Category Archives: Uncategorized

Due to the ongoing war in Ukraine, we again won’t contribute to an open‑source venture and make a double donation to the Foundation for Puppies Judyta which rescues dog refugees from Ukraine. It is one of our Full‑Stack Developers, Krzysiek Skarbek, who picked this initiative to support in April.

“Not only do people suffer during wartime, but also the animals. Unfortunately, pets have no chance to help themselves out of this situation”, says Krzysiek. “Judyta foundation is overcrowded with pets taken from the war zone in Ukraine. And more animals in need keep coming”.

The charity’s employees and volunteers look after Ukrainian dogs, they also arrange transportation to the war‑struck areas to bring and save as many pets as possible. 

More dog refugees mean more chores and duties, mainly because the pets are wounded due to war. Some of them also need treatment and recovery due to their age and overall poor health. Judyta foundation does a great deal of work to provide them with proper living conditions, but additional support is needed to cater food, medicine, and accommodation.

To keep everyone up‑to‑date with refugee dog rescue actions, Judyta charity updates its website and Facebook page with daily posts. Besides the heartbreaking dog stories and shelter life situations, the charity also links to numerous fundraisers it runs in order to secure the four-legged pensioners with a better life. 

Currently, the Judyta foundation is collecting funds for two shipping containers that will be converted into a cozy accommodation for the refugee dogs.

As usual, on the 15th day of each month, one of Sidnet’s team members picks an open‑source project and a charity initiative for us to support with a donation. In March we continue to do so, with one exception to that rule due to the current situation in Ukraine. At the request of our Full‑Stack Developer Kamil Głuszak, this time we won’t contribute to an open‑source venture and make a double donation to the Polish Humanitarian Action fundraiser. 

On March 24th we woke up to the new reality, overwhelmed by the reports of Russian aggression against Ukraine. The news about the military attack on the neighboring country was even more alarming for us. One of our remote developers was still living and working in Ukraine at the moment. Currently, our Ukrainian friend and his family are in a safe place we arranged for them in Warsaw.

Within twenty-four hours Polish people responded to this catastrophic situation. Our Ukrainian brothers and sisters received immediate humanitarian aid for their war-torn country. We decided to give our share too. We have contributed with individual subsidies, by supporting the “Hello Girls!” initiative on the occasion of Women’s Day. Today we donate to the Polish Humanitarian Action at the request of Kamil.

“Nothing is as urgent as support for Ukraine at this moment,” explains Kamil, “everything else seems lesser right now.”

Polish Humanitarian Action has been operating in Ukraine since 2014. Currently, it focuses on providing its citizens with food, clothing, health, and hygiene products. PHA also arranged the refugee help hubs at the Polish-Ukrainian border and psycho-social support centers in eastern Ukraine.

To support our Ukrainian friends in need, PHA informs on its activities and day‑to‑day situation via social media.

For several months, our thoughts have been with Ariana, a girl who has a medulloblastoma. She is the one‑year‑old daughter of a cousin of Michał Staszewski, who is responsible for sales in our team. Michał encouraged us to make individual donations and make our #SidnetDonation for February earlier, in January. Today, we can celebrate the fact that together with other donors we managed to achieve the fundraiser goal and the girl has already started treatment.

In February, the recipients of our donations (including Ariana) are chosen by Piotrek Zieliński, our Full‑Stack Developer who is always ready to discover new technologies.

NestJS

A back‑end JavaScript framework developed in Poland as a modern alternative to the Node.js—Express framework. It combines the concepts of object-oriented, functional, and functional reactive programming.

‘NestJS is built around TypeScript, dependency injection, and modularity. These notions are associated for example with Angular. Someone who does not know these terms may need more time to start working with Nest, but these concepts are definitely worth exploring,’ says Piotrek.

Like Angular, NestJS imposes an application architecture that makes it easier to write scalable, maintainable, and testable code.

