Bonum Certa Men Certa

Challenging Patent Law and Companies That Are Not Obeying Common Law

Lady justice



Summary: A word about the focus in Techrights and why it makes sense at this stage and era of patent wars, UEFI, bundling, etc.

A site like Techrights occasionally needs to revisit and explain its goals. A lot of people correctly point out that we're targeting particular issues more than others. It is a conscious decision.



Microsoft's history when it comes to antitrust action has been thoroughly documented. It can be researched with the help of many documents or pages including federal Web sites, journals, newspapers, legal filings, blogs, news sites, and hardcover books. No single site or piece of literature can really claim credit for having done a grand exposé of the company's actions, but the efforts of many help piece together a cohesive story of systematically-abusive people, some of whom have grown beyond Microsoft and are now a threat to health, nutrition, education, etc.

Techrights has limited its scope of coverage to more properly address systemic issues which enable Microsoft (among others) to extort, to cheat, and generally to distort the market to the point where honest people simply cannot compete. There are many good people out there who lost income or lost their jobs because of Microsoft's abuses against the Web (as Web developers), abuses against other companies (diving them out of business by cheating), its shoddy software (e.g. security issues, bugs) and expensive licences that drain companies' budgets and render people redundant.

"If Microsoft does not obey the law, then it is a special problem."While it is true that there are many malicious companies out there except Microsoft, this simply does not excuse Microsoft or in any way justifies its bad behaviour. United we need to stand, insisting as ever before that the rule of law is respected also by the super-rich and never subverted to accommodate or legalise their criminal activities.

The many writings about Microsoft are fueled not by hatred but by aspiration to have a civil society that fosters honest developers and thus maximises benefit to technology users. Stallman has pointed out in this site that Apple became a greater threat than Microsoft, which I still doubt is true, depending on what it is a threat to. Therefore, despite the fact that I de-emphasised Microsoft in 2010-11 when I started working two jobs simultaneously and hence lacked time, Microsoft will remain a point of focus. Novell is pretty much gone, but the patent extortion carries on and we must fight against software patents to shield dominance of Linux-based platforms, especially in portable devices.

With the exception of daily links and IRC logs, further posts will focus more on facilitators of software patents and those who exploit them. Brands will change, platforms will rise and fall over the years, but one thing which remains quite persistent in relative terms is the rule of law and those applying it, or not applying it. If Microsoft does not obey the law, then it is a special problem.

Recent Techrights' Posts

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I learned the hard way that less is more in circumstances where more means distraction
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Reject demagogues
New Techrights Turns 2
Today starts the third year of the SSG-based Techrights
What Scares Them the Most is Independent News Sites That They Cannot Control and Censor
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If You Don't Control Your Online Platform, Then Someone Else is Controlling You
be (or become) independent
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In then future we'll show the misogyny and racial slurs
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Links for the day
 
Code of Censorship
Extortion is peace
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) Has Un-cancelled the Best People, Just in Time for the Big 4-0
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Most "Modern" Technology Makes You Slower and Dumber
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miles better than social [sic] media [sic] quips, moderated by narcissists and oil tycoons.
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The Next Wave of IBM/Red Hat Layoffs Being Discussed Already
Red Hat is sort of disappearing the way Tivoli did
Oracle Started This Year With Slop. Then It Stopped.
Passing fads are like this
Distros That Run on PCs Made 20 Years Ago and Don't Use Systemd
Betas for now
The Complaint About Brett Wilson LLP - Part I - Abusing British Women on Behalf of American Men Who Abuse American Women
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This is what people get about Linux when they query Google for Linux
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Links 22/09/2025: More American 'Censorship' (Retaliation for Journalism), Cheeto "Might Be Losing His Race Against Time"
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The Blob Slop
Give me more words, give me some text
The 50-Pound Note Experiment and the "War on Cash"
Britain is actually seeing a rebound in cash payments, and it's not a temporary phenomenon
Slopwatch: Blaming the Victims for Microsoft's Failures and Plagiarising Phoronix
That's what Google has been reduced to: slop and slopfarms
Links 22/09/2025: Breaches, Windows TCO, and Arrests
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Over at Tux Machines...
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IRC Proceedings: Sunday, September 21, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, September 21, 2025
Links 21/09/2025: "Hey Hi" (Hype) Under Fire, Fakes Identified; Tesla Burns Family
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Originally posted by Rob Musial
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Over at Tux Machines...
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IRC Proceedings: Saturday, September 20, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, September 20, 2025