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The Free Software Credibility Index

At some stage it was realised that an index is needed which tells people who to trust on Free software matters.

The scale has 6 notches. 0 means least credible; 5 means most credible.

Independent

Jeff Gould0
Rob Enderle0
Pamela Jones5
Matt Hartley3
David M Williams5
Beranger3
Ken Starks (Helios)5
Sam Varghese5
Michael Gartenberg0
Carla Schroder5
Thom Holwerda2
Nicholas Petreley5
Vichar Bhatt (E@zyVG)4
Roland Wolters (Liquidat)4
Bob Cringely (pseudonym)3
Mike Dailey0

Information Week

Information Week2
Alex Wolfe0
Paul McDougal1
Charles Babcock2
Serdar Yegulalp3
John Foley2

Analysts

Gartner Group1
IDC1
JupiterResearch0
Frost and Sullivan1
Forrester1
Yankee Group0
Burton Group1
451 Group4
Dennis Byron1
Katherine Egbert1

Linux.com/SourceForge

Bruce Byfield3
Robin Miller3
Tina Gasperson4
Lisa Hoover4
Joe Barr4
Mayank Sharma4

Jupitermedia

Brian Proffitt4
Amy Newman4

ZDNet

ZDNet News (including Australia, Asia, UK)2
Peter Judge4
Mary Jo Foley2
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes1
Dana Blankenhorn4
Ed Bott0
Paul Murphy (pseudonym)2
Marc Wagner0
George Ou0


Security Firms

Symantec3
Secunia1
McAfee0


Miscellaneous



Fox2
CNN1
BBC2
Heise4
Fortune2
David Kirkpatrick1
Tim Berners-Lee4
New York Times2
NBC0
PCWorld/IDG2
Paul Krill4
Shane O'Neill0
Savio Rodrigues2
Zach Urlocker3
InfoWorld2
LinuxWorld4
Timothy Prickett Morgan4
Gavin Clarke1
Kelly Fiveash1
Dan Goodin3
Maureen O'Gara0
MilkingTheGNU (Pierre)5
Caitlyn Martin4
Nick Farrell/Inquirer1
Charlie Demerjian3
Egan Orion4
Preston Gralla0
David Ramel1
Neil McAllister2
Mike Elgan2
Techworld2
Manek Dubash1
Glyn Moody5
Doc Searls4
Eric Lai2
ComputerWorld3
OStatic3
Techcrunch2
Erwin Oliva/Inquirer.net1
David Pearce1
M. Tim Jones (Emulex)5
Rodney Gedda4
Jim Finkle1
Dan Lyons1
Var Guy (JP)2
Penguin Pete3
Gregg Keizer2
Paula Rooney4
Tim Anderson1
Susan Linton5
Andy Updegrove5
The Register2
Ashlee Vance2
Andrew Orlowski1
Gordon Haff2
Matt Aslett5
Don Parris5
Ben Worthen0
Todd Weiss3
Jay Lyman4
Motley Fool1
Jim Zemlin3
Amanda McPherson3
Jonathan Corbet5
Danijel Orsolic5
Rick Lehrbaum (DeviceGuru/LinuxDevices)4
Henry Kingman (LinuxDevices)4
Don Marti5
Jeremy Allison5
Richard Stallman5
Bruce Perens5
John Fontana3
Falko Timme5
Oliver Meyer5
Michael Tiemann5

Paul Allen's C|Net

CNET2
Ina Fried1
Matt Asay3
Dave Rosenberg3
Martin LaMonica2
Stephen Shankland4


Ziff Davis

eWeek3
Steven Vaughan5
Joe Wilcox2
Jason Brooks3
Peter Galli2


2012 Update

Mixed List

Darryl K. Taft2
Zack Whittaker (formerly Microsoft UK)1
Matt Rosoff0
Lance Whitney1
Florian Müller0
Jack Wallen4
Jono Bacon4
Neil Richards5
Swapnil Bhartiya5
Mark Shuttleworth4
Linus Torvalds4
Michael Larabel4
Ted Tso3
Jon Gold0


Recent Techrights' Posts

Microsoft Under Investigation for Breaches of Law in the UK
Just like the Microsofters
GAFAM is Connected to Misogyny, Almost All Founders Divorced
They're not good people, even if they pay the media to pretend otherwise
SLAPP Censorship - Part 83 Out of 200: Religion is Still Alive, But for Many This Religion is Monetary (Greed, Monopolies, Corporate Power)
If all you keep boasting about is being able to afford a hotel room and some domestic flight, then maybe you have no real accomplishments and are more like a "Facebook serf" with a credit card
 
