They Tell Us Free/Libre Software is a Security Threat (Never Mind Proprietary Back Doors), a Licensing Risk (Never Mind Proprietary EULAs) and So Forth...
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2020-06-08 13:10:21 UTC
- Modified: 2020-06-08 13:10:21 UTC
Myth versus reality (shame -- like the religious concept of so-called 'sin' -- is a social control mechanism)
Summary: The tired old myth of overt sexism in Free software (never mind the trends in Computer Science or STEM disciplines in general) overlooks the simple fact that there are even greater barriers in the proprietary software world; in Free software any woman can participate (without having to pass job interviews) and the same is true for security, which can be assured/verified by studying source code, with the same applying to licence compliance...
Recent Techrights' Posts
- Slop is Plagiarism
- Plagiarism is not "theft" and copyright infringement is not "piracy"
- EPO Union Bemoans Lack of Social Dialogue as Dictator Wishes to Govern Forever (No Elections, No Rivals), Hide the Many Issues
- "Exchange of open letters"
- IBM Cannot Hide the Layoffs Forever
- we welcome whistleblower to tell us more and send us documents related to that
- What is a Conditional Fee Agreement (CFA)? When Law Firms Become the Litigants.
- And the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) needs to be more serious about tackling this
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- The GNOME Foundation's Code of Conduct Has Been Misused to Hide Corruption
- People who value free speech and freedom of expression won't touch social control media with a 10-foot bargepole
- Voting for Freedom of the Press
- American elections happen every 4 years
- What Brett Wilson LLP and Matt Garrett Don't Want People to See/Read
- Book-burning is counterproductive
- Book-Burning Mindset Does Not Work
- It makes the suppressed voices more widely known
- Microsoft's XBox in 'Freefall'
- XBox is practically finished
- IBM is Almost Defunct
- IBM is doomed. It just tries to test how much more patience the shareholders have.
- Criminalisation of Journalism
- "Journalist Derya Okatan arrested in Turkey for allegedly possessing classified material"
- Brigading Against Women - Part XXI - Hiding Behind the Veil of "Privacy" After Telling Nazi Things in IRC Channels of Techrights and Physically Threatening People
- To merely explain an abuse (or crime) requires naming people; that's a fundamental tenet of reporting
- Links 07/10/2026: Quitting Smartphone and "Meta's Muse Is Spying on All Your Friends and Family"
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 07/10/2026: Greed, In Praise of Zotero, and The de-Google Path
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 06, 2026
- IRC logs for Tuesday, October 06, 2026
- Microsoft Hiring Only on the Cheap
- Much of the same can be said about GAFAM and IBM
- Gemini Links 06/10/2026: Nightfall Express, Shorthanding, and Raspberry Pi Desktop Gets a Debian Trixie Refresh
- Links for the day
- 20th Anniversary Next Month
- We are currently trying to agree on a plan for next month's celebrations
- Taking Photos With Richard Stallman (RMS)
- What's the point?
