Video download link | md5sum d488214a4471c581858278d3aa9513b6



Summary: Techrights turns 15 today; instead of cakes and balloons we focus on what was accomplished here and what we plan for the next 15 years (it's very plausible we'll last that long and even outlive the World Wide Web)

Techrights has its share of supporters, but it also has its share of detractors/opponents, who are sometimes (though not always) the people or corporations Techrights criticises. That's understandable. As the old adage goes, you cannot please everybody.

On the issue of free speech, following yesterday's post about Mastodon we published a longtime reader's response to it. It helps balance things somewhat.

"We think Techrights played a considerable role in the backlash against GitHub, including the removal of its CEO (the reasons will become more apparent in months to come)."Techrights started as a campaign to "Boycott Novell" (with uppercase/capital B) and boycotts are generally seen as a negative thing, even when they tackle very inherently negative things (such as pollution). So the site wasn't bound to win a "popularity contest"; it was a reaction to a combative collusion of Microsoft and Novell, seeking to basically destroy software freedom, mostly by weaponisation of software patents. The Microsoft-Novell plan-to-collude came about partly because of Miguel de Icaza, who later played a role in CodePlex and is now working directly (full-time) for Microsoft. He helps GitHub attack software freedom, but he seems to have a rift/disconnect with the outgoing CEO of GitHub. This and more would not be known if it wasn't for our tireless work. We think Techrights played a considerable role in the backlash against GitHub, including the removal of its CEO (the reasons will become more apparent in months to come).

Techrights can carry on for another 15 years and even outlive the Web. We expand in Geminispace (yesterday we added some Halloween Documents as well as The Cathedral and the Bazaar). ⬆