Ariana Wasiak (ZOBACZ MNIE Foundation beneficiary)

The story of Ariana—a one-year-old girl with a brain stem tumor—has touched so many people that in less than two months they managed to raise over $2 million (!) for treatment in the United States. Ever since the diagnosis was made in December, our little fighter has undergone 8 operations and is now receiving chemotherapy.

‘I can’t even imagine what the parents of 11‑month‑old Ariana felt when they heard the diagnosis: malignant tumor. I’m happy that we contributed to the success of the fundraiser for a treatment which could not be administered in Poland,’ says our programmer.

The fundraiser is over, but restoring the girl’s health entails additional unplanned costs, such as the replacement of a valve. The account number and KRS (National Court Register) number needed to donate 1% of your tax can be found on the website of the ZOBACZ MNIE Foundation.

New year’s edition of the #SidnetDonations initiative reminds us in a painful way of being aware and reacting before it’s too late.

This month’s selection of open‑source and non‑profit projects has been made by Mariusz Różański. He’s a Lead Developer based in Toruń and working on projects for our British clients: THG and UK2, belonging to the same group.

Strapi

An open-source headless CMS that allows you to create websites with the separation of the front-end and back-end layers. It works with different types of databases (non‑relational, relational). CMS can be easily integrated with the most popular JavaScript frameworks, such as React, Angular, Vue, but developers can also create their own interfaces.

Which of the Strapi features are particularly useful for Mariusz?

• Intuitiveness. The CMS is clear and easy to use.
• Flexibility. Strapi allows developers to use many non-standard components on the website, and easily create new ones by themselves.
• Developer‑centric. The software offers a rich base of elements ready to use, that significantly speed up work in harmony with the ‘developer‑first’ principle.

“I had the opportunity to use Strapi for commercial projects and I must admit that I had a great time working with it, and most importantly, the customers are very satisfied with the effects,” says Mariusz.

Hospicjum Światło (Light Hospice) Association

Our January donation wasn’t meant to be received by the association in Toruń as a whole. It was intended for one of its beneficiaries, Maciej Kowalczyk—a longtime hospice volunteer and a favorite hairdresser of Mariusz’s wife. Sadly, Maciej passed away at the beginning of this year before we had a chance to show him our support and encourage others to do it.

“Although we did not have a chance to support Maciek and his relatives in their struggle with the disease under the #SidnetDonations initiative, many chronically ill people are still under the care of the association, for whom our help will be worth its weight in gold. That is why I decided to choose this organization,” says our developer.

The main goal of the Light Hospice Association is to care for terminally ill residents and their families. Hospice volunteers improve the quality of life of ill and dependent patients. They do it in place and through free home visits of medical guardians, physiotherapists, and psychologists.

At Sidnet, we help on a daily basis, not only on special occasions. In December, we carry on with this practice and support the projects chosen by Wojtek Wąsik. Wojtek has been a member of our team for over 4 years now as a Senior Full‑Stack Developer and is currently working on a project for our British e‑commerce client, THG. It is not the first time that Wojtek takes the opportunity to select the projects to support as part of the #SidnetDonations initiative. And again, his choice was very personal.

Take a look at open‑source and charity projects that will receive financial support this month thanks to Wojtek’s choices.

PHP Foundation

The core mission of the newly established foundation is to modernize one of the most popular programming languages—PHP—which is the base for over 78% of all websites.

Why did Wojtek decide to endow this particular project? “It is the very first programming language I have learned. It was over 18 years ago, and I have been using it ever since. I am glad that PHP has a chance to be given a new life”, explains our developer.

The establishment of the PHP foundation was rushed by the “bus factor”. After 10 years of developing the language core, Nikita Popov—a key PHP developer, has decided to focus on a different project, the development of the LLVM compiler.  

In the first two years of its operation, the Foundation aims to create regular job positions for the language core developers and provide them with competitive pay financed by donations.

