Bonum Certa Men Certa

Web Sites or News Sites Perish When Their Arguments Are Weak and/or Invalid

Yesterday: Bashing Free Software and GNU/Linux is a Terrible Business Model for Publishers

Checkpoint Charlie, Berlin
Check the facts, tell the truth



Summary: "Just be honest!" is a simple motto for any site; but some sites sell out in pursuit of money or grandiosity, unlike us (we turned 14.5 years old on Friday)

37.5 years ago a guy from MIT wrote about a "new Unix implementation". Aged 30 back then, he argued that "GNU will be a kernel plus all the utilities needed to write and run C programs: editor, shell, C compiler, linker, assembler, and a few other things. After this we will add a text formatter, a YACC, an Empire game, a spreadsheet, and hundreds of other things. We hope to supply, eventually, everything useful that normally comes with a Unix system, and anything else useful, including on-line and hardcopy documentation."



"Too many so-called 'news' sites have been reduced to lying/selling."This kind of very simple history isn't suiting the agenda of the deception (marketing) agency known as 'Linux' Foundation, so they'll be lying a lot more later this year. They even hired a man from Microsoft to take the lead in this campaign (as chief communicator). EPO examiners certainly value the concept of prior art and scientific history (objective reality), so maybe they can relate to this too. See, the technology giants basically bribe a lot of the press (they pass money as part of "sponsored content" or "advertising contracts"), so they basically shape or distort the narrative. Right about now António Campinos -- just like Benoît Battistelli before him -- wastes tens of millions of euros bombarding the media with EPO puff pieces. We can barely keep count/stock of it all (some isn't in English, either) and it serves to show what a lot of the media became. Those with the money control and own the 'story'. But we deserve better than this and we ought not expect the media to play along.

Radioactive cowsIn any event, here in Techrights we'll soon publish our 30,400th post and our audiocast resumed last week (it started 11 years ago). Since then the MP3 and Ogg versions have been accessed nearly 3,700 times (in less than a week), so it's fair to say people do care and we still have momentum/inertia. "Just be honest!"

Too many so-called 'news' sites have been reduced to lying/selling. Some perish shortly after that. It puts people off. Rightly so!

As per lookup.icann.org, our site exceeded 14.5 years in age (last Friday):

Created: 2006-11-07 14:21:12 UTC


Curiously enough, even though we started by focusing on software patents and patent issues (later European software patents as well), nowadays we cover a much broader range of topics. The important thing is, we aren't trying to sell anything. We're just being brutally honest and people evidently appreciate that. It also makes us an attractive target for corporate discretisation campaigns.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Freedom, Not Fame, is His Goal
pursuit of money can be not only tiring but also involve abandoning one's freedom
 
Links 08/09/2026: "The Green Revolution Has Failed Africa" and Palantir/Microsoft Harming NHS
Links for the day
Microsoft's Silent Layoffs Are the New Normal at Microsoft
Microsoft has a ton of layoffs all the time, but the media isn't mentioning those as no WARN notices get issued
SLAPP Censorship - Part 175 Out of 200: Implicit and Explicit Coalition Against the UK's SLAPP Industry
SRA recognises the problem
Further Transparency Problems at the EPO
The EPO was never meant to be profitable
Gemini Links 08/09/2026: "Everything Must Go", Announcing Perigee, and Presentations in a Browser
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, September 07, 2026
IRC logs for Monday, September 07, 2026
Alleged Manager at IBM Says "[t]here are likely to be a lot (and I meant, A LOT) of RAs before December."
"We’re getting pressure from above to put some team members on PIPs."
Links 07/09/2026: Amazon Cargo Plane Crash, .org/.net/.com Domains Considered Risky
Links for the day
Gemini Links 07/09/2026: Cheese, Text-based Life, and Icons in Swaybar
Links for the day
Links 07/09/2026: Slop Trashes Memory of Parton, Flock Surveillance Infuriates Everyone
Links for the day
Getting Better After 20 Years
Exactly two months from now this site is turning 20
EPO Hiding Cocainegate and Abandoning Transparency (Even Access to Very Basic Information is Denied)
The EPO isn't just becoming like a private for-profit corporation. It's also becoming more secretive.
Richard Stallman Has Resurrected Lost Updates
We didn't ask about it
SLAPP Censorship - Part 174 Out of 200: Cascading Scandals and a Path Towards Much-Needed, Long-Awaited Reform
Reform the UK's law, not "Reform UK"
EPO's Gema Requena Sempere (PD People) Contacted Regarding Children With Disabilities
In the coming week we may be in fruitful contact with some media regarding EPO scandals
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
Gemini Links 07/09/2026: Music Composition, Free Stuff, and Self-hosting Git Repos
Links for the day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, September 06, 2026
IRC logs for Sunday, September 06, 2026
People Who Enforce the GPL Banned From Linux Foundation Board (After Bribes From Prolific GPL Violators), Now They're Banned From Giving Talks at Events
about the "LF" ('Linux' Foundation)
Gemini Links 06/09/2026: The Slop Plagiarism 'Holy War' (Hype, Scam, Scheme), Burning CD-Rs, and Hardcopy Mono
Links for the day
Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Inaction and Incompetence - Part IV - Insufficient Resources in the Face of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) by Lawyers
it's about 120KG
OpenStreetMap is the Future, Dictatorship is the Past
OpenStreetMap helped us check maps for transport, various overlays with addresses, and there was 0% reliance on GAFAM or "Google" anything
Silent Layoffs, Cool-down, and Cool-off: How GAFAM and IBM Operate (the Law Doesn't Apply to Them)
Laws? What laws?
How Strikes at the European Patent Office Are Seen by Striking Staff in Berlin, Germany
We have some more EPO scandals to cover later this year and next year
Association for Computing Machinery Cites Techrights in Relation to GemText and Gemini Protocol
published yesterday, Open Access
Links 06/09/2026: More XBox Trouble (Microsoft Unrest, Many Silent Layoffs This Month), John Duffy as Next USPTO General Counsel
Links for the day
Gemini Links 06/09/2026: Avoiding 'Smart' 'Phones' and Setting up Gemini for the First Time
Links for the day
Links 06/09/2026: Sabotage by Slop and "What Happens If 'Open' 'AI' Dies?"
Links for the day
How Back Doors Became the 'Normal' or 'Norm'
"We also allowed a lethal monoculture to fester"
Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Inaction and Incompetence - Part III - The SRA is Vastly Worse Than Brits Realise, We Have a "Wild West" in London
In the next part we'll begin looking at correspondence with the SRA
SRA and Manslaughter: How the SRA Contributed to Agony in Proprietary Software Scandals With Clear Misuse of "Without Prejudice"
Trying to prevent the public from finding out the criminal stuff that went on, resulting in many deaths
Canonical (or Ubuntu) Rejecting IRC Isn't the Widespread Trend
Internet Relay Chat (IRC) adoption still growing by some yardsticks
SLAPP Censorship - Part 173 Out of 200: Two Years
It was exactly 2 years ago that we filed lawsuits against Garrett
Linux of America
We could not help but notice GNU/Linux in North America yesterday
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, September 05, 2026
IRC logs for Saturday, September 05, 2026
Gemini Links 06/09/2026: Internet Limiting (Limited Time Allotted) and Solar MiniServer
Links for the day
Eight Months of Strikes in EPO, Organised by the Staff Union (SUEPO) Also in Berlin
In Berlin, only one member of staff voted against the action plan