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TechBytes Episode 75: On TechBytes, Techrights, and Site News

Techbytes 2012
Direct download as Ogg (00:26:03, 10.5 MB)



Summary: The 75th episode of this nearly two year old show

This short episode speaks about the "Ogg only" policy we've adopted after suggestions from Richard Stallman (MP3 is a patent problem). I explain that Techrights came into existence/need because of the first software patents deal against GNU/Linux, namely the Microsoft-Novell deal of 2006 (5 years later Microsoft reaffirmed this relationship with SUSE) Ever since, Techrights has been collecting daily links and it regularly remarks on some. Any links needing extensive commentary on them (usually countering disinformation or responding to baseless attacks on Free software) turn into articles which are then researched on. As I explain in this recording, several blogs and even some domain names (with active sites) have been dedicated to just attacking Techrights, the messengers in particular. The reality is, behind the scenes there are transparent discussions with various well-regarded individuals, who, although they may not be publicly associating with the site and stand behind all of its messages, have been actively reading it and sharing links to it for years. Some translated articles and corresponding (manually produced) hard copies that were handed out to readers helped raise the issues and some made banners with the graphics for public protest, at times leaflets too, to raise awareness with.

When it comes to TechBytes, Tim is expected to be back soon. We were surprised by the quickly-gained popularity of thus audio show, which some people say they listen to in the car, at work, etc. We always recorded without scripting and always in one single take, essentially unedited. This one recording is no exception. At the end I added the track "You Do Run" by Cocktail Slippers.

We hope you will join us for future shows and consider subscribing to the show via the RSS feed. You can also visit our archives for past shows. If you have an Identi.ca account, consider subscribing to TechBytes in order to keep up to date.

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Keywords: TechBytes Techrights Ogg MP3

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Past shows in this series:



Show overviewShow title
Episode 66: Tim and RoyTechBytes Episode 66: First of the Second Series
Episode 67: Tim and RoyTechBytes Episode 67: Nokia Down, Android Up
Episode 68: RoyTechBytes Episode 68: Solo With Patents, Apple Bans, and Android World Domination
Episode 69: Roy and Richard StallmanTechBytes Episode 69: Richard Stallman on Restricted Boot (UEFI), Coreboot, GRUB, and Boot Freedom
Episode 70: Roy and Richard StallmanTechBytes Episode 70: Richard Stallman on How Browsers and Social Networking Sites Facilitate Surveillance
Episode 71: Roy and Richard StallmanTechBytes Episode 71: Richard Stallman on Surveillance, the NSA, and Mobile Phones
Episode 72: Roy and Richard StallmanTechBytes Episode 72: Richard Stallman on News Sources Bias, GPL.next Misinformation, and Software Patents
Episode 73: Roy and Richard StallmanTechBytes Episode 73: Richard Stallman on Corporate Secrecy and US Politics
Episode 74: Roy and Charles-H. SchulzTechBytes Episode 74: Charles-H. Schulz on ODF, OOXML, and LibreOffice


Recent Techrights' Posts

Microsoft's "valuation depends on infrastructure that does not exist."
Indeed
The Typical Trajectory: Datamation Began Experimenting With LLM Slop for Fake Articles. Then Datamation Died. (Last Month)
It's always ending up this way
Avoiding the Spooks (Nobody Watches the Watchers, They're Practically Unaccountable)
If more people adopt encryption, it'll be easier for us to deal with whistleblowers
Protecting Whistleblowers Requires Technical Knowledge/Skills
even the highest media judges aren't aware of how to protect sources
Report/Benchmark Says 'Vibe Coding' Results in Security Holes
There are risks they don't like talking about
Record Traffic in Geminispace or Over Gemini Protocol
it's never too late to join
The "Alicante Mafia" - Part III - Europe's Second-Largest Organisation on Strike, Protests, Other Industrial Actions to Come Impacting Over 95% of the Workforce
The EPO's management is highly evasive, weak, and vulnerable
The "Alicante Mafia" - Part II - Breakout of Discontent This Winter in Europe's Second-Largest Organisation
So far we've caused a lot of panic and stress inside Team Campinos
The "Alicante Mafia" - Part I - An Introduction to the Mafia Governing the EPO
Are some people 'evacuating' themselves to save face?
At Microsoft, "Firing People is a "Cheat Code" to Pump the Stock Short-term But They Are Literally Destroying the Company's Soul Long-term."
They frame layoffs as a "success story"
Google News Poisons Its Own Index With More Slopfarms (Including "filmogaz")
Naming and shaming lazy slobs who rip off other people using LLMs can work, eventually
 
