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Techrights IRC Software, Free (Libre) Software, and Software Perspective

Summary: Our adherence to Free and Open Source software is not enough for triumph in the long fight for digital rights, fair competition, etc.

As a little bit of background, when I had turned 21 and started my Ph.D. I found myself surrounded by archaic digital systems which impeded access to valuable human knowledge. They were designed this way. I also found navigation therein cumbersome enough to reduce or eliminate reuse of knowledge. I am familiar with all the principal arguments for Open Access, so I do share everything that I create, be it software or text or graphics.



Paywalls and registration are barriers because they limit the audience based on financial status and eliminate anonymous reading, respectively. It is quite unjust and it is no coincidence. Profit and control (power over the reader) take priority over what scientists typically want, which is maximal dissemination of their work. This contributes to influence.

Ever since I began getting active, a lot of systems have gotten more malicious in the sense that they increase tracking, put people's data outside their own control (Fog Computing), and even take software -- including binaries -- away from the users. This make such systems ripe for abuse and we constantly see reports of abuses, ranging from spying, selling of personal data, and addition of malicious features through software updates one cannot decline (programs are stored on servers). This affects everyone who uses the Web, e.g. to pay bills, so often enough no choice on the matter is even given. We are losing a fight for control over our computing.

Increasingly, paying or non-paying customers become the product, whereas real clients become those who want to control us (nosy oppressive governments, marketing companies that want to sell us stuff we neither need nor naturally want, and financial firms which assess risk based on our private lives, e.g. health condition).

Free software is not enough to fight away this trend, but it sure can help. These are the sorts of issues that fall under the umbrella of tech or digital rights. We, 'mere mortals', are losing power as corporations (superorganisms) gain power. They have architecture-wise instated a system and perfected instruments like patents (enforced by the system) to further limit people's ability to compete. To give an example, Novell signed a patent deal by which it uses its patents to claim 'safe' ownership of software that many people created for free, rendering these people 'infingers'. That was just seriously outrageous. It needed to be countered and Novell is no more.

Techrights uses various bits of Free software to serve web pages. Our IRC channls have become more than the typical type of thing. Free software improves the experience in the sense that it adds live updates.

Twitfolk for identi.ca, once developed here in the UK (at a company with a few people I know), helps syndicate blogs in real time.

Tony Manco from Canada wrote a bot which helps manage our IRC channels and Toby, who lives near Tony, improved it to further suit our needs.

There is also offline software. For the past four and a half years, for example, we have used the same Python program to produce thousands of IRC logs. My wife and I plan to add some more features to it and then release that as Free software. It's work in progress.

It is fun to write about Free software and especially fun releasing new software at the same time. Everything in the site is done using Free software. Most posts are written in Android, too (since a couple of months ago).

Some people still ask, what are the site's goals? Well, in general, given enough time the scope would have included privacy, net neutrality, copyright etc. (part of our tech rights, which help preserve or advance human rights) but we just post timely links about those subjects (daily links) without further commentary, while primarily focusing on patents, competition barriers, and sometimes censorship if it relates to proprietary software rather than politics. Techrights was never entirely focused on Free software, not because it's not important but because it's part of a broader picture which includes open data, access, networks, etc. Competition (if fair) and collaboration drive innovation; protectionism like patents is a barrier. Actually, we increasingly find that -- particularly in the smartphones market -- companies collude, which is another form or typical phenomenon where competition is being subverted. It does not deal with the licences of software (FOSS or proprietary) although GPLv3 helps address some issues. Linux is not enough and Free software is not enough either. Companies that use both, e.g. IBM, are part of the problem and Google goes down a similar route because it hired patent lawyers who push in this direction. We have explained how the interests of lawyers often supersede those of developers whom they claim to 'protect'.

Techrights in colour

Recent Techrights' Posts

Pushers of systemd Rewrite History (Richard Stallman Said UNIX "Was Portable and Seemed Fairly Clean")
Unlike systemd
Trajectory of The Register: From News Site/s Into "B2B"... and Into Microsoft Salespeople
Something isn't right at The Register
Doing My Share to Tackle Online Slop and SPAM
Trying my best to 'fix' the Web
 
