Bonum Certa Men Certa

Cannot Trust Today's Phoronix

Video download link | md5sum 351cd6c997ce9414edca89226a9767b0 Phoronix is Not Independent Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0



Summary: Phoronix has a deepening "conflict of interest" problem; this means it cannot be relied upon for objective reviews anymore

THIS afternoon's quick post about Phoronix merited a more detailed explanation, which is better done first in a very detailed video and then in a more concise textual summary. It's not a bashing opportunity. It is hopefully balanced and fair. First of all, Phoronix has historically been a very credible and very important site. We wrote in its defense many times over the years.



"We need other sites, new sites in fact, that can properly inform us regarding hardware support in Linux."As financial strain increases (like soaring electricity costs which disproportionately affect people with a datacentre at home) the temptation to sell out feels like an actual need. Earlier this year, around the time of the Ukraine invasion (Michael Larabel proudly visited Ukraine back in the days), the sellout became too much for us to bear, so we stopped linking to Phoronix and issued this statement, albeit only after first reaching out to Larabel for clarification/explanation. Larabel did not elucidate matters until weeks later. Since then several other problematic things happened. Several of them are explained and even shown in the video above.

The bottom line is, Larabel and by extension Phoronix are compromised. No independence. The site is a 'slave' of companies whose products it's meant to review, assess, introduce, and even benchmark. The moment the trust is gone the traffic too should decrease. We need other sites, new sites in fact, that can properly inform us regarding hardware support in Linux. Phoronix isn't ignorant, but it just self-censors; there are financial conflicts.

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