Magda Rejman (The Children’s Future Foundation beneficiary)

The charity chosen by Wojciech to receive our financial aid is fundraising for the treatment of 13‑year‑old Magda Rejman, who is struggling with the health consequences of type C lymphoblastic leukemia.

The decision to support the girl is very personal to Wojtek. “Magda is my cousin’s daughter”, explains our developer.

Currently, the disease is in remission. Magda is slowly recovering from the illness, but she still requires constant medical care, including immunity‑supporting drugs and costly rehabilitation. In order to arrange the necessary help and funds, Magda joined The Children’s Future Foundation a few years ago and still remains under its care. At the moment, the Foundation helps 450 children in need of constant medical assistance.

If you wonder how you can support the Foundation, here’s what you can do:

• Join the volunteers coordinating the fundraisers.
• Make a donation.
• Run your own fundraiser.
• Take part in activities held by the Foundation, such as collecting plastic bottle caps.
• Talk with your employers about how they can support the Foundation.
• Take part in run races organized by a Foundation’s charity running team.

If not for the fact that the majority of the Sidnet team prefer remote work, we could consider opening a new branch in Rzeszów. A total of 15% of our dispersed team live there. The trend began with Łukasz Leszczyński, who joined us in 2019 as a Perl Developer, and is currently fulfilling himself by programming in Go in a project for THG, one of our long‑term clients.

Check what open‑source and charity projects will receive financial aid thanks to Łukasz’s choices.

Pi‑hole

An open‑source app for blocking online ads and web trackers at the network level. Designed for Raspberry Pi, Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, and CentOS.

“Corporations are carefully polishing their content delivery algorithms and matching ads to have an increasing influence on our choices. Since I’ve been using Pi‑hole, I can take a break from ads. The application works as a home DNS server—it filters the traffic and blocks it when an attempt is made to deliver ad content,” says Łukasz.

Why will every Linux geek like Pi‑hole?

• Network protection in one installation. There is no need to install plugins in every browser and device.
• Blocking ads outside the browser. Pi‑hole blocks ad content inside any application, e.g. on a smartphone or Smart TV.
• Improved network performance. Ads are blocked even before they are downloaded.

Kundelek Animal Shelter

The shelter in Rzeszów takes care of more than 150 homeless cats and dogs. Since 2005 the shelter has been helping lost and abandoned animals, as well as those taken away from irresponsible owners. The shelter employees accompany the pets and new owners through the adoption process. They provide free animal health checks in a partner clinic.

In addition to donations, the shelter accepts help measured in cuddles. It organizes such campaigns as “An hour with a homeless dog” and “Cat caress”.

“Some time ago my girlfriend asked if we could walk a dog from a shelter. I was very skeptical, afraid to face suffering and lonely animals. Fortunately, it turned out that the dogs live in good conditions thanks to the shelter staff and people of good will,” explains our programmer.

For October we financially support projects that touch on fundamental human rights: the right to information and to live a healthy life. This is the first time that open‑source and non‑profit initiatives have been selected by Marcin Wierzbicki – a Backend Go Developer working daily from the seaside.

Check which projects will receive our support as requested by Marcin.

Wikimedia Foundation

A non‑profit organization developing Wikipedia – one of the 10 most popular websites in the world, among other things. The purpose of the foundation is to protect the right to inform and to be informed as set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The project goes far beyond a “free encyclopedia” – Wikimedia works against censorship, educates governments, and promotes free licenses.

“I think all of us have used one of the services offered by Wikimedia at least once. In addition to Wikipedia, the foundation also takes care of other projects related to archiving and sharing knowledge, so that it is always available for free to billions of people. The donations received by the foundation not only translate into maintenance and development of the sites, but also support content creators through grants, training, or legal protection,” explains our developer.

The idea of wiki (knowledge resources) borrowed from the creators of Wikipedia accompanies us every day at Sidnet. In our corporate knowledge bases we collect and update project objectives, the technologies used, good practices, and much other useful information.

Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières)

An international medical humanitarian organization founded in 1971. It brings aid in the face of armed conflict, epidemics, natural disasters, and refugee crises. It has a presence in areas affected by protracted and complex crises, including Syria, Yemen, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, and Afghanistan.

“In too many parts of the world, people’s right to life and health care are still being taken away simply because they are caught up in a larger conflict. Doctors Without Borders, despite the risks, provides medical care to those in need in such places,” says Marcin.

To learn more about the challenges faced by Doctors Without Borders, listen to the Everyday Emergency podcast.

At Sidnet, we have the Day of the Programmer every day, and another September holiday—International Day of Charity—is celebrated at least once a month, when it’s time for #SidnetDonations.

This time, the open‑source and non‑profit projects that we are going to support have been chosen by Radek Stępiński. Our creative Full‑Stack Developer combines programming with other passions. He programmed a metronome used in the piece of Wrocław Remote Orchestra (where Radek played several wind instruments), among other things. He is currently working on an online version of a popular association‑based party card game.

Let’s Encrypt

A non‑profit organization that issues free digital SSL/TLS certificates. Let’s Encrypt democratizes access to a secure HTTPS connection. It confirms the basic security level of almost 260 million websites, as well as FTP servers, e‑mail servers, and others.

“Thanks to Let’s Encrypt, anyone can configure fully functioning encryption, which evokes trust in users. It takes less than an hour and one can do it without a deeper knowledge of the subject and completely free of charge. Regardless of whether you run a blog or an online store, today »https://« at the beginning of the address has almost become a standard, and thanks to Let’s Encrypt, adapting to it is quick and painless,” Radek explains.

The protocol for the automatic issuance and renewal of certificates is made available as an open standard.

Ocalenie Foundation (Rescue Foundation)

Established in 2000, the foundation helps foreigners to start a new life in Poland. It helps victims of torture. It provides free specialist legal, psychological and linguistic support, as well as assistance in everyday matters (contacts with institutions, renting a flat, starting work, enrolling in kindergartens and schools), which are much more difficult to deal with for people who don’t speak Polish or face discrimination.

“Especially today, in the wake of the crisis in Afghanistan, migrants need help: those, who are already in Poland need support, so that they can become members of our society easier and faster, as well as those who have not reached their destination yet and have to wait in uncertainty at the border, often without basic supplies,” our programmer says.

The Ocalenie Foundation is reporting on Facebook on the current situation of refugees at the Polish‑Belarusian border, also in Usnarz Górny.

Throughout the year, it also conducts workshops (including integration culinary and anti‑discrimination workshops for companies), trainings (e.g. for companies and HR departments that employ foreigners), language and vocational courses for various groups, such as uniformed services, administration employees, NGOs, volunteers, students, or children.

In August we are supporting open‑source and charity projects established since 2006, which is when this month’s chooser, Łukasz Bownik, first went to school. Fifteen years have passed, and today both projects are widely popular with thriving communities, and Łukasz is a successful Full‑Stack Developer.

See what motivated the choices of this Sidnet young talent.

Linux Mint

A Linux distribution based on Debian and Ubuntu, available under the GNU license. Unlike these two systems, however, it is less restrictive about the use of non‑free and closed‑source software.

“What speaks to me is the motto of this distribution of Linux: ‘From freedom came elegance.’ Linux Mint uses Canonical packages and repositories, but is not dependent on corporate support. It’s developed by a self-organizing network of programmers and testers, which yields great results when it comes to graphics, performance, and ease of use,” says Łukasz.

We already supported Linux Mint in early 2020, on behalf of Wojtek Wąsik.

Since then the system has been expanded to include new features:

• Bulky App for batch file renaming using your own rules (version 20.2, Uma).
• Web App Manager for transforming any website into a desktop app (version 20.1, Ulyssa).
• Warpinator for sharing files within a local network (version 20, Ulyana).