Links 27/07/2025: FSF Hackathon and "Hulk Hogan Was a Very Bad Man"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 27/07/2025: DAW Mixer Chains and Simple Software
Links for the day
The Register MS is Inventing or Giving Air Time to New Conspiracy Theories so as to Distort the Narrative As High-Profile Agencies Fall Prey to Microsoft Holes
But the problem is holes, i.e. Microsoft making bad products; the problem is Microsoft
When You Tell You It's Free, Does That Mean No Charges (If So, Who's Paying and Why)?
there's "no free lunch"
Most Editors at The Register Are American, Including the Editor in Chief, a Decade-Long Microsoft Stenographer (Writing Prose to Sell Microsoft)
It's not easy to tell where the site is based (we tried) because it's hiding behind ClownFlare and CrimeFlare hasn't been well lately
"New Techrights" Soon Turns 2 (A Few Days Before the FSF Turns 40)
We have a lot more to say about LLM bots
When Silence Says So Much
Garrett, a 'secure' boot pusher, will need to defend himself in the UK High Court
The Register in Trouble
There is not much that can be done at this point
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, July 26, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, July 26, 2025
Misinformation in Social Control Media
Social control media passes around all sorts of tropes
Slopwatch: Fake Linux 'Articles' and Slopfarms With "Linux" in Their Names/Domains
throwing bots at "Linux" to make some fake articles
Links 26/07/2025: Amazon Shutdown in China, Russian Economy Slows
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/07/2025: History of Time (1988) and Gemini Games
Links for the day
Links 26/07/2025: 50 Percent Tariffs in Amazon, Dying Intel Offloads Network and Edge Group (NEX)
Links for the day
Blaming Programming Languages for Users' and Developers' Bad Practices
That's like blaming cars for drivers who crash into things
Slopwatch: Fakes, FUD, Duplicates, and Charlatans Galore
The Web as we once know it is collapsing. Some opportunists try to replace it with low-quality slop.
The Register UK Seems to Have Become American and Management is Changing (Microsofter as Editor in Chief)
The Register 'UK' is now controlled by the Directions on Microsoft guy
Many People Still Read Techrights Because It Says the Truth, Produces Evidence, and Does Not Self-Censor
Unlike so many other sites
The Register is Desperate for Money, According to The Register
I decided to check how they're doing as a business
Microsoft Finally Finds a Use Case for Slop?
Create low-quality chaff to shift the media's attention?
Microsoft Windows Lost 400 Million Users in a Few Years, Why Does The Register Double Down on Windows With New US Editor?
days ago they hired a new US editor
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, July 25, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, July 25, 2025
For Libel Reform One Must First Bring (or Raise) Awareness to the Issues and Their Magnitude
I myself know, from personal experience
Links 26/07/2025: Rationed Meals in the US and TikTok Repels Investments (Too Toxic)
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/07/2025: "Bloody Google" and New People in Geminispace
Links for the day
Response to Solderpunk (Father of Gemini Protocol) About the Gemini Community
Solderpunk responds to non-sequitur
HTML and the Web Used to be Something a Child Could Learn, "Modern" Web is a Puzzle of Frameworks, Bloat, and Worse
When the Web was more like Gemini Protocol
New US Editor in The Register is 84% Microsoft/Windows Booster
It'll be worrying if it carries on like this
Links 25/07/2025: Slop Blunders and China Has Code of Conduct for Lawmakers in HK
Links for the day
Gemini Links 25/07/2025: Some Books and Babies and Capital
Links for the day
Links 25/07/2025: NOAA Cuts Endanger Lives, "Europe's Self Inflicted Cloud Crisis"
Links for the day
They Try to Lecture Us on Ethics
They even removed "master" from Microsoft GitHub
The Future of the Web is One Rendering Engine or 'Flavours' of Chrome
The future of the Web does not look bright at all
Best Sites Are Not Optimised for Any Browser, They Work Equally Well With All of Them
Red Hat (IBM) is making rubbish sites
YouTube is a Spamfarm, Slopfarm, and Clickfarm (a Lot of Numbers There Are Fake)
Those who don't fake look unpopular and unimportant
We Don't Do JavaScript and Pages Are Small
Thankfully Gemini Protocol has nothing like JavaScript
'Tech' is Not Technology
Some people use terms like 'Old Tech'
IBM's Debt Rose by Almost 10 Billion Dollars in the Past 6 Months Alone
The "hey hi" circus is coming to an end
Yes, Master
Gaslighting by actual racists
Microsoft Bribes and Buys Politicians to Tell Europe What to Do About Free Software (Which It's Attacking)
Microsoft: we speak for the thing that we are attacking! Follow the money...
Making Backups Quickly and Reliably
Backups are imperative, more so in an age of uncertainty, unpredictable weather, and worsening standards (quality of products going down while prices go up)
Techrights Investigation: Estimating the Point in Time LinuxIac Turned Into LLM Slop (Part of the Time)
Bobby Borisov got lazy
10th Month, Ten Weeks From Now, at Ten AM
In Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, July 24, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, July 24, 2025
A Nadella Memo Distracts From Microsoft's Cheapening Of the Workforce
Right now the "MSM" (mainstream media) is flooded/overwhelmed by garbage pieces that relay lies for Nadella
Vanishing Faces of GNU/Linux
Free software projects do not depend on any one person or company to still exist
Microsoft Says It Lost 400 Million Windows Users, Now It's Waiting for GNU/Linux to Stop Booting on 'Old' PCs
When it comes to Windows, Microsoft is fully aware of the issue and statements it made earlier this summer suggest it lost 400 million Windows users
Slopwatch: LinuxTechLab, linuxsecurity.com, LinuxIac, and More
Also: The Register's Microsoft agenda (new editor)
Gemini Links 25/07/2025: Gemtext Aware Titan Editor and Gemini Protocol Comeback
Links for the day