Bonum Certa Men Certa

Why We're Called Techrights

Animal Rights Protest



Summary: Why we renamed to "Techrights" more than a decade ago and who made the suggestion/s

THE name Techrights came as a suggestion from Tracy, our Web host at the time, in 2010. He spent some time searching available domains when Novell had become obsolete (to be sold imminently), so the site's identity needed to evolve accordingly. We considered doing so a lot sooner, but in IRC some people insisted that we should not leave Novell alone until the mission was accomplished. The site's byline was a suggestion from Richard Stallman. He borrowed that from a publication of Jehovah's Witnesses. He liked the word "sentry"; he still reads the site and apparently Linus Torvalds as well (sometimes).

"The site's byline was a suggestion from Richard Stallman."The site was vastly smaller 10 years ago. Depending on what's being measured, it was about 5 times smaller (number of pages) and the readership was also a lot smaller (but not small). One of the things we're happy to say and take pride in is that decisions were often made within the community (longtime contributors) and involved some open consultation. We're also happy to say we have a perfect source protection record (nothing to brag about as much as to assure future sources). Being a very technical bunch, it comes almost naturally; the same cannot be said about the average lawyer or journalist. They don't even use basic encryption and they extensively use this thing they call "smartphone" (surveillance equipment that can also make phonecalls... but rarely does).

Women Are Persons!Looking back at the whole thing, it's good that the word "rights" was chosen. Some people think it's a lot more meaningful than "freedom" because the word got distorted over time (like corporate deregulation). Stallman insisted to me that the "F" word would be more useful, but it was already too late to change. The term "rights" is associated with law (universally enforceable sometimes) and with principles such as "human rights", "animal rights", "women's rights" and so on. The term "open" is so broad that it is slated for abuse and "free" has the issue of ambiguity (other than just "zero cost"). So we never really regretted the choice of name. "Tech" is a broad enough term, applicable both to hardware and software (even networking), so we can swiftly navigate from one topic to another (without drifting too far astray from the overarching umbrella/title). Sites must focus not only on important issues (of the time; timing matters, too) but also topics that they understand very well; otherwise they risk ending up making lots of errors, then framed as a non-factual chaotic mess (mainstream media is full of that).

"More Open Than Open [...] I am constantly amazed at the flexibility of this single word.”

--Microsoft's Jason Matusow

Recent Techrights' Posts

Attacks on Techrights Are Only Making Techrights Bigger and Even More Popular
A week ago they offered to settle with us
 
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Our Sites Continue to Improve
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The EPO's Staff Engagement Survey 2025 is Already Tainted by Intimidation by EPO Management (Trying to Influence Outcomes by Scaring Genuine, Honest Critics)
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[Teaser] Angel Aledo Lopez the Manipulator (Nepotism, Poll Rigging, and Other EPO Corruption)
We'll discuss this later today or tomorrow, based on internal EPO material
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Transparency: FSFE financial reports exclude speaker fees and expenses
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
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Slopwatch: UbuntuPIT, LinuxSecurity, Google News, and the Serial Slopper Brian Fagioli
Nothing of merit here, just more slop
Links 14/10/2025: Lack of Trust in Slop and "Retirement Challenges"
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EPO Staff Can Go Listen to Richard Stallman Next Week in Munich (Technical University of Munich, Rudolf-Diesel Hörsaal (MW2001) on Campus Garching at 18:00)
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Rhonda D'Vine, Gerfried Fuchs, Pronouns & Debian pregnancy cluster
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
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Links 14/10/2025: Microsoft OneDrive Scanning Faces in Photos (Without Asking First), "OpenAI Says It Will Move to Allow Smut"
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Dystopian Trends in Technology Make Richard Stallman More Relevant Than Ever
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Belated New Article About Last Thursday's Lecture by Richard Stallman in Helsinki, Finland
there are good reasons to pay with cash, not limited to privacy
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Yesterday's "Distinguished Lecture" by Richard Stallman Possibly Attended by Close to 1,000 People
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Slop Poisons Everything
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Taking Software Freedom 'Mainstream'
interest in Software Freedom must have grown
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IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 13, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, October 13, 2025
Gemini Links 14/10/2025: Ada Lovelace Day, Sony CLIE PEG-TG50 Review, Why to Avoid Network Solutions
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Richard Stallman (RMS) Announced His Talk Less Than 24 Hours Before It Took Place and Still Filled Up the Auditorium at Sapienza Università di Roma
Photos from yesterday evening [...] It looks like it was a very successful event