Bonum Certa Men Certa

Taking Techrights to the Next Level in 2023

"Apple is fighting against powerful and fundamental economic forces. In the short term, Apple’s technological and industrial design prowess can help to prop up dying business models."

--Timothy Lee



Summary: I've reached a state of "closure" when it comes to my employer (almost 12 years for me, 9+ years for my wife); expect Techrights to become more active than ever before and belatedly publish important articles, based on longstanding investigations that take a lot of effort

Today we published the last daily part of the Sirius 'Open Source' series (there will be more coming, there's already stuff on the way, but not to be published on a daily basis). This series covers, explains and concludes my resignation from that dying company*. It also marks a turning point where I can devote all my time to personal software projects and writing projects. I have a lot of unpublished stories. It takes time to process and verify the facts. Accuracy is paramount. It's the scientific way; we don't tolerate "marketing".



"At the moment Techrights is doing internal stuff, including server migrations."The Microsoft GitHub series (Microsoft GitHub Exposé/"GitHub: Where everything comes to die") will resume later this year. Some rumours about GitHub layoffs need verification. Remember that GitHub will one day shut down like CodePlex did. It is inevitable. Users of the platform don't get to decide on when or how it happens. It'll just happen. There's no business model! Since 2018... only losses. Microsoft now tries to 'monetise' GitHub as a plagiarism blender. Will you buy monthly subscription for Microsoft to assist your blurred-away plagiarism? This is in court right now.

At the moment Techrights is doing internal stuff, including server migrations. We're moving to Alpine. There's also self-improvement work around processes. The goal is to increase our capacity and produce more output (Daily Links, articles, videos, analyses focusing on strategic areas), letting new programs do some of the work, offloading/automating some existing tasks and streamlining others.

"The last time I was not employed was the time I finished my Ph.D. (that in itself was like employment as I was a full-time postgraduate student)."Bear with us while we code some new programs. It may seem slow, but we've only just recovered from a sudden disk/storage failure and I've been speaking to people over the telephone about scandals we're eager to expose in February. Curiously enough, some of our articles about Microsoft layoffs are going 'viral' weeks after they were originally published. It seems safe to say that Microsoft layoffs are (quite frankly as usual) a lot bigger than what the Microsoft PR depsrtment claims and we already see rumours about another wave of Microsoft layoffs (already in the planning).

The last time I was not employed was the time I finished my Ph.D. (that in itself was like employment as I was a full-time postgraduate student). At age 40 I finally managed to position myself to focus purely on this site and its community. Quite a few people in IRC have been there for nearly 15 years (our main channel turns 15 in a couple of months), so we sort of 'grew up together' on the Net. Speaking of the Net, tomorrow we change our home connection from copper to fibre. It'll make things easier. There may be brief outages for Gemini (DNS changes). ______ * Sirius is dead company walking. It accelerated its demise by doing irrational things and mistreating staff.

Recent Techrights' Posts

This is What the Slop Bubble Popping Can Look Like
Maybe not an overnight collapse, but getting there gradually
If You Don't Want "Linux" to Become "Windows", Then Follow GNU
GAFAM isn't a friend of Linux; it's only a user in the same sense clients are "users" of a brothel
More Confirmatory Rumours Regarding "Massive" Red Hat Layoffs
Ecosystem and sales said to be targeted
Office Meetings Are Most Useful to the Least Productive Workers
In my "office life" days I really didn't like meetings
Claim That the Board of Directors at IBM Isn't Happy With How the Company is Run
IBM tries to project an image of strength to the whole world, especially to its clients
'Cancel Culture' Doesn't Work (in the Long Run)
Despite all the attacks, I'm enjoying life, I'm keeping productive, and our audience continues to grow
 
