High-Priority Proposals for the FSF in 2021
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2021-03-23 17:04:54 UTC
- Modified: 2021-03-23 17:10:08 UTC
Summary: Some personal suggestions or a list of things that would help the FSF succeed and keep growing (and remaining relevant) for decades to come
- Offer a compelling way to replace the GitHub (Microsoft) near-monopoly with something that is self-hosted, preferably decentralised to a certain degree, and without a "Community Edition" (everything is for the community). It's already work in progress based on our understanding.
- Promote the use of existing remote work (or conferencing, teaching etc.) tools, especially ones that aren't controlled by GitHub. Or try to wean them off GitHub. The latter points relates to (1).
- Form a stronger coalition with Free software proponents around the world (numbers are our strength) and keep a distance from the corrupting influence (monopolies) of the Linux Foundation and OSI. In many ways they nowadays represent interests opposite to those of the FSF.
- Tackle the growing threat of increasing complexity as barrier to community participation in particular projects (systemd has earned notoriety for this).
- Speak about the growing threat of Clown Computing; the FSFE has done some work in that area, but many people ignore the warnings and outsource almost everything to third parties (mostly monopolies that spy).
- Create a capsule for presence in Gemini space (protocol), which helps tackle most of the issues the World Wide Web has become notorious for. It can help inspire many more capsules.
- Reinstate old campaigns that call out Microsoft Windows for the threat that it is (it is still a growing threat) to people's freedom.
- Repudiate fake solutions to the software patents threat; some of their purveyors have attempted to enlist GNU projects, in effect bypassing real patent reform attempts, seeking to altogether abolish software patents (even after Alice/35 U.S.C. ۤ 101; SCOTUS, 2014).
- Issue a polite public statement just to explain why the FSF's founder was led to resign; many people would appreciate a frank explanation.
- Tackle the issue of censorship, including (reportedly) censorship of mailing lists of LibrePlanet. Freedom of expression is also a form of freedom that must not be conflated with "trolling".
Recent Techrights' Posts
- IBM HR "Process is Similar to Raising Farm Animals"
- IBM "silent layoffs" won't stop
- Brett Wilson LLP Has Just Lost a Case of Its Biggest Client "IN THE COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)"
- Is Brett Wilson LLP proud of such clientele?
- Gary Smith Says Brett Wilson LLP Engages in SLAPP Against Him Over LinkedIn Post, "This is the Streisand Effect in Real Time"
- "Lawyers who front SLAPP‑style threats on behalf of powerful institutions are not “defending reputation”; they are abusing legal process to intimidate and silence legitimate public‑interest scrutiny."
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- European Patent Office (EPO) Series: Cutting Ribbons in Sintra While the EPO Burns
- Like the Roman Emperor Nero, Campinos fiddles in Sintra while the EPO burns
- In Spain, GNU/Linux Now Measured at 5.5%
- Microsoft and Windows are generally shrinking
- North America: GNU/Linux Leaps to 8% "Market Share"
- the trend is clear
- statCounter: GNU/Linux Has Risen to All-Time High of 6% Worldwide (July 2026)
- GNU/Linux has massive gains
- Not Tolerating Death Threats
- Death threads are a serious matter
- Silent Layoffs, 'Happy' Layoffs, and 'Buyouts' (Pretending to Voluntarily Retire)
- We've been seeing lots of that at IBM and Microsoft
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 125 Out of 200: Litigants in Person (LIPs) Handling American Lawfare Funded by Third Parties (About a Million Pounds for 100 Kilograms of Legal Papers)
- An appeal to the Court of Appeal can be justified at one point
- Attacks on the Sites
- These are clearly censorship attempts
