A volunteer-based organization building open-source tools for people who would rather not be the product.
Dead Pixels is a volunteer-based organization dedicated to building open-source software for everyday users. Our goal is to create transparent, community-driven tools that help people protect their privacy, control their technology, and understand the digital systems around them.
We believe software should serve the public, not trap users inside closed ecosystems controlled by large corporations. Through open-source development, clear documentation, and customizable tools, Dead Pixels aims to give people more freedom, privacy, and control over the technology they use every day.
How the organization runs
Everyone here is a volunteer, and there is nothing to sell you. Work happens in the open, and anyone can read the reasoning behind a decision. If a feature cannot be justified to the people who use it, it does not ship.
What we will not do
No telemetry that users did not ask for. No forced accounts. No features bolted on because the industry expects them. No dark patterns in an installer. Software that is difficult to leave is software that was never really yours.
01Our mission
Build practical, open-source projects that protect digital freedom, improve privacy, and put power back into the hands of the public.
That sentence is the test every proposal has to pass. It is short on purpose, because a mission you cannot recite is a mission nobody applies.
Dead Pixels is more than a software group. It is a push toward technology that is open, understandable, and built for the people who use it.
What we refuse
- Telemetry nobody asked for
- Forced accounts
- Dark patterns in an installer
- Features you cannot remove
02Core values
Five rules, applied
Each one has cost us a feature at some point. That is how you know they are real.
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01
Open source
Every project is transparent, inspectable, and community-driven. If you cannot read it, you cannot trust it.
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02
Privacy
We design tools that help people protect their information and their digital lives, with collection off by default.
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03
User control
People should be able to customize and understand the software they use, down to the parts we would rather they did not touch.
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04
Public power
Technology should benefit everyday users, not only large companies with the budget to shape it.
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05
Simplicity
Our tools should be useful, clean, and accessible without unnecessary bloat. Restraint is a feature.
04How work happens
Open development, written down
There is no private roadmap and no internal decision log. This is the whole process, and every step of it happens where you can read it.
Proposed in public
Ideas start as a written issue with the reasoning attached. If the argument is weak, it is easier to see it early.
Built in the open
Work happens in public branches. Anyone can watch it take shape, and anyone can pick up a stage that has stalled.
Reviewed together
Every change is read by someone else. Scope creep and quiet data collection are what reviewers look for first.
Shipped and documented
Nothing is finished until someone who did not write it can install it, use it, and explain what it does.