Links 19/01/2026: ChatGPT’s Defects and The Guardian on Why So-called "AI Companies Will Fail"
Links for the day
IBM Quiet About Its Plan for Red Hat Amid Accelerated Bluewashing
Something is going on at Red Hat
The "Alicante Mafia" - Part V - It Seems Like Some People Are Already Leaving "The Mafia"
they have a rough idea of what's coming
Microsoft Means War, Microsoft is on the Side of ICE
Microsoft, people-ready
Proprietary UNIX is What We'll Have If IBM Red Hat Gets Its Way
IBM Red Hat wants to control everything, even if that means killing everybody
Free Software in Times of Peace (and Times of War, Too)
GAFAM and IBM are war companies
Founder of GNU/Linux (RMS) Speaks in US University (College) This Week
The auditorium has very high capacity and this is his "college comeback" talk in the United States
LinuxSecurity and Linuxiac Are Still Slopfarms, Even Anthony Pell Does It
We suppose waiting another month or another year won't change a thing
Links 18/01/2026: Legal Trouble for xAI, Climate Concerns, Data Breaches and More
Links for the day
'Vibe Coding', Chatbots, and Other Bots (e.g. "Agents" Disguised as "Superintelligence") Aren't Saving You Time
False marketing, FOMO marketing tactics
Gemini Links 19/01/2026: Analog Cameras and Plucker in 2026, US Losing Acceptability in Europe
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, January 18, 2026
IRC logs for Sunday, January 18, 2026
Links 18/01/2026: The "Deepfake Porn Site Formerly Known as Twitter" and Turkey to Block Kids' Access to Social Control Media
Links for the day
Gemini Links 18/01/2026: Against English as Language of the Net, "Symposium of Destruction"
Links for the day
You Would Expect This Kind of Misleading Narrative Shortly Before Microsoft (or GAFAM) Mass Layoffs
misleading PR
FOSDEM 2026: democracy panel, GNOME & Sonny Piers modern slavery experiment
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Pump-and-Dump With IBM Shares, Courtesy of People Who Stand to Gain From the 'Pump'
"3 Reasons to Buy IBM Stock Right Now"
IBM: Spying on Staff Like Never Before and Implementing Silent Layoffs This Month, Say Insiders
what we heard from whistleblowers seems to corroborate
IBM is Not a Free Software Company (It Never Was)
Red Hat's main product, RHEL, is full of secret sauce and has 'secret recipes' (it is basically proprietary)
IBM Turning Up the 'RTO' (Stress) and 'PIP' (Fear) Heat on Workers, Rebellion May be Brewing
Sometimes it feels like today's executives at IBM view IBM workers as a liability
Links 18/01/2026: Indonesia Against Comedy, Media-Hostile (Censors Comedians) Convicted Felon in White House Defecting to Opponents of NATO
Links for the day
GNU/Linux Still up (statCounter Says to 6%) in Bosnia And Herzegovina
Let's see where it is at year's end
Making Layout Changes
Feedback can be sent to us
Behind an Economy of Fake 'Worths' and Fictional 'Valuations' or 'Market Caps'
They normalise white-collar crime and say "everyone is doing it!"
Links 18/01/2026: "South Africa is Running Out of Software Developers", Companies Spooked to Find Slop is a Major Liability
Links for the day
Eventually the Joke (and Financial Fraud) is on Microsoft, Stigmatised for Slop
Is Microsoft trying to commit suicide?
GNU/Linux Leaps to All-time Highs in Virgin Islands
it seems to have started around the "end of 10"
Place Your Bets: Who Will Die First? Microsoft or IBM?
Not even joking; make a guess
Making and Keeping the Sites Accessible
Sometimes less does mean "more" (or "MOAR")
The "Alicante Mafia" - Part IV - How Europe's Largest Patent Office Recruited Drug Addicts, Antisemites, and People Who Absolutely Cannot Do the Job (But Know the 'Right' People)
To better overlap industrial actions we might delay/postpone/pause this series for a bit
Restoring Professional Pride in the Tech Sector
Rejecting slop isn't being a Luddite
Benefiting by Adding Presence in Geminispace
