Prof. Moglen at OSCON, Speaking to O'Reilly: Open Source is a Waste of Time (Distracts From Software Freedom)

Dr. Roy Schestowitz

2021-08-11 10:05:15 UTC
Modified: 2021-08-11 13:02:51 UTC

Video download link (and an archived copy at IA)

Summary: To cut to the chase, the segment of interest is 4:07 to 8:23, as noted here; the video itself is hard to find any longer, even in official channels

Recent Techrights' Posts

American Back Doors No Longer Trusted by Europeans: Has the EU paid attention, for a change?
When Energy Prices Double in About a Month the Slop Bros Won't Sleep at Night: Unhinged leadership does not seem eager to end a conflict that it started
Newer is Not Better, Lunar Edition: Maybe in 57 years (2083, after all these wars) we'll managed to launch a capsule with a human and a dog above the stratosphere again
Ubuntu More Honest Than Microsoft Windows: If you don't like the direction Ubuntu has taken, then try something else
Azure is Dying, the "Entertainment" (Slop) Couldn't Lift Up Fake 'Demand' For Azure: Azure has had mass layoffs every year since 2020 and even earlier this year
2026 Starting to Feel Like 2020: Can Wall Street survive this?
Growing Awareness of Techrights' Importance: We're not an individual's blog but a community project
Harassment by Microsoft, Then a Cover-up: That Microsoft relies on blackmail, bribes and harassment (even against its own people) isn't surprising given the roots of the company and its toxic, deceitful management
SLAPP Censorship - Part 37 Out of 200: The Correct Suspicion Garrett and Graveley Were Collaborating in Overseas Litigation Against Critics: Microsofters and back doors' boosters from America frivolously sue Brits
Microsoft Has Lost Nearly 20% in "Desktop Operating System Market Share" Since COVID-19 Began: Add Android and iOS, then Windows falls to 24%
Maintenance Later This Month: Apr 24, 2026 21:00 - Apr 25, 2026 09:00 BST
Microsoft: Move Over, XBox, Slop is the New "Entertainment" and We Demote Our "Entertainment" CEO: Marketers, marketers, marketers, as a CEO called Ballmer put it
linuxbuz.com is a Slopfarm, It Depends on LLMs: In the more distant past it could be said that linuxbuz.com was an OK site
Links 07/04/2026: Patent Trolls Leigh M. Rothschild, Bolstered by GNOME and OIN, Continues to Attack; ‘Retaliatory Antitrust Suit’ by MElon: Links for the day
Gemini Links 07/04/2026: Copyleft Revisited, Killing Linux Processes With FZF: Links for the day
It Would be Good for Debian to Have a Female DPL, But...: Debian isn't exactly selecting people for quality or policing bad behaviour
IBM Insiders Say What's Wrong With IBM in Albany (and Yes, There Are Layoffs): promotions boil down to what insiders now call "brown-nosing" and nepotism
After Killing OpenSource.org IBM Together With OSI Told Us It Would Carry on OpenSource.net, But the Site Has Been Essentially Dead for 9 Months (Effectively Abandoned): OpenSource.org has been dormant for 4 weeks already and OpenSource.net last had a new page 9 months ago (it'll be 9 months tomorrow) [...] That's IBM in a nutshell
A Lot of What Happened to OSI is Because of Reporting by Techrights: Half a year since Stefano Maffuli (Executive Director) "left"
Public Presentations by RMS Hardly Interrupted Anymore: We'll carry on covering those sorts of topics throughout the year
Links 07/04/2026: US Wants to Put Journalists in Prison for Reporting Facts, Artist ‘Bale’ Arrested Over Rape Allegation in Social Control Media: Links for the day
To IBMers, IBM Has Failed and is Fast Becoming a Book of Jokes and One-Word Punchlines: How else can one make it obvious that IBM is circling down the drain?
"AI Revolution" Was a Lie: Microsoft CEO Admits What He Calls "AI" is Sometimes Sloppy and Microsoft Admits That Slop is for "Entertainment Purposes Only" (Not for Any Serious Work): if it gets "memory-holed", we can bring it up again and again
Social Control Media is Not a Viable Business Model: The future of the Web might not be the Web
From Datacentres Boom to Actual Booms That Target Datacentres, Now Struggling to Justify Humongous Energy and Water Consumption: Datacentres that are used for mindless "entertainment" (as Microsoft calls it) like slop are not a priority at this time
Gemini Links 07/04/2026: Aircraft Lift Force, Editor History, and Consumer Hardware Stagnation: Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...: GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, April 06, 2026: IRC logs for Monday, April 06, 2026
What Matters is Software Freedom, Not the Brands: The important thing is to speak about Software Freedom
Wikileaks is About to Turn 20: ~2 days ago it turned 19.5
