Rocks!

libressl
This was created as a response to crazy levels of pointless complexity (like reimplementing their own malloc system) in the core cryptography library almost all linux and bsd programs use openssl. They cleaned all the code up and untangled it.


 * http://www.libressl.org/

nacl
High quality cryptography library that is designed to be easy to use.


 * https://nacl.cr.yp.to/

signify
A minimal tool to sign documents and verify signed documents, replaces and improves gpg.


 * http://www.openbsd.org/papers/bsdcan-signify.html

ffANS.1
There was a security bug in libasn.1 recently. Perhaps ffasn is better written and safer?


 * http://www.bellard.org/ffasn1/

scrypt
Command line file encryption tool


 * https://www.tarsnap.com/scrypt.html

musl libc
This is a complete reimplementation of GNU libc with a focus on high quality simple implementation. A few linux distros are using it completely. Having a second alternative implementation of libc helps pull things back to the POSIX specifications.


 * http://www.musl-libc.org/

the only way to truly appreciate musl is to look at the code and see what it's doing right - skarnet


 * http://wiki.musl-libc.org/wiki/Bugs_found_by_musl

Look at how many bugs are being found thanks to it!

sbase/ubase
This is a complete reimplementation of the GNU coreutils. The source code is shorter and tries to be simpler. They also fix a lot of oddities and bugs in details (like the tr program).


 * http://core.suckless.org/sbase
 * http://core.suckless.org/ubase

sup
similar to sudo, doas but is configured at compile time. supports whitelisting programs by hash.


 * https://sup.dyne.org/

execline
A wild reinvention of shell based on taking chain loading to its logical conclusion.


 * http://skarnet.org/software/execline/

sortix libz
This libz has been cleaned up:

Support for anything but modern Unix operating systems has been deleted. Support for 16-bit segmented platforms has been deleted. K&R function prototypes and declarations have been upgraded to ISO C ones. Mysterious work-arounds for broken toolchains and operating systems have been deleted. and more


 * https://sortix.org/libz/

redo in bash
A 'make' alternative built in a very short number of lines of bash.

redo can be simpler, more flexible, more powerful and more reliable than make


 * http://news.dieweltistgarnichtso.net./bin/redo-sh.html

zenity
zenity is a very simple tool that just lets you create dialog boxes (of various kinds) from the command line. The code is bigger than it needs to be and it has a few MB of data (pictures, translations) but overall it's a good idea, has a small scope and as an abstraction it is quite well sealed off.


 * https://help.gnome.org/users/zenity/stable/

tcl/tk
GUI.


 * https://www.tcl.tk/

netbsd ncurses
Build time (make -j2): ncurses: 59 sec,  netbsd-ncurses: 9 sec


 * https://github.com/sabotage-linux/netbsd-curses

termbox
WARNING: uses waf build system (bad). You can just compile it by hand.

Even more basic than ncurses.


 * https://github.com/nsf/termbox

linenoise
Asks the question: "Can a line editing library be 20k lines of code?". Why yes it can..


 * https://github.com/antirez/linenoise

qbe
"QBE aims to be a pure C embeddable backend that provides 70% of the performance of advanced compilers in 10% of the code. Its small size serves both its aspirations of correctness and our ability to understand, fix, and improve it. It also serves its users by providing trivial integration and great flexibility."


 * http://c9x.me/compile/
 * related: http://wiki.qemu.org/Documentation/TCG

coredump
A simple ELF core file backtrace viewer (my gdb replacement).


 * http://litcave.rudi.ir/coredump.tar.gz

slibtool
`slibtool` is designed to be a clean, fast, easy-to-use libtool drop-in replacement for GNU libtool.


 * http://git.midipix.org/cgit.cgi/slibtool/

V
Ideas to take the complexity of version control down almost as far as possible.


 * http://cascadianhacker.com/blog/2016/02/07_v-tronics-101-a-gentle-introduction-to-the-most-serene-republic-of-bitcoins-cryptographically-backed-version-control-system.html
 * http://archive.is/1zGfH

re2
Regex engine library


 * https://github.com/google/re2
 * https://swtch.com/~rsc/regexp/regexp3.html

minix3
Minix was rebooted when Tenenbaum realized modern software was getting too bloated.


 * http://www.minix3.org/
 * The Design of a Reliable and Secure Operating System by Andrew Tanenbaum - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oS4UWgHtRDw

mujs
Why? Because V8, SpiderMonkey and JavaScriptCore are all too big and complex. MuJS's focus is on small size, correctness and simplicity.


 * http://mujs.com/

Geomyidae
Geomyidae is a daemon for serving the Gopher protocol. It is based on my gopherd for Plan 9.


 * http://www.r-36.net/src/geomyidae/

TinyCoreLinux
TinyCore becomes simply an example of what the Core Project can produce, an 16MB FLTK/FLWM desktop.


 * http://tinycorelinux.net/

recutils
Plain text record/database thing.


 * https://www.gnu.org/software/recutils/