself a fun bit of apparel or a mug or something!
Owncast, Five Years On
May 2025 marks the 5-year anniversary of the Owncast project. The newsletter's research department (that's...uh, Kit, who apparently is all the departments) tried to do some research to find statistics to mathematically demonstrate how momentous an occasion this is and, it turns out it's really hard to get statistics on the longevity of FOSS projects. Because of their nature, projects are frequently put down, picked up, rewritten, reconsidered, and simply don't have the life cycles of commercial products.
But it's probably better not to turn this anniversary celebration into a comparison to other projects anyway and instead focus on what Owncast has become. Like any FOSS project showing its maturity, it's both fostered a community and become a flexible tool adaptable to uses both within its core community and without.
"I think it’s super cool all the diversity of Owncast powered live streams that are out there. At least the ones that we know about," founder Gabe Kangas said in a recent interview. "There’s educational ones, and TV stations, radio stations, DJs and and all kinds of entertainment. Gaming and podcasts and people just hanging out. I’ve seen huge companies run conferences, I’ve had people reach out telling me they’ve streamed wedding receptions and funerals. From the most public of public to the most private of private. I love that the software can be so unopionated, and it’s just a foundation for you to build whatever you want on top of. It’s just a tool, everything else is up to you." Indeed, one of the neatest things about scrolling through the directory-listed streams on any given night is seeing the diverse projects being done with Owncast. Possibly the most striking, if short-lived, stream we've spotted in the wild was one providing Kurdish language educational content to children!
This has been a passion project from the beginning for Kangas, who at one point exhausted his personal savings so he could work on Owncast full-time. "It was worth it, though," said Kangas. "A lot of people go their entire lives never getting to work on something people care about, so the fact people want Owncast to exist is super cool." Lone developers exhausting their resources isn't sustainable, however, so Owncast wouldn't be with us today without a community supporting it. It's the community that's formed around Owncast, from the 24/7 streamers making the backbone of the directory streams to the code contributors and all the others, that keep Owncast going. "The first couple years were pretty lonely, but now people want to be around in meaningful ways. From the newsletter, core code contributions, the Roku app, people answering questions in chat, people brainstorming in GitHub, it’s important for it to be bigger than myself," Kangas said.
The newsletter reached out to the Fediverse to solicit some birthday wishes for Owncast. Here's what people within the community had to share:
"I am very appreciative of the lightweightness of Owncast! I am running a server off a refurbished office PC and I have been able to run some very nice streams!" --DingusMacDongle
" I personally built my entire community thanks to Owncast and the Fediverse. :-D It's what got me into creating Fireside Fedi. I've met so many amazing folks that have taken Owncast and made it their own. And thank you Kit for doing the newsletter." --Ozoned
"Owncast has been a fantastic tool for me. Socially, it has enabled me to meet some really cool people and foster a community. On the technical side, it's helped me deepen my understanding of video technology and see it applied in the real world for my viewers. I'm excited to celebrate its 5th anniversary!" --Logan Fick
Whether you're new to the community or, like me, have been here for years, we all want to thank you along for the ride. As mentioned in the editor's note above, Owncast is celebrating the occasion all month long.
And as mentioned at the top of the newsletter, we're announcing the new Owncast merch store where you can find some snazzy apparel and home goods, including some special "five years of Owncast" items! A portion of proceeds goes to fund the project, so you're helping Owncast maintenance and development and sporting your Owncast pride at the same time. How good is that?
Maho Pacheco On Installing Owncast On A Livestream
Fediverse member Maho Pacheco, who operates a livestream series called "@TheRaccoonBytes" with Luis Quintanilla, recently demonstrated the setup and configuration of Owncast. One unique aspect of Maho's approach is choosing to not read documentation ahead of time and have a planned, polished approach ready to go. The goal is to demonstrate how the average maker has to work through issues as they arise rather than to do a polished showroom demo of a software package.
Maho's approach also used a provider that's less common for your typical Owncast streamer– Microsoft Azure. "I know people are not super fan of Azure, but that was on purpose," Maho shared with me. "I want more diversity of platforms, which is where fediverse thrives." Indeed, one of the bigger advantages of a FOSS project is for it to be adaptable to platforms and resource stacks that are uncommon or unfashionable, and the install showed Owncast was fit for purpose.