Links 21/05/2026: Facebook Rewarded With Tax Breaks to Destroy the Environment and Cause Global Warming, Shortages, Pollution; SpaceX (SPCX) Continues Losing Billions of Dollars
Links for the day
Codecs and Software Patents - Part VIII - GNU Audio/Video Team Has Chosen the AV1 Video Codec and It Explains Why (They've Researched Their Options)
AV1 video codec will be used to encode and share GNU videos online
Dr. Stallman Helps Establish Free Software Advocacy Outside the Free Software Foundation (FSF) as Well
The ideals or principles of Free Software needn't be centralised or monopolised; they can be federated
22 Years of Tux Machines and a Community Stronger Than Ever Before
We've already received some feedback from the community and improved it accordingly
More Microsoft Layoffs on the Way (June and July 2026)
with or without PIPs
LWN Sponsored by the Linux Foundation (Monopolies)
We must be able to casually point this out
The Corrupt Lecture the Non-Corrupt - Part XXIX - European Patent Office (EPO) Tells Staff "Speaking up" is Good, But Not When the "Brother-in-law" of EPO's President Does Cocaine
Do we still have a functioning democracy and potent press?
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, May 20, 2026
IRC logs for Wednesday, May 20, 2026
Gemini Links 21/05/2026: Immigration, Slop, and Slop 'Code' Suggestions Infesting Code Repositories
Links for the dayGemini Links 21/05/2026: Immigration, Slop, and Slop 'Code' Suggestions Infesting Code Repositories
Oracle Seems to Have Popularised Overnight Layoffs, Now GAFAM Does the Same
layoff emails at 4 a.m. local time
A Lot of Fake News About Microsoft's LinkedIn Today, Some Comes From Slopfarms, Some Relies on Those Slopfarms
As usual, slopfarms make the Web a huge pile of garbage
IBM's Kyndryl is Circling Down the Drain, Say Kyndryl Insiders
"IBM Dinosaurs who were recycled and catapulted into the orange trash heap by IBM"
A Lot of Coverage Adding Hype Factor to Slop Bug Reports... is Made by LLM Slop
Local Privilege Escalation [...] the slop motivates some actual people to keep writing about it
Links 20/05/2026: Mass Layoffs at NPR (Bought by the Ballmers and Bill Epsteingate), Starbucks Korea CEO Fired Over ‘Tank Day’ Ad
Links for the day
Gemini Links 20/05/2026: Advantage of CD Collections, Geminaut's View of Nostr, and SSL / TLS Certificates
Links for the day
IBM is Becoming a Pile of Expired Patents and Abandoned Buildings, Assets of Little Actual Value
Having laid off a ton of people, borrowed lots of money to fake growth (by acquisition), and sent some jobs to low-paid regions where innovation isn't done
Links 20/05/2026: Looting of Americans for "White Grievance Reparations Fund"; "Mark Zuckerberg Used Shell Companies to Bully Native Hawaiians"
Links for the day
Web Browsers Are for Rendering Web Page, They Shouldn't Become PDF Editors
Linus Torvalds is quickly learning and speaking about this
SLAPP Censorship - Part 82 Out of 200: British Government Intervenes in the SLAPPs by Brett Wilson LLP
At this stage our matters are dealt with by a layer below that of the Prime Minister (adjacent to it)
LinkedIn Communications Reveal That LinkedIn - Like GitHub - Will Vanish Inside the Belly of Microsoft
This is definitely going to happen.
In Wall Street, Financial Difficulties Drive Shares Up
Wall Street doesn't work that way
The Corrupt Lecture the Non-Corrupt - Part XXVIII - European Patent Office (EPO) Guidebook Says Report Crimes Committed on EPO Premises. Some Did, But President Campinos Covers up for the Culprits.
The staff has long been on strike and the union (SUEPO) organised an enhanced day of action just two days ago
Gemini Links 20/05/2026: Fall of an Empire, "High Tech is a Social Exercise", and Big Cameras
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, May 19, 2026
IRC logs for Tuesday, May 19, 2026
LinkedIn Layoffs at Microsoft: Probably Well More Than 5% of Staff
In short, it's difficult to believe only 5% are impacted
It's Not Just a Widespread Theory, It's Apparently a Verified Fact: Home Appliances Not Made to Last Long
Washing machine repair man asserts that the machines sold a decade ago could maybe last a decade; now they last barely 5 years.
Torvalds Capitulated on Rust and Slop, Now He's Paying the Price
they are pushing Microsoft and slop for grifters and scammers
Whistleblowers Needed: We Are Seeing Many Layoffs in Red Hat (Not Just in China), We Want to Know More
Last week we learned about some people who said they had left Red Hat or are leaving Red Hat
Links 19/05/2026: More Obituaries for Peter G. Neumann, Taiwan Abandoned by Cheeto House for Don's Personal Gain
Links for the day
Links 19/05/2026: Online 'Storage' (Surveillance) Accounts Lower Thresholds (Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Photos), Slop Debacles Expand (False Promises Made to Staff Regarding Compensation)
Links for the day
SLAPP Censorship - Part 81 Out of 200: SLAPP Censorship Does Not Work If Your Sole Strategy is Revenge (and You Attack the Family)
Both yours and others'
Techrights at 20 (Soon)
It does not seek popularity or affirmation from "Establishment" outlets
We Pay More for Less, for Things That Last Less Time and Are Almost Impossible to Repair
Ever noticed how "modern" or "smart" TVs come with dumber and dumber (worse) controllers?
Vista 11 Turns 5 in a Couple of Months. Not Many People Use It.
It is the only supported version of Windows; many people move elsewhere
Head of GitHub Recently Left, Microsoft Need No Longer Report Mass Layoffs There (User Activity is Declining)
We've long said that LinkedIn and GitHub, which Microsoft bought, would likely end up like Skype
The Slop Bubble is Already Bursting
Slop is not desirable and the general public is growingly impatient, seeing that slop has improved nothing for them
Gemini Links 19/05/2026: Reliable Old Tech, Collection of Essays
Links for the day
The Corrupt Lecture the Non-Corrupt - Part XXVII - European Patent Office (EPO) Became a "Toxic Work Environment" When Cocaine Addicts Put in Charge
They are putting at risk colleagues by abusing them
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, May 18, 2026
IRC logs for Monday, May 18, 2026