This Year and the Next 10 Years
My personal battles aside (combating fraud committed against my colleagues and I), yours truly will definitely spend the coming decade or two promoting Software Freedom while exposing - to the extent that I feasibly can - those who undermine or fake it (or take it away under false pretenses)
THE mainstream (or corporate or "mass") media isn't talking about this, but things are changing for the better in the sense that we're looking at 3.82% at year's end for GNU/Linux. Nope, not ChromeOS. The real deal, "proper" GNU/Linux. Europe is behind in that regard. In Asia it's 5.5% and growing.
When I started 'identifying' as a GNU/Linux advocate C.O.L.A. in USENET was a big thing. We're talking about 20 years ago. I was a Ph.D. student at the time. 2 years ago I left my job to focus on the sites and in that period of time we've noticed some positive progress, especially in the sense that public perceptions were evolving, resulting in 'hard-headed' people who reject some aspects of "modern" (typically user-hostile) computing life.
This year (strange to type "2024", it hurts muscle memory) I plan to continue the quest for justice in my personal life. No, not just exposing the attacks on my wife and I but also the attacks on my colleagues at my last job, which I quit at age 40 after repeatedly confronting the management for rogue behaviour (we covered many facets of that).
I recently asked colleagues who were robbed: "Would you be willing to jointly file a lawsuit against [wife of CEO] and [CEO] for the Sirius pension fraud? It would make it more affordable to all."
"[wife of CEO] contacted me and she is not denying it."
My colleagues, both men and women, do not oppose this. But a lingering concern is that the company would simply file for bankruptcy and refuse to pay.
As one colleague told me the other week: "Is there anything left of value in Sirius that would make it worth claiming against them?"
"What I have been told is to make a claim with the pension ombudsman, which is free, they can make a judgement against Sirius as it is unlikely to be disputed, and if they refuse to pay after that a county court claim would be needed which would cost 5% of the claim value, which would potentially be lost if they claim to have no assets or ability to pay and wind down the company in the UK."
I think this would be the most appropriate route to pursue. The main question is who - or how exactly (it's a cumbersome process) - would take the initiative?
Those who wish to discuss this over the telephone believe it's just a matter of time before Sirius simply collapses more formally.
So there's that issue at the back of my mind if not the backburner. Our lawyer assessed the prospects of getting the company to pay for these crimes (even in 2022). And lawyers aren't cheap.
What does this have to do with Techrights? As a reminder, this is a company with "Open Source" in its very name! And it used to be a sponsor of the FSF. This shows that the term "Open Source" (nowadays openwashing, sometimes with a dash as in "open-source") can be very misleading, as we discussed with Righty yesterday in IRC.
Bruce Perens says he wishes to tackle this issue. So do we.
When we started this site in 2006, calling for a boycott of Novell, Mr. Perens was supportive and his site, Technocrat, habitually linked to us.
Novell is no longer around, but the same issues we spoke about in 2006 (18 years ago) remain unaddressed. This includes software patents.
Over the coming decade we need to speak about power consolidation in so-called 'tech' (the scare quotes are very apt, for many of these companies are in the business of social control, not science or technology). We need to take back control of terminology and vocabularies. We must talk about freedom in the digital realm while clearly specifying to people what that means (a choice between various bad brands if not freedom, it's a false dichotomy at best).
Come back, Mr. Perens, we need your voice too. Keep talking about how "Open Source" failed (as an OSI co-founder it's a very big deal when he says it so bluntly). █
