Bonum Certa Men Certa

Recharging for 2020

Colourful butterfly



Summary: Techrights prepares for another big year with more coverage than past years (we have become more efficient and our team grows)

Colourful seasons have gone. It's cold. It's dark. But we're ready to rise again in 2020, maybe with a new operating system (we're going to experiment around Christmas, as upgrades are long overdue). The site will definitely look the same, irrespective of what runs at the back end, as backward compatibility is very important to us and we don't intend to change the look-and-feel any time soon, not even for so-called "smart" or 'smart' devices. The way things stand, the European Patent Office (EPO) is our top priority because nobody else covers it (not properly; puff pieces quoting EPO press releases don't count), the USPTO affairs/matters at a policy level (pertinent court cases go into Daily Links), and we'll keep an eye on software patents in Europe, which the EPO hopes to legitimise by smothering the national courts (with UPC, which António Campinos supports as much as Battistelli did).



"We'll keep fighting, we'll fight for those who need it."We don't expect 35 U.S.C. €§ 101 to be successfully undermined, no matter what the hive of lawyers keeps telling us. So we won't pay too much attention to that. Instead we'll focus more on GNU/Linux and attacks on it, including the attacks on GNU/Linux that we see coming from the Linux Foundation (it nowadays helps Microsoft more than it has helped actual GNU/Linux users). As always, we welcome but refuse to beg for financial support. We accept donations through PayPal and we're grateful for any contribution readers can make, even if as meager as a jar of coffee's worth (I pay less than 2 pounds for a jar of coffee, which makes about 100 cups to keep me awake, to keep me reading and writing). My wife and I run the site at our own expense and we reject corporate money for the sake of complete autonomy. We live a very frugal life; almost all the food we buy is significantly price-reduced and we mostly walk (sometimes public transport gets used; I haven't owned a car in over a decade). We never turn on the heating unless there's a guest. The upside is, that's good for the environment as well. My birthday is tomorrow and I've planned nothing for it; I will be writing, as usual...

We'll keep fighting, we'll fight for those who need it. European patent examiners (let's face it, the scientists/examiners do want increased quality of patents!), Free software users, and marginalised people in need of privacy and a platform through which they can blow the whistle. We got dozens of those in 2019.

2020 will be our fourteenth year as we're proud to say that all our sources have been kept safe. We definitely intend to keep it that way whilst ensuring maximal level of transparency (reducing opportunity for mischief and misconduct).

Recent Techrights' Posts

New XBox Leaks Probably Serve to Confirm XBox's Collapse (Many More Layoffs)
It's very much consistent with what many other sites have reported lately
 
Noteworthy Claim That IBM is Firing a Lot of Lawyers This Week (RAs in the Legal Department)
A lot of what they do is patent 'trolling' or lawyering up against their own staff (e.g. HR disputes)
Links 10/10/2025: US Judge Bars Attacks by ICE On Journalists and Protesters; “We Took The Freedom of Speech Away” Says the President
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Serial Sloppers, Google News Gifting Slopfarms, and Fake News/Plagiarism About "Linux"
Google itself is a slop pusher these days
Qualcomm, the New Owner of Arduino, Blasted for Its Software Patents Tax on 'Smartphones'
A lot of Qualcomm's patents are on software. We wrote about this in prior years.
XBox Layoffs Rumours, Downtime, and Criticism From XBox Co-Founder
"everyone is ditching the xbox."
Links 10/10/2025: Honoring The Legacy Of Robert Murray-Smith, Many Articles on the Hey Hi (AI) Bubble
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: October Gothic and Reading Middle Earth Role Playing; C and Ada
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 09, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 09, 2025
Links 09/10/2025: Farewell to Jane Goodall, California Bans Algorithmic Price-Fixing
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: Lost Wages and a Saga Of Continuing To Use Palm PDAs
Links for the day
Richard Stallman's Talk in Helsinki is Done. Tomorrow Göteborg.
There are scarce details in Finnish about Dr. Stallman's talk
The Slop Song
The train wreck marches on
LLM Slop/Advanced Plagiarism Flooding the Zone With Capital That Does Not Exist
Many publishers out there still participate in this bubble instead of calling it what it is
Links 09/10/2025: Sacked Microsoft Workers Make "Sackbird", IBM Taps CockroachDB for PostgreSQL
Links for the day
"Happy Hacking Day" Richard Stallman Talk This Afternoon (From 14:00 to 16:00) at Haaga-Helia University in Pasila
Richard Stallman in Helsinki, Finland
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 08, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 08, 2025
Links 09/10/2025: Impact of Microsoft Layoffs, More Data Breaches
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: Autumn Blues and C IRC Bot
Links for the day
Slopwatch Appreciated by Real Authors of GNU/Linux Articles
We do try to keep on top of those things
Upgraded R.R.R.R.R.R. Today
The Web of 2025 is full of garbage, not limited to slopfarms
Freedom From Proprietary Prisons
Forking always an option
IBM's Watson Died in 1956, Now Watson Dies Again
IBM is becoming just a reseller of GAFAM and other stuff
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, UbuntuPIT, and Google News
We've also just noticed more slop from UbuntuPIT
Microsoft Says That Constant Mass Layoffs Are Success, the Media Isn't Buying This Microsoft Narrative Anymore
If people in the media feel an obligation to repeat whatever lies Microsoft tells, what point will there be to the media?
Links 08/10/2025: "Mali Puts Free Speech on Trial" And Apple Enforces Dictatorship
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2025: ‘Death to Spotify’ and Law to Ban Loud Commercials on Streaming (Dis)Services
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2025: Real Innovation and Nina.chat is Dead
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2025: Y2K38 Bug is a Vulnerability, Chat Control in Europe a Threat
Links for the day
Microsoft Windows is No Longer an Operating System, It's Surveillance Project
Why is this even legal to preload on PCs outside the US?
How and Why Once-Legitimate Sites Turn Into Slopfarms
Many sites will go offline and many social control networks will shut down once they realise or even openly admit they spend money and time gardening a bunch of bots and slop
UbuntuPIT Became a Slopfarm and Gnoppix Tarnishes Its Own Brand With Slop
It fits all the characteristics of mildly-edited (if at all) slop
Slopwatch: Linux Journal and Other Slopfarms
GAFAM needs to go the way of the dodo
Gemini Links 08/10/2025: "Seek Seek Revolution" and Gradient Backgrounds
Links for the day
Qualcomm Arduino Takes Aim at Raspberry Pi
Qualcomm is a Microsoft partner
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 07, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 07, 2025
Stagnation of the Economy and What Free Software Can (or Could) Do For It
If your economic model is based on a pyramid of lies, it won't last very long
Social Control Media is Sinking
it would rightly seem like the era of centralised "social" sites (they're not social, they're about controlling the users) is ending, not overnight but gradually