Iskierka (‘Sparkle’) Foundation

The foundation takes care of more than 700 children suffering from cancer, primarily in Silesia and Rzeszów. It is one of two Polish organizations to be members of CCI Europe—the European division of Childhood Cancer International. The foundation educates, helps acquire funding for treatment, and sponsors medication, rehabilitation, medical equipment, and hospital renovations.

It also helps its charges pursue their passions by involving them in:

• The Children’s Oncological Orchestra, which works together with the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra and such artists as Artur Rojek, Daria Zawiałow and Raz Dwa Trzy.
• Art therapy classes: visual arts, theatre and literature, and music.
• Sailing, climbing, and horse riding camps.

“Cancer in children has a relatively high survival rate. But to cure it, you need comprehensive and often very expensive treatment. I support Iskierka because I would like everyone who has been affected by this deadly illness at a young age to have a chance to shape their own future,” he says.

In the open‑source project we’re supporting in July, the open‑source element is not the source code itself, but an idea. Behind this unconventional approach to the #SidnetDonations initiative is Olga Muzyczuk, who manages IT projects in the Sidnet team—especially those involving branding, communication or usability. Sensitive to the human side of things, she gives credit to organizations fighting against dehumanization, i.e. those which expose human rights violations and restore the right to treatment for cancer patients.

Learn more about the organizations that will receive our financial support at Olga’s request.

Citizen Evidence Lab

A collaborative space for individuals and organizations committed to protecting human rights. Initiated by Amnesty International in 2014, it brings together investigators, researchers, journalists, engineers, programmers, and students from different countries.

When investigating human rights violations, they use photo and video verification and remote sensing, and more recently, increasingly innovative methods: crowdsourcing, data science, and machine learning.

Citizen Evidence Lab’s projects include:

• Amnesty Decoders — a microtasking platform that leverages Amnesty International’s greatest strength—a community of several million people spread around the world. Thanks to the platform, researchers no longer have to process huge amounts of data on their own. They are supported by volunteers who analyze satellite images, documents or social media content.
• Digital Verification Corps — an international program in which students from a number of partner universities verify visual social media content to provide evidence of human rights abuses. During training, students learn to confirm the authenticity of photos and videos, as well as verify the time and place where they were taken.
• Sharing knowledge in the spirit of open‑source. Citizen Evidence Lab provides not only working tools but also guidance materials. It teaches its community how to make ethical decisions when working with sensitive data, and how to protect from vicarious trauma.

“Amnesty Decoders volunteers have so far supported online investigations on topics such as violence against women on Twitter, oil spills in the Niger Delta, and previously overlooked civilian deaths in Syria. It would take an individual researcher 2.5 years (!) to thoroughly investigate the latter topic. Currently, all projects are finished, but I have registered with their website and I am looking forward to join the next research,” stated Olga.

Oncorun – Together for health!

It’s a run around the National Cancer Institute (a virtual run since 2020) aimed at providing financial and mental support to those afflicted with cancer. Oncorun is the oldest oncology‑themed charity running event in Poland. It has been organized by the Sarcoma Association since 2008.

The initiative is of great importance to Olga because of her family’s cancer history. For a few years now, Olga has been supporting the Association with her expertise. She coordinates the website development and advises on communication. She is responsible, among other things, for the concept of this year’s 1% tax donation campaign.

“I don’t need to be good at running to be a part of the Oncorun community. There is room for everyone on the starting line: athletes, coders, kids, seniors, those who are healthy, those who are weakened from chemotherapy, people with prosthetic limbs, and people in wheelchairs. What Oncorunners have in common is sensitivity to cancer-related issues, gratitude towards medical personnel, and readiness to help those currently fighting the disease,” explains Olga.

The upcoming 14th edition of Oncorun will take place online on 12 September 2021.