"We went with the Docker approach, which made deployment super straightforward. You do need a bit of networking knowledge, especially when using it with Azure, but nothing too intimidating."..."It felt simple yet surprisingly powerful. I love how customizable it is, I’m already planning to experiment with identity integration and ways to connect it to my personal site."
If you'd like to see Maho and Luis go "raccoon style" on an Owncast Azure install, an archive of the stream can be found at makertube.net.
Featured Streamer: INPC, The Kali Mera Show
It's late in the morning, roughly around the time I've finished all the sundry email and task list checks, my higher reasoning has started to come online, and I'm looking for a second cup of tea or coffee to get myself really oriented towards my working day. Late spring's sun is bright and the world has turned green, the door's open to let in the air and smells, and for some cozy good-morning sounds to match these sights, there's some Joni Mitchell on vinyl courtesy of the Kali Mera Show. I look at the messy-but-composed layout of materials on and around the turntable, matching the aesthetic of my life/work/rehearsal space downstairs in my home, and the snoozing black cat that matches the snoozing black cat behind me on my own bed, and I wonder for a moment if this studio isn't actually in my own house.
Of course, it's across the ocean from me in the UK, and because of the time difference, I'm watching the video archives rather than the live stream, but the point stands. This is an image I know, understand, and immediately feel comfortable around, produced on a shoestring budget of materials from a small garden shed, and all of it is a testament to Owncast and the power of FOSS technology in general.
Produced by INPC (a moniker that's short for "I'm Not Phil Collins", a joke that takes far too long to explain), The Kali Mera Show is a music program streaming daily at 10:00 AM from the UK. The musical selection is varied and unstructured. "I leave it in the hands of the music gods to lead the way," INPC tells me over email. There's a definite center of gravity around dub and reggae, a testament to the streamer's connection to On-U Sound Records, but the genres span from folk to soul to experimental. Between the tracks, INPC chats in a calm but experienced manner about the songs, gives a quip or two about his daily life, and gives a cozy-but-vibrant start to the day.
Of course, the true star of the show is George, the black cat. "I’ve never particularly wanted to be on camera myself and I initially set up a cam by his cat flap but then winter came and George didn’t go out much so I set up a camera on his favourite perch," INPC shares with me. "Unsurprisingly, this was popular with listeners and so the format has stayed. It’s just chat and cat!" Indeed, the Internet rarely meets a cat it doesn't like, and between the cozy disorder of the shed and the images of George living his best fur-baby life, one starts to wonder if one is seeing the real-life version of a "lo-fi beats to relax or study to" set.
But really, what separates The Kali Mera Show from the sonic wallpaper of a lo-fi beats stream is its humanity. INPC's style of personal and presentation, with the real feel of a DJ who's talking while changing platters at a small station's only record player, makes me think back to beloved college, community, and pirate stations of my younger years, where connection mattered more than polish. One of my partners often regales me with tales of UK pirate radio, where rogue stations ran in attics and from hilltops, and I wonder if perhaps this doesn't give me a taste of what I missed. "I want the show to be very real and under produced, although I take care to ensure the audio is the best quality possible. My aim is to be fun and hopefully bring a bit of joy to the listeners," INPC explains, "While the stream is super small, the same people come back every morning and hang out. We’ve our own little slice of independent Internet!"
Indeed, having "your own little slice of the Internet" has been the draw of many an Owncast streamer, and The Kali Mera Show is definitely a return to the world of indie radio programming where the audience often knew the DJ and shared in the culture of the show. It's worth checking out, both live on Owncast and on its PeerTube archives, and if you've a coin to spare, I'm sure your Ko-Fi contributions will keep George in tasty treats.
Wow, that's an awful lot this month, though there's a lot to remark on when a special milestone comes around. If you've read to the end, know that it's deeply appreciated, and it's great that Owncast has meant this much to you, too.
Please remember this newsletter, as much as it contains use of the "editorial we", is really the work of one person. I don't have help locating events, building a calendar, or even getting quotes for the articles. I'm doing my best to hold up a mirror to the community where I see it. I rely extensively on people in the community sharing their announcements and stories with me. Please, if you want to see something in the newsletter, get in touch with me. I might just decide to release an edition because of what you bring to me.
Additionally, if you'd like to help build the social fabric of the Owncast community, please consider checking out the #owncast-community channel on rocket.chat or the Owncast community on Lemmy.
Until then, be good to each other and keep the streams running!
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You're referring to https://gohugo.io/ the static site generator?