TechBytes Episode 16: Bribes for Reviews, GNU/Linux News, and Wikileaks Opinions

Show overview	Show title	Date recorded
Episode 1: Brandon from Fedora	TechBytes Episode 1: Apple, Microsoft, Bundling, and Fedora 14 (With Special Guest Brandon Lozza)	1/11/2010
Episode 2: No guests	TechBytes Episode 2: Ubuntu's One Way, Silverlight Goes Dark, and GNU Octave Discovered	7/11/2010
Episode 3: No guests	TechBytes Episode 3: Games, Wayland, Xfce, Restrictive Application Stores, and Office Suites	8/11/2010
Episode 4: No guests	TechBytes Episode 4: Fedora 14 Impressions, MPAA et al. Payday, and Emma Lee's Magic	9/11/2010
Episode 5: No guests	TechBytes Episode 5: Windows Loses to Linux in Phones, GNU/Linux Desktop Market Share Estimations, and Much More	12/11/2010
Episode 6: No guests	TechBytes Episode 6: KINect a Cheapo Gadget, Sharing Perceptually Criminalised, Fedora and Fusion 14 in Review	13/11/2010
Episode 7: No guests	TechBytes Episode 7: FUD From The Economist, New Releases, and Linux Eureka Moment at Netflix	14/11/2010
Episode 8: Gordon Sinclair on Linux Mint	TechBytes Episode 8: Linux Mint Special With Gordon Sinclair (ThistleWeb)	15/11/2010
Episode 9: Gordon Sinclair returns	TechBytes Episode 9: The Potentially Permanent Return of ThistleWeb	17/11/2010
Episode 10: Special show format	TechBytes Episode 10: Microsoft FUD and Dirty Tactics Against GNU/Linux	19/11/2010
Episode 11: Part 2 of special show	TechBytes Episode 11: Microsoft FUD and Dirty Tactics Against GNU/Linux - Part II	21/11/2010
Episode 12: Novell special	TechBytes Episode 12: Novell Sold for Microsoft Gains	23/11/2010
Episode 13: No guests	TechBytes Episode 13: Copyfight, Wikileaks, and Other Chat	28/11/2010
Episode 14: Patents special	TechBytes Episode 14: Software Patents in Phones, Android, and in General	29/11/2010
Episode 15: No guests	TechBytes Episode 15: Google Chrome OS, Windows Refund, and Side Topics Like Wikileaks	30/11/2010