As the Web gets worse, not limited to bloat as a factor, people seek alternatives
Google News Recently Started Syndicating Another Slopfarm, Linuxiac
Even if Google is aware that there is slop there, it's hard to believe that Google will mind
Slop Bubble "Is Worse Than The Dot Com Bubble"
Edward Zitron Says It like it is
Software Patents and USMCA (or NAFTA)
We recently pondered going back to issuing 2-3 articles per day about patents and common issues with them
IBM Sued Over PIPs
PIPs are "performance improvement plans"
Sites With "Linux" in Their Name That Are in Effect Slopfarms and Issue Fake Articles
We try to name some of the prolific culprits
Gemini Links 18/01/2026: Raising Notifications From Terminal and Environmental Sanity
Links for the day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, January 17, 2026
IRC logs for Saturday, January 17, 2026
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
Links 17/01/2026: Internet Blackout Normalised, Russian Attacks Civilians by Causing Massive Blackouts
Links for the day
Microsoft Lunduke Keeps Distracting From the Real Problems With Rust
Microsoft Lunduke is stigmatising critics
Linuxiac Has Become a Slopfarm, Calling Them Out Isn't Fixing That
What a shame. A once-decent site about "Linux" bites the dust.
Luzern Lion Monument, Albanian Female Whistleblowers: Swiss jurists were cowards
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
The Splinternet is Already Here, Owing to the Militarisation of Technology (Slop, Social Control Media, Back Doors, and More)
you know what's gonna happen next...
Stack Ranking Against IBM/Red Hat Staff and a Signal of Mass Layoffs (RAs) Justified by Red Hat and IBM as Poor Performance/Misconduct/Other
Working in an atmosphere like this sounds like a nightmare
Gemini Links 17/01/2026: Slow computing and Environment Leak
Links for the day
Links 17/01/2026: US Censorship and Violence Crisis, Growing Anger Levels Against Slop Sold as "Intelligence"
Links for the day
Microsoft's "valuation depends on infrastructure that does not exist."
Indeed
The Typical Trajectory: Datamation Began Experimenting With LLM Slop for Fake Articles. Then Datamation Died. (Last Month)
It's always ending up this way
Accounts or Devices (e.g. Phones) That Get 'Burnt' Have Many Pitfalls
Embassies and consulates habitually fail at this
Avoiding the Spooks (Nobody Watches the Watchers, They're Practically Unaccountable)
If more people adopt encryption, it'll be easier for us to deal with whistleblowers
Protecting Whistleblowers Requires Technical Knowledge/Skills
even the highest media judges aren't aware of how to protect sources
At Least 5 Women Quit Brett Wilson LLP in Recent Months. It's the Firm That Attacked My Wife and I on Behalf of Americans (One of Them Strangled Women).
It seems like good news that the women escape this workplace
Slop About Slop and Slop About "Linux"
In short, avoid slopfarms
Report/Benchmark Says 'Vibe Coding' Results in Security Holes
There are risks they don't like talking about
EPO Abuses Covered in Spanish
Knowing what we know (and heard/saw), the sinister silence of the media is perceived by some to be complicity of the lower order.
Richard Stallman Encourages "ICE Out For Good" Protests, His Opponents Do Not (Passive and Uncaring About Human Rights)
He has done a lot philosophically, politically, and so on
Record Traffic in Geminispace or Over Gemini Protocol
it's never too late to join
The "Alicante Mafia" - Part III - Europe's Second-Largest Organisation on Strike, Protests, Other Industrial Actions to Come Impacting Over 95% of the Workforce
The EPO's management is highly evasive, weak, and vulnerable
Claim That IBM Marked 15% of its Workforce for Potential Layoffs
No wonder we keep hearing from Red Hat people who say they hate IBM
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, January 16, 2026
IRC logs for Friday, January 16, 2026