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

New XBox Leaks Probably Serve to Confirm XBox's Collapse (Many More Layoffs)
It's very much consistent with what many other sites have reported lately
 
Slopwatch: Serial Sloppers, Google News Gifting Slopfarms, and Fake News/Plagiarism About "Linux"
Google itself is a slop pusher these days
Qualcomm, the New Owner of Arduino, Blasted for Its Software Patents Tax on 'Smartphones'
A lot of Qualcomm's patents are on software. We wrote about this in prior years.
XBox Layoffs Rumours, Downtime, and Criticism From XBox Co-Founder
"everyone is ditching the xbox."
Links 10/10/2025: Honoring The Legacy Of Robert Murray-Smith, Many Articles on the Hey Hi (AI) Bubble
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: October Gothic and Reading Middle Earth Role Playing; C and Ada
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 09, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 09, 2025
Links 09/10/2025: Farewell to Jane Goodall, California Bans Algorithmic Price-Fixing
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: Lost Wages and a Saga Of Continuing To Use Palm PDAs
Links for the day
Richard Stallman's Talk in Helsinki is Done. Tomorrow Göteborg.
There are scarce details in Finnish about Dr. Stallman's talk
The Slop Song
The train wreck marches on
LLM Slop/Advanced Plagiarism Flooding the Zone With Capital That Does Not Exist
Many publishers out there still participate in this bubble instead of calling it what it is
Links 09/10/2025: Sacked Microsoft Workers Make "Sackbird", IBM Taps CockroachDB for PostgreSQL
Links for the day
"Happy Hacking Day" Richard Stallman Talk This Afternoon (From 14:00 to 16:00) at Haaga-Helia University in Pasila
Richard Stallman in Helsinki, Finland
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 08, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 08, 2025
Links 09/10/2025: Impact of Microsoft Layoffs, More Data Breaches
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: Autumn Blues and C IRC Bot
Links for the day
Slopwatch Appreciated by Real Authors of GNU/Linux Articles
We do try to keep on top of those things
Upgraded R.R.R.R.R.R. Today
The Web of 2025 is full of garbage, not limited to slopfarms
Freedom From Proprietary Prisons
Forking always an option
IBM's Watson Died in 1956, Now Watson Dies Again
IBM is becoming just a reseller of GAFAM and other stuff
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, UbuntuPIT, and Google News
We've also just noticed more slop from UbuntuPIT
Microsoft Says That Constant Mass Layoffs Are Success, the Media Isn't Buying This Microsoft Narrative Anymore
If people in the media feel an obligation to repeat whatever lies Microsoft tells, what point will there be to the media?
Links 08/10/2025: "Mali Puts Free Speech on Trial" And Apple Enforces Dictatorship
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2025: ‘Death to Spotify’ and Law to Ban Loud Commercials on Streaming (Dis)Services
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2025: Real Innovation and Nina.chat is Dead
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2025: Y2K38 Bug is a Vulnerability, Chat Control in Europe a Threat
Links for the day
Microsoft Windows is No Longer an Operating System, It's Surveillance Project
Why is this even legal to preload on PCs outside the US?
How and Why Once-Legitimate Sites Turn Into Slopfarms
Many sites will go offline and many social control networks will shut down once they realise or even openly admit they spend money and time gardening a bunch of bots and slop
UbuntuPIT Became a Slopfarm and Gnoppix Tarnishes Its Own Brand With Slop
It fits all the characteristics of mildly-edited (if at all) slop
Slopwatch: Linux Journal and Other Slopfarms
GAFAM needs to go the way of the dodo
Gemini Links 08/10/2025: "Seek Seek Revolution" and Gradient Backgrounds
Links for the day
Qualcomm Arduino Takes Aim at Raspberry Pi
Qualcomm is a Microsoft partner
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 07, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 07, 2025
Stagnation of the Economy and What Free Software Can (or Could) Do For It
If your economic model is based on a pyramid of lies, it won't last very long
Social Control Media is Sinking
it would rightly seem like the era of centralised "social" sites (they're not social, they're about controlling the users) is ending, not overnight but gradually