Gemini Links 17/01/2026: Slow computing and Environment Leak
Links for the day
Links 17/01/2026: US Censorship and Violence Crisis, Growing Anger Levels Against Slop Sold as "Intelligence"
Links for the day
Accounts or Devices (e.g. Phones) That Get 'Burnt' Have Many Pitfalls
Embassies and consulates habitually fail at this
At Least 5 Women Quit Brett Wilson LLP in Recent Months. It's the Firm That Attacked My Wife and I on Behalf of Americans (One of Them Strangled Women).
It seems like good news that the women escape this workplace
Slop About Slop and Slop About "Linux"
In short, avoid slopfarms
EPO Abuses Covered in Spanish
Knowing what we know (and heard/saw), the sinister silence of the media is perceived by some to be complicity of the lower order.
Richard Stallman Encourages "ICE Out For Good" Protests, His Opponents Do Not (Passive and Uncaring About Human Rights)
He has done a lot philosophically, politically, and so on
Claim That IBM Marked 15% of its Workforce for Potential Layoffs
No wonder we keep hearing from Red Hat people who say they hate IBM
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, January 16, 2026
IRC logs for Friday, January 16, 2026
Great Reset at IBM, the Company That Pulps Red Hat
In 2026 many workers are RTO'ed, PIP'ed, and at Red Hat many have effectively 'left the company' and now start afresh as "IBM" staff
J.H.M. Ray Dassen & Debian, Red Hat, GNOME unexplained deaths
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 16/01/2026: "Porting My Main Website Over to Gemini" and Seeed Studio DevBoard
Links for the day
IBM Stacked and Ranked Badly, Maladministration Dooms the Company
Now they stack people up for PIPs and layoffs ("RAs")
Links 16/01/2026: UK Royal Family's "Legal Team Accused of Dishonesty, Fraud and Misconduct", OSI Still Controlled by Microsoft (the OSI's Spokesperson is on Microsoft's Payroll, Not Interim Executive Director, Deborah Bryant)
Links for the day
Writing About Corruption
Fraud is everywhere
The B in IBM is Brown-nosing and Buzzwords (or Both)
International Buzzwords Machines
Naming Culprits in Switzerland
Switzerland is highly secretive about white-collar crime
IBM's 'Scientific-Sounding' Tech-Porn Won't Help IBM Survive (or Be Bailed Out)
Who's next in the pipeline?
IBM Was Never the Good Guy
its original products were used for large-scale surveillance, not scientific endeavours
The Bluewashing is Making Red Hat Extinct (They All Become "IBM", Little by Little)
IBM does not care what's legal
Slopfarms Push Fake News About Microsoft Shutdown, 30,000+ Microsoft Layoffs Last Year Spun as Only "15,000"
The Web is seriously ill
Countries Take Action Against Social Control Media and 'Smart' 'Phones', Not Slop (Plagiarised Information Synthesis Systems or P.I.S.S.)
None of this is unprecedented except the scale and speed of sharing
Sanitised Plagiarism as "AI" (How Oligarchy Plots to Use Slop to Hide or Distract From Its Abuses, or Cause People Not to Trust Anything They See/Read Online)
This isn't innovation but repression
Sites That Expose Corruption Under Attack, Journalism Not Tolerated Anymore (the Super-Rich Abuse Their Wealth and Political Power)
Sometimes, albeit not always, the harder people try to hide something, the more effective and important it is for the general public
Recent Layoffs at Red Hat (2026 the Year of Ultimate Bluewashing)
I found it amusing that Red Hat's CEO has just chosen to wear all blue, as if to make a point
Links 16/01/2026: Social Control Media Curbs in Australia Underway, MElon Still Profiting by Sexualising Kids 'as a Service'
Links for the day
