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bluefoxconsultant.com
Blue Fox
@bluefoxconsultant.com
Open-source tooling for small businesses, tried in production before it gets written up. Self-hosting, data sovereignty, Odoo and Nextcloud. Notes from a Québec consultancy that runs what it recommends.

bluefoxconsultant.com
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Notes on the open-source tools we actually run: what they replace, where they fall short, and what it costs to self-host them.

Roughly weekly. Long-form on the blog, the short version here.

l.bluefoxconsultant.com/ENGblog
Blue Fox Articles | Blue Fox
l.bluefoxconsultant.com
Three obligations frame a property showing in Québec, and not one of them lives in your calendar: the register of visits, the representation question, and 24 hours' notice when a tenant still lives there. The tenant can also refuse the showing if the landlord cannot be present.
Showing a property in Québec: three obligations that are not in your calendar
TL;DR : showing a property in Québec is not just about finding an hour that works. There is a register of visits the OACIQ recommends you keep, a representation question that can decide who earns the ...
www.bluefoxconsultant.com
September 14, 2026 at 11:30 PM
Your partner already runs their own ERP, so you open them an account in yours anyway. They sign in once, then never again. Email has moved between two providers for forty years without either side opening an account with the other. Two Odoo instances can do the same with a task.
Two Odoo instances that talk: handing a task to a partner without opening yours
TL;DR : when two companies work on the same project, one of them ends up opening an account for the other. One more login, one more password, a tool that isn't theirs: it gets opened on day one and ne...
www.bluefoxconsultant.com
September 13, 2026 at 8:13 AM
3 US firms hold 85% of Canada's public cloud market. The clause allowing immediate suspension on sanctions risk is already in the terms you accepted, and it was used in Russia in 2024. The question is not probability, it is how many days until you can invoice again.
www.bluefoxconsultant.com/r/Uuo
Canadian digital sovereignty: what if the American cloud shut down?
85% of Canada's cloud sits with three US providers, a suspension clause is already in the contracts, and it was applied in 2024: what breaks in an SMB, and the four moves that cut your time to restart...
www.bluefoxconsultant.com
September 11, 2026 at 10:16 AM
A directory rates how hard it is to leave 2,596 web services. Half take one button. A third make you write to support. 159 are impossible. Under Quebec's Law 25, your own business gets rated too: 30 days to answer, and silence counts as a refusal.
www.bluefoxconsultant.com/en/blog/blue...
Closing an account: what 2,596 services reveal about your exit cost
Half the web closes with a button, a third makes you write to customer service, and 159 services are rated impossible. Then Law 25 turns the grid on you.
www.bluefoxconsultant.com
September 2, 2026 at 2:35 AM
A shared spreadsheet named inventory_final_v3.xlsx is not inventory management. Odoo Community's Inventory app tracks every stock move like accounting tracks money: true double-entry, multi-warehouse, lot and serial tracking. Free, no Enterprise licence required.

#Odoo #OpenSource #Inventory
August 29, 2026 at 5:37 AM
Slack and Teams aren't the only way to run team chat. Matrix is an open, federated protocol; Element is the app most teams start with. Both can run on your own server.

What self-hosting actually takes, and where it still falls short:
https://www.bluefoxconsultant.com/r/3dn
Matrix and Element: a free and sovereign alternative to Slack, Teams and Discord
TL;DR 🧩 Matrix : an open, federated messaging protocol (like email, but for chat). 💬 Element : the main app, modern and free/libre, compatible with other clients (Cinny, FluffyChat, etc.). 🔒 Privacy :...
www.bluefoxconsultant.com
August 27, 2026 at 6:11 AM
Notes on the open-source tools we actually run: what they replace, where they fall short, and what it costs to self-host them.

Roughly weekly. Long-form on the blog, the short version here.

l.bluefoxconsultant.com/ENGblog
Blue Fox Articles | Blue Fox
l.bluefoxconsultant.com
August 27, 2026 at 6:02 AM