IN YESTERDAY'S daily links we took note of the fact that The H, a fantastic source of information, is shutting down. Less than a day before that (only hours earlier) we mentioned how DesktopLinux and LinuxDevices had gone offline and we worked to bring the stories back online (there is progress on that, but we will provide an update only when that's confirmed).
"As the body of knowledge and information accumulates, it builds up to provide accurate documentation that certainly helped deter several bad companies from doing their bad deeds (knowing that they are being watched)."Speaking as one who runs Techrights at great expense (my own time and my own money, of which I have little), I really related to what Michael Larabel wrote, especially him saying that Phoronix had "taken quite a physical toll on my health with the insane hours required to keep everything afloat." Susan Linton, another person who essentially sacrificed her life to GNU/Linux news, had her take on this too (I donated what I could to her site just earlier this month in order to help keep it running).
The reality is, running a GNU/Linux-oriented site is almost always done for no personal gain and it does take a toll on one's personal life (I still need to keep up with my young family and full-time job), so if readers wish to support the site (which has neither ads nor any other source of income), then they can donate in support and expression of gratitude. Help keep Techrights strong (as Wikileaks often puts it) and actively running for a long time to come. As the body of knowledge and information accumulates, it builds up to provide accurate documentation that certainly helped deter several bad companies from doing their bad deeds (knowing that they are being watched). Novell is just one example among several we know of. Some are patent trolls. Scrutiny does impact policy and behaviour. Imagine how free they would be to mistreat people had they suffered no public scrutiny. We have amassed almost 17,000 blog posts. We serve over a million hits a week now. Some companies really hate this site. And if you knew which companies, then you would know the site's value to society.
For the remainder of this year we have the ability to produce a weekly audio/video with Richard Stallman, so there are certainly things to look forward to and invest in (at the very least basics like Web hosting). Charging money for access to information (i.e. paywall) is unethical, but voluntarily helping to sponsor traffic would be nice. Another way to support us is to spread links to the site, increasing its impact and motivating new stories. Don't let this site end up like The H did. Information is power. ⬆