More People Nowadays Say "GNU/Linux"
We still see many distros and even journalists that say "GNU/Linux"
LLM Slop on the Web is Waning, But Linuxiac Has Become a Slopfarm
I gave Linuxiac a chance to deny this or explain this; Linuxiac did not
More Signs of Financial Troubles at Microsoft, Europe Puts Microsoft Under Investigation
The end of the library is part of the cuts
Team Campinos Talks About SAP Days Before EPO Industrial Actions and a Day Before the "Alicante Mafia" Series (About Team Campinos Doing Cocaine)
EPO staff that isn't morally feeble will insist on objecting to illegal instructions
Pedophilia-Enabling Microsoft Co-founder Cuts Staff
Compensating by sleeping with young girls does not make one younger
Microsoft Shuts Down Campus Library, Resorts to Storytelling About "AI" to Spin the Seriousness of It
Microsoft is in pain
Free Software Foundation (FSF) Back to Advertising the Talks of Richard Stallman
A pleasant surprise
Stack(ed) Rankings and Ongoing Layoffs at Red Hat and IBM (Failure to Keep Staff Acquired by IBM)
IBM is mismanaged and its sole aim is to game the stock market (by faking a lot of things)
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, January 15, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, January 15, 2026
Gemini Links 16/01/2026: House Flood and Pragmatic Retrocomputing Dogfooding
Links for the day
Links 15/01/2026: Starlink Weaponised for Regime Change (by Man Who Boasted About Annexing South American Countries for Tesla's Mining), Corruption in Switzerland Uncovered by JuristGate
Links for the day
Linuxiac May Have Reverted Back to LLM Slop (Updated Same Day)
Is he back off the wagon?
GAFAM and IBM Layoffs Outline
a lot of the layoffs happen in secrecy and involve convincing people to resign, retire, relocate etc.
Links 15/01/2026: Internet Blackouts, Jackboots Society in US
Links for the day
Coming Soon: Impact With EPO Cocainegate
Will Campinos survive 2026?
The Last 'Dilberts' or Some of the Last Salvaged (Comic Strips Which Disappeared Shortly After They Had Been Published)
Around the time the creator of Dilbert went silent he published some strips mocking TikTok and usage of it
The Creator of Git Probably Doesn't Know How to Install and Deploy Git
Nobody disputes this: Mr. Torvalds created Git
Slop is a Liability
Slopfarms too will become extinct because people aren't interested in them
GAFAM is a National and International Threat to Everybody
GAFAM is just a tentacle in service of imperialism
EPO People Power - Part XXXVI - In Conclusion and Taking Things Up Another Notch
They often say that the law won't deter or stop criminals because it's hard to enforce laws against people who reject the law
Running Techrights is Fun, Rewarding, and Gratifying
In Geminispace we are already quite dominant
Red Hat is Connected to the Military, Its Chief Comes From Military Family (From Both Sides)
The founder of Red Hat's parent company literally saluted Hitler himself (yes, a Nazi salute)
Don't Cry for Gaslighting Media in a Country Which Loathes the Press
my wife and I received threats for merely writing about Americans
Red Hat (IBM) is Driving Away Remaining Fedora Users
I've not used Fedora since Moonshine
Robert X. Cringely Has Already Explained IBM's Bullying Culture (Towards Its Own Staff)
IBM is a fairly nasty company
Proton Mail compromise, Hannah Natanson (Washington Post) police raid & Debian
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, January 14, 2026
IRC logs for Wednesday, January 14, 2026
Gemini Links 15/01/2026: "Ode to elinks", envs.net Pubnix and Downtime at geminiprotocol.net
Links for the day