The Cloud of Smoke: Will 2026 be the year that "The Cloud" openly confesses the risks it brings about?
SLAPP Censorship - Part 36 Out of 200: Claim KB-2024-003529 in a Nutshell (Microsoft Employee Does Terrible Things, Then Sues the Reporter in Another Continent): It commences with more of an overview
Gemini Links 06/04/2026: Solar Panel Story and Centralisation: Links for the day
"Free Speech, Free Press": What the World Needs to Improve: Darkness breeds corruption
IBM prioritises a "lot of smoke and hype and use of trending buzzwords": IBM can pretend all it wants things are fine
GAFAM Paying the Price for Pursuing US Military Money (Taxpayers' Money as 'Stimulus' With Strings Attached): The "cloud" in cloud computing is a cloud of smoke
Observing Slop's Demise: If energy becomes more scarce, then one rare/side perk (or upside) will be slop companies screaming for lifeboats
Links 06/04/2026: Crackers Breached the European Commission, Why "Old Way of Campaigning Won’t Cut It Anymore": Links for the day
Enron Versus NVIDIA (the Cost of Circular Financing, or Funding Your Own Customers to Buy Your Products) - “The Inventory Paradox” or “The Vibe Revenue Admission”: Round-tripping (finance)
You Know "The Economy" is Fake When 6 Months After Oracle Says Debt-Saddled 'Open' 'AI' (Slop) Will Pay It $300,000,000,000 Oracle Says It Must Lay Off 30,000 Workers at 6AM: Oracle is in deep debt, which increased at a pace of almost 4 billion dollars per month lately
Free Software Will Outlive GAFAM: GAFAM is overhyped
Techrights Was Further Decentralised Three Years Ago: In 2020 we began working on IPFS stuff
The Military Attacks on Dubai Internet City as Reminder That GAFAM Isn't Safe (Disregard the "Nobody Gets Fired for Buying GAFAM" Mindset): These are all realistic and foreseeable scenarios that GAFAM sceptics have long warned about
The Wars Aren't Ending, Now We See GAFAM Facilities Being Bombed: This is becoming a tech issue
Links 06/04/2026: Turning 34, Throwing Things Away, and Printing in GNU/Linux: Links for the day
Links 06/04/2026: Ex-Microsoft Engineer Explains Why Azure Fails, Germany Prepares for War: Links for the day
EPO "Cocaine Communication Manager" - Part XI - EPO Strike Enters Its Second Week, EPO Sheds Off Qualified Staff to Make Way for Nepotists: More than six months ago the "Cocaine Communication Manager" got arrested for cocaine use
Another Microsoft Outlook Downtime: Microsoft has sloppy code, it's not something suitable for mission-critical things
Week 2 of April IBM Layoffs Accelerate Based on Rumours: "Heard about Layoff at IBM"
Over at Tux Machines...: GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, April 05, 2026: IRC logs for Sunday, April 05, 2026
Culture of Harassment Inside Microsoft, Says Former Director at Microsoft: listen to Microsoft insiders
Drone Strikes on Amazon (GAFAM) Datacentres Highlight Azure's Miniscule Share: Azure is failing
SLAPP Censorship - Part 35 Out of 200: How to Make ~10,000 Pound Sterling (13,220.50 United States Dollars) by Copy-Pasting and Editing 10 Pages: Today it's Easter Sunday, so we'll keep this part relatively short
Gemini Links 05/04/2026: Artemis II Mission Tracker, Meditation on Copyright, Alhena 5.5.5, "Gemini as the Final Frontier of Human Cognition": Links for the day
Microsoft Windows Falls to All-Time Low of ~60% in Switzerland, GNU/Linux Among Top Gainers: What will it take for mainstream media (not just geeks' site) to cover it?
Mainstream Media on "Practical Survivalism": Suffice to say, panic buying begets more panic and price surges
Cloud Computing as a Cloud of Smoke (Your Hosting Provider is a "Legitimate" Military Target): When a French datacentre went up in flames people joked that the "cloud" meant a cloud of smoke
Andreas Tille Congratulates Sruthi Chandran Before the Election for Debian Project Leader (DPL) is Even Over: Andreas Tille, the current Debian Project Leader (DPL) who has been in this role for nearly 24 months
When You Try to Change the World for the Better and Somehow They Find a Way to Say You Are the Villain: Don't be a fool. Don't fall for inversions of narratives.
Slop Was a Flop and Energy Crisis Will be Slop's Final Blow: Today we see no slopfarms in Google News
Links 05/04/2026: "Taiwanese Airlines to Hike Fuel Surcharges 157%" and Openly Racist Voter Suppression Starts in the US: Links for the day
Gemini Links 05/04/2026: Playing with Hyprland and Migrating Antenna Filters: Links for the day
Links 05/04/2026: "Confidential Computing" as Proprietary Bundle of False Promises and "The Web Is an Antitrust Wedge": Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...: GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, April 04, 2026: IRC logs for Saturday, April 04, 2026