Bonum Certa Men Certa

Signal Versus Noise

Signal:

Sadler, Battle of Waterloo



Gossip/noise:

William and Kate wedding



Summary: Why Techrights looks at the issues and not the gossip, despite the popularity of the latter

Back in the days of massive growth, some time around 2009, Techrights posted a lot of site news -- news which is different in nature from real news that matters. The reason was, the site came under many attacks (not just DDOS) and these attacks needed to be documented and explained for the benefit of others who came under similar attacks. The downside of such posts is that they reduce the signal of the site and therefore they serve those who sought to disrupt the site, In 2010 we posted at a very good pace and covered a lot of areas that needed to be covered.



At this point, having covered so many areas, themes, and different types of spin, there is a good gathering of detailed posts (clustered together) to rebut a lot of the false claims made repeatedly by proprietary software giants. There is usually a link or even a dozen that can be attached to bits of news that are hostile towards GNU/Linux. In order to reduce repetition, we no longer cover some important issues that are somewhat of a deja vu. Instead, sometimes these are added to Daily Links. Concision has its merits*.

In many similar debates, either in IT or totally outside of it, the same situation occurs. Basically, people whose advocacy involves a certain message (or set of related messages) sooner or later realise that there is a lot or repetition and most ground has already been covered. It can be addressed by citation. In fact, even repetition of complete sentences might do. Longtime followers get bored by this however.

Earlier this year we covered a lot of Microsoft news. That was in January. It was a bit of an experiment really, an attempt to see how much Microsoft news there really is if it's accumulated from a 2.5 months timespan. It was concluded from this two-week experiment that we will be better off covering just new types of stories and not seek more evidence justifying what was already demonstrated thoroughly over the years, it is simply not the ideal use of time.

In order to increase the signal in this site and also to decrease noise (off-topic discussions for example) which embodies repetition we are going to concentrate on the patent issue and also address other threats to software freedom, whoever the offender or victim may be. Despite the shift to multimedia (more audio and video soon). the number of pageviews increased a lot recently, which is an encouraging sign. The IRC channels too have been thriving, ensuring the long-term operation of the site (not just in maintenance mode). We are pleased to have people like Gordon on board. He helps edit some posts, We also have translators.

Wish us luck as we go back to signal. Have a great weekend, everyone! ____ * Uniqueness too. Other sites might prefer to just print every word from Torvalds' mouth and merely repeat claims that were made in other articles. Here we are willing to acknowledge that software patents, for example, do not receive the backlash they deserve in the corporate press (which belongs to copyright maximalists and thus the same interests/status quo).

Recent Techrights' Posts

Links 28/08/2025: Chatbots Distorting/Fabricating History and Also Driving Suicide
Links for the day
Open Source Initiative (OSI) Resists Software Freedom, Even by Attacking Its Own
The OSI is compromised
 
Richard Stallman (RMS) Talk in Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress Will be Remote
This past week RMS received lots of accolades online
The Register MS (Run by Microsoft Operatives): Free Software is Putin, Hence Evil and Dangerous
The current editor in chief is an American Microsofter, the previous one went to work for Google (US)
Gemini Links 28/08/2025: Back in Japan and Why "Hacker News" Sucks
Links for the day
A Much-Needed Wake-up Call to Users of Wordpress.com, Blogspot, Substack and All Those Other Outsourced (and Centralised) Platforms
There are several lessons in there
The UEFI 9/11 - Part II - Campaign of Censorship and Defamation Against Critics
In dictatorships, humour serves an important role. It's tragic.
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, August 27, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, August 27, 2025
Slopwatch: linuxsecurity.com, Slopfarms in Google News, and More
Some readers of ours end up sending us links that are from slopfarms, not realising those are slopfarms
Gemini Links 27/08/2025: Katrina Memories and Google Versus Software Freedom
Links for the day
Links 27/08/2025: Police Against Media Freedom in the UK, Energy-Hungry Countries Targeted by China
Links for the day
Microsoft Windows Fell to All-Time Lows in Egypt This Summer, Vista 11 Adoption Decreases While GNU/Linux Increases
Vista 11 is going down rather than up
Links 27/08/2025: Microsoft Demoralises Staff With Slop Demands, Leaving Mastodon Explained
Links for the day
12 Hours Ago The Register MS Published a Fake (Paid-for) Article, But This One for a Change Did Not Promote a Ponzi Scheme
There are also Free software alternatives, but they don't pay The Register MS for "synthetic" so-called 'journalism'
More People Need to Call Out and Put a Stop to Serial Sloppers
Unless slopfarms are stopped, people will read and share Microsoft propaganda made by chatbots
Gemini Links 27/08/2025: Headphones and Tartarus
Links for the day
Morale at Microsoft is Terrible (Proprietary Plagiarism Machines Have No Future, LLM Slop is a Bubble)
The slop sceptics/critics are going to have lots of "told you so" moments
GNOME "governance issues, staff reduction, etc." amidst Albanian whistleblowing and women trafficking
Notice the connection to Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) and GNOME
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, August 26, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, August 26, 2025
Richard Stallman (RMS) Was Right About "Sideloading" in 1996
We now have computers that treat booting GNU/Linux like an act of "Sideloading"
Panama: Windows Down From 97% "Market Share" to Less Than 30%
In 2009, Windows was measured at 97.24% (compared to 62.32% right now or less than 30% if one also counts Android)
The UEFI 9/11 - Part I - Introduction to Impending Catastrophe (Microsoft Preventing People From Booting Non-Windows Systems)
eight-part series
Why Techrights is Slow Today (Bot Floods)
We don't know if those bots are connected to LLMs (we have not checked), but that is a possibility
Slopwatch: DDoS Slop, LinuxBSDos.com Spam, and Slopfarms in Google News, Including webpronews.com
Among the news we also found fakes, albeit not so much today
Links 26/08/2025: "Ballooning Debt" in France and "Transnational Repression in the UK"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/08/2025: Listening to Alcest and Google Doing Evil (Users Installing Software is "Sideloading" and Prohibited)
Links for the day
Links 26/08/2025: DNS Tampering and TikTok Layoffs
Links for the day
Microsoft's Windows "Market Share" Overestimated
Microsoft's income sources are shrinking
We Shall See...
My wife and I are hardly the first victims of Brett Wilson LLP
This New Determination on a Case Echoes the Modus Operandi of Microsoft's Serial Strangler vs Techrights (Its Online Decision/Judgment Says Truth and Public Interest Defend the Publisher)
Noel Anthony Clarke hopefully has enough money left to pay his victims, which include the publishers
Going Offline
There was life before the Net
The Register MS Has Apparently Shut Down Its Office
It is basically a fake address on the face of it
There Are Also Expectations of IBM Layoffs Very Soon With "Narrative Control."
Some of them mention Red Hat and how IBM failed to achieve anything substantial with that acquisition
After at Least Two Rounds of Mass Layoffs in August Microsoft Said to Have "September Layoff Confirmed - Performance Based"
Those "M5 level meetings" sound plausible
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, August 25, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, August 25, 2025