Bonum Certa Men Certa

Why We're Called Techrights

Animal Rights Protest



Summary: Why we renamed to "Techrights" more than a decade ago and who made the suggestion/s

THE name Techrights came as a suggestion from Tracy, our Web host at the time, in 2010. He spent some time searching available domains when Novell had become obsolete (to be sold imminently), so the site's identity needed to evolve accordingly. We considered doing so a lot sooner, but in IRC some people insisted that we should not leave Novell alone until the mission was accomplished. The site's byline was a suggestion from Richard Stallman. He borrowed that from a publication of Jehovah's Witnesses. He liked the word "sentry"; he still reads the site and apparently Linus Torvalds as well (sometimes).

"The site's byline was a suggestion from Richard Stallman."The site was vastly smaller 10 years ago. Depending on what's being measured, it was about 5 times smaller (number of pages) and the readership was also a lot smaller (but not small). One of the things we're happy to say and take pride in is that decisions were often made within the community (longtime contributors) and involved some open consultation. We're also happy to say we have a perfect source protection record (nothing to brag about as much as to assure future sources). Being a very technical bunch, it comes almost naturally; the same cannot be said about the average lawyer or journalist. They don't even use basic encryption and they extensively use this thing they call "smartphone" (surveillance equipment that can also make phonecalls... but rarely does).

Women Are Persons!Looking back at the whole thing, it's good that the word "rights" was chosen. Some people think it's a lot more meaningful than "freedom" because the word got distorted over time (like corporate deregulation). Stallman insisted to me that the "F" word would be more useful, but it was already too late to change. The term "rights" is associated with law (universally enforceable sometimes) and with principles such as "human rights", "animal rights", "women's rights" and so on. The term "open" is so broad that it is slated for abuse and "free" has the issue of ambiguity (other than just "zero cost"). So we never really regretted the choice of name. "Tech" is a broad enough term, applicable both to hardware and software (even networking), so we can swiftly navigate from one topic to another (without drifting too far astray from the overarching umbrella/title). Sites must focus not only on important issues (of the time; timing matters, too) but also topics that they understand very well; otherwise they risk ending up making lots of errors, then framed as a non-factual chaotic mess (mainstream media is full of that).

"More Open Than Open [...] I am constantly amazed at the flexibility of this single word.”

--Microsoft's Jason Matusow

Recent Techrights' Posts

Links 04/10/2023: "Looney Tunables" FUD and Kevin McCarthy Ousted
Links for the day
Windows Defender Flags Tor Browser as “Trojan Horse” Malware
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Sensationalist Clickbait Called 'Looney Tunables' to Badmouth Linux (It's Not Even Linux)
FUD attack
Links 04/10/2023: Murena 2 with /e/OS and More
Links for the day
Links 04/10/2023: KDE Promo Sprint and More
Links for the day
Clown Computing Means Security/Data Breaches, Not Just the Outsourcing Itself (They Get Cracked, Too!)
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Over at Tux Machines...
yesterday's posts
mp3HD: Another Patent Trolls' Patent Trap That Failed
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 03, 2023
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 03, 2023
"Modern" Computing Sucks and Harms Computer Users
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Red Windows
Red Hat is not into Free software
Richard Stallman Giving Talks in the Czech Republic and Germany This Week (Tomorrow's Talk is "Artificial Intelligence vs Language Models")
This past weekend he gave two talks in the Czech Republic
Companies Faking the True Number of Layoffs With Return-to-Office Mandates and Forced Relocation
we estimate that Microsoft cut about 30,000 so far this year, having cut many more jobs last year
Links 03/10/2023: Cellphones (Mobile Phones) Banned in Classrooms in England
Links for the day
Greener Pastures for Free Software Users
This coming week we'll publish many articles about GNU/Linux and technical means of/for user empowerment
IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 02, 2023
IRC logs for Monday, October 02, 2023
Google News, Which We Call Gulag Noise, is Following the New York Times Into the Digital Graveyard
It merely gives an illusion of volume and instead of giving readers more stuff to read it wastes people's time
Daily Bulletins Coming Soon (Hopefully as Early as Next Week)
Today we finish testing IRC logs and their upload to Gemini, not just to IPFS
Over at Tux Machines...
yesterday's posts
Software Freedom is the Future and Microsoft is the Biggest Obstacle
GNU/Linux, at its roots, was all about Software Freedom
Links 02/10/2023: NUC, GTK Themes, and More
Links for the day
New Union Syndicale Articles About the European Patent Office
We'll probably get back to regularly writing about the EPO in the near future
If WordPress Knows Well Enough to Self-Host Its Podcast, Why Can't GNU/Linux Shows Do the Same?
For those who want videos and podcasts, here are today's latest additions from other sites
Richard Stallman Can Outlive Many of His Prominent Haters
M.J.G. tried hard to take our Web site offline, based on lies and repeated threats
The GNU/Linux Revolution Ain't Here. Look at Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS) Instead.
The revolution won't be televised
Chaffbot Effect: Microsoft Bing Falls to Lowest Share in Two Years (Amid Loads of Bing Layoffs This Year)
Press outlets mostly failed to report that Bing is collapsing
Forget VSCode (Microsoft's Proprietary Spyware), Use KATE Instead
KATE is great
Sometimes It's Time to Reboot
No, not Android. KDE.
GNU/Linux Distributions as "Appliances" and DRM Platforms (the Case of ChromeOS and SteamOS)
Is this what we envisioned in the 1980s and 90s?
Fulfilling the Site's Full Potential
We remain devoted to the aforementioned goal of posting more original material
Over at Tux Machines...
2 days' worth
Upcoming Talk by Dr. Richard Stallman: Large Language Models Are Not Artificial Intelligence
LLMs aren't truly intelligent and cannot quite grasp what they spew out
GulagTube is a Burning Platform (Exit YouTube, Invidious Won't Save Us From Google/Alphabet in the Long Run)
Alphabet Agency (Google) sees the future of video as a "skinnerbox" (running Android) that indoctrinates you like TikTok does
Microsoft's Demise in the Global News Cycle is Rather Telling
It should be noted that Microsoft is, in general, no longer prominent or dominant in news headlines
Gemini Migration and Backup Capsule (Archive)
At the end we'll end up with something a lot better than before and latency should be massively reduced
Links 01/10/2023: Science, Education, and pro-Russia Slovakia Leadership
Links for the day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 01, 2023
IRC logs for Sunday, October 01, 2023