Bonum Certa Men Certa

Walking Like the Talking, Acting Like One's Preaching

Video download link | md5sum 4c64f42ccf69df3647297de8bf1c9bbf The Second Half Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0



Summary: It has now been about 2 years since lock-downs in the world's Western nations were first loosened or lifted; we've thankfully taken advantage of all that commotion (persistent flux; we've not solved the underlying issues) to expand beyond and Web and become self-hosted wherever possible

JULY 4th is fast approaching and we've already finished the first day of the second half of the year. Time flies and a lot of the world is on fire (war, famine, disease, and inflation; somtimes literally fire). We've had a relatively calm year and have in fact become more active since the lock-downs. We expanded to IPFS in 2020, Gemini in early 2021, and we finally moved to a self-hosted IRC network a little more than a year ago.



"We're more censorship-resistant than ever before and we welcome whistleblowers..."The self-hosted IRC network is very important when dealing with whistleblowers. We moreover have a network for E2EE chats, not just textual but voice too. This equips us with what we need to break high-profile stories, including the current series about Microsoft, GitHub, and Copilot.

As someone put it moments ago in Geminispace*: "GitHub is enabling copyleft violation ✨at scale✨ with Copilot. GitHub Copilot encourages people to make derivative works of source code without complying with the original code’s license. This facilitates the creation of permissively-licensed [**] or proprietary derivatives of copyleft code. [...] Unfortunately, challenging Microsoft (GitHub’s parent company) in court is a bad idea: their legal budget probably ensures their victory, and they likely already have a comprehensive defense planned. How can we determine Copilot’s legality on a level playing field? We can create legal precedent that they haven’t had a chance to study yet!"

We're more censorship-resistant than ever before and we welcome whistleblowers to tell us about stuff the media refuses to cover, including EPO corruption. _____ * This almost-real-time RSS syndication page shows the latest posts in Geminispace and it updates itself every 60 minutes. It's quite busy because there are thousands of capsules (that number continues to grow) and many pages are dynamic, e.g. local weather for UK geographies. ** The term "permissively-licensed" is misleading and it's often used by proprietary software companies looking to close/lock things down. They strive to hoard all the software. By using the positive connotation (akin to permission granted, suggestive of generosity) they want to encourage the practice and turn coders into unpaid volunteers, later to be pushed aside by those who exploit the work. The latter's preferred name is "non-reciprocal", e.g. they don't bind/compel a company like Apple to give back to those it took from. Copyleft a la *GPL is reciprocal licence/licensing (facilitating an exchange and sharing of code in perpetuity), whereas the other licences typically get chosen to enable proprietary appropriation, "open" core etc. For obvious reasons, Microsoft is weaponising GitHub against reciprocal licensing and it's trying to make GPL compliance very difficult (same for GPL enforcement), as we've noted in this ongoing series.

Recent Techrights' Posts

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Slop and FUD are ruining the Web
Gemini Links 01/04/2025: Games and More
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Why We're Reporting Brett Wilson LLP for Apparently Misusing Their Licence to Protect American Microsofters Who Attack Women
For those who have not been keeping abreast
Stefano Maffulli and His Microsoft-Funded OSI Staff Are Killing the OSI and Killing "Open Source" (All for Money!)
This is far from over
Techrights Headlines as Semaphore
"If you are hearing this, thank you"
 
Gemini Protocol Has Growing Appeal (the Web Got Too Bloated and Full of LLM Slop)
For any "data plan" with bandwidth limits or "tiers" it would be cheaper to use/browse Geminispace
The Web Can Survive LLM Slop, But Only If We Collectively Shun and Discourage Serial Sloppers
Doing nothing ought not be a possibility
Amid Secret Shut-downs and Mass Layoffs at Microsoft (4 Waves of Layoffs in 3 Months of 2025) Some Microsoft Staff Expected to Go On Strike
workers going on strike
Gemini Links 02/04/2025: No more on Mastodon and Gemini Mention Script in Go
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Over at Tux Machines...
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My Motion Disbarring or “Striking Off” Brett Wilson LLP for Enabling Violent Americans Who Try to Crush Microsoft Critics in the United Kingdom by Multiple SLAPPs
"Guns for hire" (for Microsoft people who received Microsoft salaries)
Links 01/04/2025: Apple Fined $162M for Privacy Abuses, Disinformation Online a Growing Concern
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Newer Press Reports Confirm That Microsoft Shuts Down 'Hey Hi' (AI) Labs Despite All the Hype
The "hey hi" (AI) bubble is not sustainable
Links 01/04/2025: Mass Layoffs at Eidos and "Microsoft Pulls Back on Data Centers" (Demand Lacking); "Racist and Sexist" Slop From Microsoft
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Gemini Links 01/04/2025: XKCDpunk and worldclock.py
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50 Years of Sabotage and a Gut Punch to Computer Science (and Science in General)
Will we get back to science-based computing rather than cult-like following?
3 Months in 2025, 4 Waves of Mass Layoffs at Microsoft, Now Offices Shut Down Permanently
"A recent visit by the South China Morning Post confirmed that the office was dark, unoccupied, and had its logo removed."
Over at Tux Machines...
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Links 31/03/2025: China Tensions, Bombs Falling in Myanmar After Earthquake
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R.T.O. at IBM in Texas and Atlanta (State of Georgia) Expected as "Soft Layoffs" Catalyst This Coming Year
It also sounds like more IBM layoffs are in the making
Law Firms Can Also Lose Their Licence for Clearly Misusing It
The bottom line is, never made the false assumption that because you can pile up SLAPPs in a docket you will not suffer from bad reputation or even get disbarred
Link between institutional abuse, Swiss jurists, Debianism and FSFE
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
LLM Slop Piggybacking News About GNU/Linux and Distorting It
new examples
Links 31/03/2025: Press and Democracy Under Further Attacks in the US, Attitudes Towards Slop Sour
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Open Source Initiative (OSI) Privacy Fiasco in Detail: The OSI Does Not Respect Anybody's Privacy
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