TechBytes Episode 22: Freedom Debate and Picks of the Year

Show overview	Show title	Date recorded
Episode 1: Brandon from Fedora	TechBytes Episode 1: Apple, Microsoft, Bundling, and Fedora 14 (With Special Guest Brandon Lozza)	1/11/2010
Episode 2: No guests	TechBytes Episode 2: Ubuntu's One Way, Silverlight Goes Dark, and GNU Octave Discovered	7/11/2010
Episode 3: No guests	TechBytes Episode 3: Games, Wayland, Xfce, Restrictive Application Stores, and Office Suites	8/11/2010
Episode 4: No guests	TechBytes Episode 4: Fedora 14 Impressions, MPAA et al. Payday, and Emma Lee's Magic	9/11/2010
Episode 5: No guests	TechBytes Episode 5: Windows Loses to Linux in Phones, GNU/Linux Desktop Market Share Estimations, and Much More	12/11/2010
Episode 6: No guests	TechBytes Episode 6: KINect a Cheapo Gadget, Sharing Perceptually Criminalised, Fedora and Fusion 14 in Review	13/11/2010
Episode 7: No guests	TechBytes Episode 7: FUD From The Economist, New Releases, and Linux Eureka Moment at Netflix	14/11/2010
Episode 8: Gordon Sinclair on Linux Mint	TechBytes Episode 8: Linux Mint Special With Gordon Sinclair (ThistleWeb)	15/11/2010
Episode 9: Gordon Sinclair returns	TechBytes Episode 9: The Potentially Permanent Return of ThistleWeb	17/11/2010
Episode 10: Special show format	TechBytes Episode 10: Microsoft FUD and Dirty Tactics Against GNU/Linux	19/11/2010
Episode 11: Part 2 of special show	TechBytes Episode 11: Microsoft FUD and Dirty Tactics Against GNU/Linux - Part II	21/11/2010
Episode 12: Novell special	TechBytes Episode 12: Novell Sold for Microsoft Gains	23/11/2010
Episode 13: No guests	TechBytes Episode 13: Copyfight, Wikileaks, and Other Chat	28/11/2010
Episode 14: Patents special	TechBytes Episode 14: Software Patents in Phones, Android, and in General	29/11/2010
Episode 15: No guests	TechBytes Episode 15: Google Chrome OS, Windows Refund, and Side Topics Like Wikileaks	30/11/2010

Show overview	Show title	Date recorded
Episode 16: No guests	TechBytes Episode 16: Bribes for Reviews, GNU/Linux News, and Wikileaks Opinions	3/12/2010
Episode 17: No guests	TechBytes Episode 17: Chrome OS Imminent, Wikileaks Spreads to Mirrors, 'Open' Microsoft	5/12/2010
Episode 18: No guests	TechBytes Episode 18: Chrome OS, Sharing, Freedom, and Wikileaks	11/12/2010
Episode 19: No guests	TechBytes Episode 19: GNU/Linux Market Share on Desktop at 4%, Microsoft Declining, and ChromeOS is Coming	16/12/2010
Episode 20: No guests	TechBytes Episode 20: GNU/Linux Gamers Pay More for Games, Other Discussions	18/12/2010
Episode 21: No guests	TechBytes Episode 21: Copyright Abuses, Agitators and Trolls, Starting a New Site	20/12/2010

openai.com Traffic Said to Have Fallen 50% in the Past Three Months, Reports Say It Nearly Ran Out of Money to Borrow: After the slop frenzy all we'll have left is environmental destruction
Rudeness and Vulgarity Won't Stop Journalism About Free Software: we seem to be on the right path
IBM Plans for Layoffs Becoming Clearer With "Employee Reviews": Of course this impacts Red Hat as well
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
LLM Slop Not Dead Yet, Examples of Slop About "Linux": We wish to see the totals down to zero
Links 20/01/2026: Cheeto Blackmails France Into 'Peace' While Looking to Annex EU, Mass Layoffs in Capgemini (Microsoft Reseller/Promoter) in France: Links for the day
Gemini Links 20/01/2026: Boxing and "Inbox Zero" Success: Links for the day
Windows and Slop Declining While Microsoft Silences Critics: Microsoft tries to suppress facts while faking 'demand' by imposing slop on everybody, everywhere
IBM Kills OzLabs, Signalling An Attack on Free Software (a Sign for Red Hat): ibiblio also appears to have died (or experiences critical issues)
Red Hat Vice President Leaving After Nearly Two Decades: IBM's culture of secrecy is not compatible with Free software
Links 20/01/2026: "ChatGPT Health" (Latest Distraction From Being Insolvent) Flops and Raises Concerns, "The U.S. Military Faces a Reckoning on Greenland": Links for the day
Readers Pleased With Layout Changes: Two days ago we began improving clarity and accessibility in the site
IBM is Outsourcing Red Hat's Fedora to Slop to 'Save Money': If IBM cared about quality rather than alleged "cost savings" (cutting corners), it would assign more IBM staff to Fedora, but instead the exact opposite happened, with the likes of Cotton and Miller removed from the project
European Patent Office (EPO) Industrial Actions Formally Start in Two Hours: As per the latest (revised) action plan, today workers will slow down their work and limit patent grants
Microsoft Under Fresh Investigation by the Italian Competition Authority: In 2025 we kept a running tally of 30,000+ Microsoft layoffs, so 40k this year would not be unthinkable
The "Alicante Mafia" - Part VI - More Strikes Planned at the EPO, Starting This Month: Yesterday we said that friends of Berenguer or inside Berenguer's circle may have left
Gemini Links 20/01/2026: New Tea, Using a Roku at a Hotel, and "Voltage-Based Power Management for Any Raspberry Pi": Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...: GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, January 19, 2026: IRC logs for Monday, January 19, 2026
Links 19/01/2026: National Broadcasters on World or Local Affairs Up to a Week Ago: Links for the day
Gemini Links 19/01/2026: Game Boy and "The Lounge" (IRC) for the Elderly: Links for the day
Slopfarms in Google News (at Least Three Today) With Fake 'Articles' About "Linux": Google itself is trying to promote its own slop ("Overview") at the expense of original and credible sources
Links 19/01/2026: ChatGPT’s Defects and The Guardian on Why So-called "AI Companies Will Fail": Links for the day
This is What the Slop Bubble Popping Can Look Like: Maybe not an overnight collapse, but getting there gradually
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
More Confirmatory Rumours Regarding "Massive" Red Hat Layoffs: Ecosystem and sales said to be targeted
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
Office Meetings Are Most Useful to the Least Productive Workers: In my "office life" days I really didn't like meetings
LinuxSecurity and Linuxiac Are Still Slopfarms, Even Anthony Pell Does It: We suppose waiting another month or another year won't change a thing
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
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
'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
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

TechBytes Episode 22: Freedom Debate and Picks of the Year

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