GNU/Linux at 4% "Market Share" (Even According to Steam Survey): Another milestone
Ahead of Mass Layoffs Microsoft Tries to Rebrand or Redefine XBox (Because the XBox is Tentatively Dead): 2026 will be the last year of XBox in all likelihood
Richard Stallman (RMS) Announces His Georgia Talk 2.5 Weeks in Advance: A lot earlier than usual
Gemini Links 06/01/2026: Collective Responsibility, Pico2DVI, and TV Detox: Links for the day
Microsoft Loves Freedom, Democracy... and Linux? No, Microsoft Laying Off Because "Microsoft Loves Linux" Was Failed Posturing, Its Former Staff Moves to GNU/Linux: "What are the running totals for IBM and Microsoft layoffs?"
Mozilla's Assisted Suicide, Assisted by GNOME: Firefox is meant to get better all the time, but instead it gets worse
Links 06/01/2026: Neglect of the Elderly, Abandonment of International Laws: Links for the day
Links 06/01/2026: More Reports Point to Mass Layoffs at Microsoft (Later This Month), Greenland/Denmark Cautions the Dictator Who Illegally Invaded Venezuela: Links for the day
Internet Policy/Net Reality: You Must Never Ever Rely on Google (no "S.E.O." Either): Stack Overflow is dying
Dr. Andy Farnell on Technology That Harms People (and Lack of Regulation Which is Needed to Address This Problem): Dr. Farnell's article is long but well worth reading
GNU/Linux Rising to 5% in Cameroon and It's Hardly the Exception: "AI" is just a smokescreen as losses pile up
Rumours: Microsoft to Lay Off 12,500-25,000 Workers Soon (Tentatively Wednesday, 15 Days From Now): "Layoffs are coming third full week of Jan. Likely 21st but these things can move around a bit based on last minute developments."
EPO People Power - Part XXVI - European Media Has Become Part of the Problem: it is as clear as daylight that Cocainegate is real
IBM 2026 "Organizational Change/s" Means Layoffs Resume Soon, Some Claim "Forever Layoffs.": It's about "narrative control"
Microsoft Layoffs in January 2026: Get ready
Google Still Boosting Slopfarms: Slopfarms will probably all perish as soon as Google News quits sending them visitors
Links 06/01/2026: Cryptocurrency Scam Emails and Greenland's Fear of Getting 'Venezuelad': Links for the day
Links 06/01/2026: DIY Projects and Inertial Music: Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...: GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, January 05, 2026: IRC logs for Monday, January 05, 2026
To The Register MS, ARM Means Microsoft Windows (Follow the Money): the Free software community can campaign and run sites (like the one below), but it cannot afford to bribe so-called 'news' sites like Microsoft and its OEMs do
IBM's CEO Makes No Sense: "IBM CEO Aravind Krishna on what’s really driving tech layoffs"
Links 05/01/2026: Tensions in Korea, Ukrainians See "Double Standard" in a US Russia-Style Invasion: Links for the day
Gemini Links 05/01/2026: Farewell to CBS Reality, Being On-Call, Digital Ad Spendings: Links for the day
Remember That Nobel Prizes Are All Named After the Inventor of Explosives (Even a "Nobel Prize for Peace"): These rewards are only as valuable as the reputation they earn for themselves
Baidu and Yandex Have Overtaken Microsoft in Asia: how about all the Bing layoffs?
Googlebombing for Bill Epsteingate: Maybe the slopfarms too can help him cover up
Of Course GNU/Linux Has Reached All-Time High in Africa in 2026: Africa will, on average, gravitate towards Free software or whatever costs less
From GNU/Linux Boosting to Slop-Boosting Career: It is sad to see someone who devoted many years of his life producing GNU/Linux stories stooping down to this "AI" boot-licking
IBM Buys, Then Disposes/Sacks, the Staff (That It Paid For): Any money gained is spent buying some more companies to add/join up their revenue, even if the debt surges and there's little integration going on (misfits absorbed)
Time for Microsoft to Rebrand to Fit the Vapourware (Ponzi Scheme): something between Meta and Alphabet
Links 05/01/2026: Slop Ruining Children's Minds, "Complicity of the Press in US Violence": Links for the day
Microsoft's Windows Falls Below 20% in the UK: After a lot of years of advocacy and hard work
The Real GNU Anniversary (Not Manifesto or Announcement) is Today: the development, not the manifesto
GNU/Linux Usage Said to Have Doubled in Oceania: it's hard to discount or dismiss Oceania as a bunch of "coconut islands"
There's No Such Thing as "AI Godfather", Stop Repeating This Pure Nonsense!: Infantile or corruptible media that plays along with slop or uses slop will perish
Gemini Links 05/01/2026: "Poverty and Hunger", "Entrepreneurial Family", "Abandoning Obsidian for Logseq": Links for the day
Links 05/01/2026: A Shrinking Canadian Economy, Brigitte Bardot's Environmentalism Recalled, Unredacted Epstein Files: Links for the day
Microsoft Allegedly Uses Performance Improvement Plans (PIPs) to Hide the Massive Scale of Company-Wide Layoffs: Just like IBM; they meanwhile talk a bunch of nonsense about "AI" to distract from their commercial calamity
Battles Are Won in the Court of Public Opinion: Many "systems" rely on the mere perception or appearance of legitimacy
No, Writing Isn't in Decline, Some of the Large and Centralised Platforms Are: Slop isn't really competition, just a passing fad and pure noise
GNU/Linux Share in Mongolia More Than Doubles: they probably lack any genuine excitement for "hey hi PCs"
Whistleblowing is About Understanding Boundaries and Risks: The bottom line is, people typically find out the truth at the end
EPO People Power - Part XXV - While EPO Managers Snort Cocaine the Staff Compiles 'Insurance Files' to Expose EPO Corruption: In this increasingly authoritarian world we need more whistleblowers
"The European Patent Reform" That Represents a Gross Violation of Laws, Constitutions, and Conventions (in Order to Make the Rich Even Richer, Mostly Outside Europe): How far and how long will EPO corruption go?
The Reputation Issue Is Not Our Fault: Trying to squash words (and people) merely diverts more attention to them
GNU/Linux Distribution "Ultimate Edition" Fixes Its Web Site (Apparently Compromised Months Ago): they dealt with the issue before media shame and a catastrophe of trust
Over at Tux Machines...: GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, January 04, 2026: IRC logs for Sunday, January 04, 2026
Gemini Links 04/01/2026: 64-bit Addressing and 39th Chaos Communication Congress: Links for the day
Windows Was Always the Punchline: What did we count to calculate taxes?
GNU/Linux Surges to About 4% in Peru This Year: one of the poorest counties in America
This Year Our Adoption of IRC Turns 18: We have used IRC for this site since 2008
The Doors Are Closing, Windows Closing Too: Microsoft wants more vendor lock-in, but at risk that this desire will simply alienate and drive away many users
The FSF's Program Manager, Dr. Miriam Sabrina Bastian, Left in October to Lead Climate School: We are not sure why Miriam Bastian decided to leave the Free Software Foundation (FSF)
Outline of Slop, LLMs, IBM, and Things to Come: This coming week and weekend will be very productive irrespective of how much "news" gets published by other sites
Links 04/01/2026: War Without Borders, "Large Hadron Collider Being Shut Down": Links for the day
Links 04/01/2026: US Imperialism in Greenland and Venezuela, "Climate Protesters Face Greater Risk of Crackdown Amid Rising Authoritarianism": Links for the day
2026 Should be the Year We All Stop Saying "AI" and Call Things What They Really Are: Don't give anyone the satisfaction of this misguided belief there's any intelligence there
Ponzi Schemes Are Useful (to Corrupt CEOs): Pathetic, corruptible so-called 'media' is bagging bribes to perpetuate the lies about "AI" (slop)
GNU/Linux at All-Time High in Algeria: In 2026 it hit a new all-time high
Online Mobbing (and Worse) Disguised as 'Free Speech': People who say they believe in "free speech" have been trying hard to silence RMS and squash the FSF
A 'Cancer That Attaches Itself' to Bulgaria?: "Cancer" is what Microsoft called GNU/Linux
Over at Tux Machines...: GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, January 03, 2026: IRC logs for Saturday, January 03, 2026
Body-Shaming Using Fakes: a lot of the people who casually claim "defamation" are themselves defaming loads of people every day
GNU/Linux "Market Share" in Switzerland More Than Doubled Last Year, Based on statCounter: GNU/Linux continues its considerable growth
EPO People Power - Part XXIV - Today or Tomorrow You Should Write to National Representatives (Delegates) at the EPO in Your Country: Keep up the pressure!
Red Hat and IBM Layoffs, Staff Kept Quiet About it, WARN Act Skirted/WARN Notices Avoided: What a terrible company to be in
XBox Layoffs Imminent, More Appalling Sales Figures Published: Expect many layoffs in the gaming division

TechBytes Episode 16: Bribes for Reviews, GNU/Linux News, and Wikileaks Opinions

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