- GAFAM Attack on FreeDesktop
- Now they push lots of LLM slop into Linux
- GNU/Linux Has Risen in France Since the Order to Adopt GNU/Linux (in Public Services)
- We can expect the same in countries like Denmark, Switzerland, Germany, and The Netherlands
- On Microsoft Hiring Freeze or No Permanent Jobs at Microsoft Anymore (Amid Many Silent Layoffs)
- Microsoft has changed what it can offer workers
- EPO's Central Staff Committee Asking The Council to Get Rid of Corrupt Campinos
- We'll be covering EPO scandals around the time of that meeting
- Gemini Links 06/10/2026: EU Kids Act, Practicality of Gemini, and Games
- Links for the day
- Links 06/10/2026: Data Breaches Epidemic and Turkey Blocking Journalists
- Links for the day
- The Whole Point of Computing is That Computers Are Deterministic (Speed With Predictable Accuracy)
- Unlike stochastic parrots that stochastically utter out lies
- It's Not a Linux Back Door If It's an Unpatched Device
- "Linux Backdoor" is a glaring misfit, a possibly 'obscene' term
- Brigading Against Women - Part XX - Attempts by Lozza to Deplatform Techrights and Tux Machines Only Days After I Sued Garrett and My Wife Also Sued Garrett (Shortly Before the Serial Strangler From Microsoft Joined)
- in 2024
- Links 06/10/2026: A Year Since "NSA Whistleblower Reality Winner Released From Prison", World Tries to Deal With El Niño
- Links for the day
- "SIRIUS CORPORATION LIMITED" as Evidence of the Financial Shell Games in the UK
- Rianne and I still have some fond memories of the time the ex-wife of the CEO treated us like human beings
- Lots of Silent Layoffs at IBM Last Week, Employees Explain Patterns of Those Impacted
- It wasn't just gossip, it actually happened even if the media chose to look the other way (as usual)
- Gemini Links 06/10/2026: Fighting for Purpose, Gemlogs, and Gemtext
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 05, 2026
- IRC logs for Monday, October 05, 2026
- Red Hat is Phased Out of Existence This Month Onwards
- Within a few years we'll probably not see many redhat.com addresses anymore; many became ibm.* last week
- Finland's GNU/Linux Share Measured at 12%
- Last month GNU/Linux was measured at about 10% in Finland
- UK Layoffs and Closures by Microsoft. In Expected Blow, Microsoft Likely Shuts Down Another Studio.
- Microsoft's layoffs are never-ending, they just try to keep them all secret.
- NVIDIA Buys the Media With Companies It Sponsors to Pretend to be Customers (Circular Funding Scheme)
- The media crisis worsens
- Discussion About Potential Sale of EPO Buildings and Enshittification of Europe's Largest Patent Office
- It's noteworthy that only one hour (or 70 minutes) was devoted to so many topics
- Brigading Against Women - Part IXX - Overreaction From Young Female Professional After Invalid Threats Made and Sent From an Incel in Another Continent
- Cowards who send threats after committing crimes online
- Stonewalling by Bots
- We'll now turn our attention back to EPO and other matters
- Gemini Links 05/10/2026: "Posthumanism", Cardputer, and More
- Links for the day
- Links 05/10/2026: “I’m Embarrassed on Behalf of the Tech Industry” and Slop Scammers "Lobbying the Vatican"
- Links for the day
- SIRIUS OPEN SOURCE LTD Officially Insolvent, Is Reform UK Next?
- Sirius no more
- Links 05/10/2026: "Congress Must Investigate War Profiteers Once Again" and Update on Thomson Reuters v. Ross Intelligence
- Links for the day
- libera.chat is an Agenda-Peddling Platform Run by Agenda-Peddling Individuals
- The volunteers of libera.chat ("staff") aren't working for free, they work towards an agenda
- Nobel Season is Plutocracy Week
- Later this week the billionaires will give a fake "Nobel" (in "Economics") to someone who parrots their preferred narrative and those same billionaires will use "Nobel" to bless the promoter of their latest pyramid scheme/buzzword
- GNU/Linux Market Share in North America 13% This Past Weekend
- It is perhaps not shocking that adoption of GNU/Linux is very high there
- When Did Europe Begin to Side With White-Collar Criminals (or Participate in Suppressing People Who Oppose Them)?
- How much corruption can we tolerate before the European Union becomes another Russian Federation?
- Libera Chat's "Level of Control Might Make Sense for a Corporate Platform"
- IRC is not centralised
- Brigading Against Women - Part XVIII - Turning Censorship Attempts (Articles About Matthew Garrett) Into Mild Redactions
- What Lozza did two years ago
- Greenland Needs Digital Sovereignty
- the large icy island isn't moving to GNU/Linux as quickly as the rest of Europe
- Tracker of Internet Relay Chat Networks Out of Service (But Not Down) Since Thursday
- We should note that the number of unique networks they track has grown since we last checked
- Gemini Links 05/10/2026: NixOS, Guix, Codeberg Banning Slop, and "Gopher Apps on Android"
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 04, 2026
- IRC logs for Sunday, October 04, 2026
