Hello Handmade Network, and happy new year! 2025 was a relatively quiet year for us where we focused on just running our jams and building relationships across the Handmade community. But we’ve got lots of plans for 2026 and we’ve already been at work kicking them off!

TL;DR:

  • We are finally launching the Handmade Software Foundation and using it to support the development of more Handmade software
  • We’re planning an in-person gathering for this spring, more details forthcoming
  • We’ll be doing two jams as usual, dates TBD based on other events

Launching the Handmade Software Foundation

A few years ago we announced that we were creating a nonprofit to support the development of Handmade software. Well, it took some time, but I am pleased to announce that the Handmade Software Foundation is now officially a 501(c)(6) nonprofit corporation.

What does this mean? It means we are a nonprofit under the category carved out for business leagues, chambers of commerce, etc. In other words, we have a nonprofit category that allows us to work towards improving business conditions in the software industry. This is perfect for us, because the software industry desperately needs fixing, and by supporting Handmade software we can make more programmers aware of how powerful computers are, while also providing direct benefit to Foundation members. And the nonprofit status exempts us from income tax, meaning that 100% of donations will go directly to the nonprofit, not the government.

The 501(c)(6) differs from the more familiar 501(c)(3) designation in that we are not a charity. The 501(c)(3) is explicitly designed for charitable organizations, and confers the additional benefit of donations being tax-deductible. Over time, though, the definition of a 501(c)(3) has become extremely distorted, especially in the software space, since companies were able to convince the IRS that making open-source software is a charitable/scientific activity. The result is that large companies were able to fund their own development by creating a “charity”, open-sourcing some of their core technology, and then building their extremely lucrative closed-source software on top. That way they get to deduct the core tech expenses from their taxes! What a deal!

This is stupid and the IRS is not allowing this anymore. This set us back by at least a year on our nonprofit journey, but it was a blessing in disguise: the 501(c)(6) is a vastly better category that gives us much more freedom in our activities and fewer restrictions on how we spend our money. And we can support for-profit projects (like File Pilot, for example) without worry.

What will the Foundation do?

The number one goal of the Handmade Software Foundation is to support, promote, and sustain the development of Handmade software.

In 2025 we saw the breakout success of File Pilot. If you somehow haven’t seen it, it’s a brilliant little file explorer for Windows, made by a single developer, that is a mere 2 MB and is shockingly fast. It has a completely custom UI and has so much love and attention poured into every pixel. And it came out at the perfect time, as Microsoft has continued to ship baffling bugs and horrible performance regressions month after month. They even messed up Windows Explorer’s performance, and then “fixed” it by preloading it in the background so the horrible performance wouldn’t be so obvious. Who would win: a trillion-dollar company, or one guy from Croatia who watched Handmade Hero? Obviously the Croatian.

File Pilot is an excellent template for what Handmade software should be, and how to launch it. We want to take the lessons learned from File Pilot and use them to launch more industry-redefining software.

Basically, the thinking goes that Handmade programmers have the technical chops to make amazing software, but don’t always have the aptitude or desire for the many, many other tasks that go into shipping. Payments, licensing, emails, support, design, marketing, testing, the list goes on. At the same time, we want to foster self-sustaining businesses. We feel we can bring people together to provide support and guide developers through that process.

Our core value is that we will never compromise on self-sufficiency. We will not lock you into a Handmade E-Commerce Platform; instead, we will give you the code and the resources you need to run it yourself. I’m excited to spend more time building these resources over the coming months.

How will the Foundation make money?

Memberships! You will be able to join the Handmade Software Foundation as a member for a monthly subscription fee, the exact pricing of which is yet to be determined.

Membership will grant you access to a private Discord channel with other members, access to the aforementioned business resources, and possibly more benefits down the line. We have other ideas for Foundation activities, but we don’t want to distract ourselves from our primary goal as we get the Foundation off the ground.

Can I join?

Not quite yet! We are actively building the payment processing infrastructure now and look forward to launching memberships as soon as possible.

In-person gathering this spring!

It’s been a while now since we got people together. We figure we should change that!

Later this spring, we will be hosting an in-person gathering in Vancouver, BC. Community member Matthew (AbjMakesAPizza on Discord) is a Vancouver native who kindly volunteered to organize an event. We’ve been looking at a variety of venues and have a few good leads, and we hope to have a final location and date soon. We’re looking to host up to 100 people or so, which we feel is a healthy number to get started with in our first year.

The plan is to host a “super-meetup”, of sorts: not a conference, but not just a meetup either. We want to create a space for demos, informal presentations, social gathering, jamming, and generally inspiring each other. Think a big room with lots of demo tables, a projector, a few chairs, and a mic. What’s on the agenda? Demos! Perhaps some lightning talks? That all remains to be seen as we find what the space will be capable of.

We’re targeting April or May, so although it’s somewhat short notice, we hope to give you all enough time to make travel plans. Stay tuned for more info!

Jams as usual

Finally, we’re planning to run two jams again this year. The topic for the first jam has yet to be determined; the second will be Wheel Reinvention as usual.

Unfortunately at this time we don’t yet know when these jams will be held. The timing will depend on our in-person gathering in Vancouver, plus any other events of interest to Handmade folks (such as another BSC). But, just to confirm, we are doing them :)

As for jam topics, I’ve been pondering how to keep the jams from getting stale. And I’m open to ideas! Should we give out prizes for different categories? Make people draw project ideas at random? Shorten the jams? Make people work in teams? In the end, I want the jams to spark new ideas and kickstart interesting projects, and that means we need to get creative juices flowing and get lots of talented programmers to participate. I’d love to hear your thoughts on Discord or in the comments below.

So long!

Look forward to more news next month! I’m committed to publishing one news post per month this year, for actual real this time. You may all heckle me if I fall behind.

May the Handmade community make a dent in the software industry in 2026!