- Links 02/07/2026: Microsoft May be Shutting Down 5+ Studios, Slop Got Too Expensive, "RAMpocalypse" Discussed
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, July 01, 2026
- IRC logs for Wednesday, July 01, 2026
- Gemini Links 02/07/2026: Kondo, Theological Thought, and X4
- Links for the day
- Links 01/07/2026: Apple and Microsoft Price Hikes, Political Catchup
- Links for the day
- Parroting the Script of RAs and PIPs, "Buyouts" and Layoffs by Any Other Name
- Over time people will find out just how many people "leave" IBM
- Slop Gives No Real Edge, It's Just Falsely Marketed That Way (FOMO)
- Plagiarism in some measurable form is always bad, irrespective of what we call it
- The Microsoft-Owned Media Shows What Spin Microsoft Will Use Amid Mass Layoffs
- Microsoft says goodbye to over 10,000 workers this month
- The Media is Shooting Its Own Foot by Peddling Slop and Spam
- Nobody wishes to read slop; as soon as people realise "the news" (or "news site") is LLM trash, they will walk away
- Gemini Links 01/07/2026: Wild Flowers, Slop, and Waystone Tools
- Links for the day
- Links 01/07/2026: Bending Spoons Makes an 'Exit' ("Going Public"), US Supreme Court Rules on Many Issues
- Links for the day
- Misattributing Blame, the Core Issue is Slop
- that issue has nothing to do with Bash
- Microsoft: Layoffs Are an Investment
- Sales of the console will take another plunge and debt will skyrocket
- Links 01/07/2026: MElon (Elon Musk) "Confronted With List of People He Has Killed", Microsoft Ignores Union, Chooses "Bloodbath"
- Links for the day
- The Register MS: Paid-For SPAM Advocating Chinese Colonialism in Africa, Not Even a Disclosure (as Before)
- Does The Register MS recognise what this piece is promoting and who for?
- Techrights Never Defended Rapists
- In the past, I and others got falsely accused of "defend[ing] a rapist"
- "Regular Silent Layoffs and PIPs" at Microsoft, According to Microsoft Insider
- Many people leave without a fuss, only a signed NDA
- Gaming Companies Help Promote Rootkits ('Anticheat') and Help Microsoft Take Control of People's PCs
- The industry in its current form acts a bit more like a cabal of power-hungry companies that actively try to back-door everything and smear people who oppose that
- IRC (Internet Relay Chat) Turns 38 Next Month
- IRC did well because over 300k users are on significant networks (simultaneous, also counting bots and cross-network overlaps)
- opensourceforu.com is a Slopfarm, It's Not "Open Source" and It's Not "For U"
- Slop "For U"
- DRM and Ownership
- We now even have PCs that "expire"
- GNU/Linux Reaches 6% in North America
- Tomorrow around 10AM we'll see what preliminary data they get for July
- IBM Layoffs Still Happening in 2026, They're Just Not Being Reported
- The demise of IBM accompanies the demise of the media
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 124 Out of 200: The Court Deems My Wife Connected to the Case of the Serial Strangler From Microsoft, Invites Her to the Hearing Last Week
- Brett Wilson LLP does not play by the rules
- Paying Severance to Staff Laid Off by Microsoft Too Expensive for Microsoft Now?
- When companies earn such a bad reputation (not paying severance to people they discard) it lowers morale even further
- Microsoft Mass Layoffs Due to Money Problems (Debt, Lack of Money to Complete Payroll), Not "Hey Hi"
- If Microsoft later comes up with some "Hey Hi" narrative, then immediately reject it
- Stop Conflating Free Software With Slop Plagiarism and Time-wasting
- Even decades ago people could use "compute" for lots of fuzzing, then file away false or unaudited reports using bots
- What Security Means
- Security does not mean asking Microsoft for permission
- Microsoft May be Losing 10,000+ Workers This Month
- Here's the quick math
- BSN Senior School Leidschenveen is Shutting Down and What That Means to the European Patent Office (EPO)
- Follow-up meeting with Site Manager VP1 on school matters
- Gemini Links 01/07/2026: Keeping (Relatively) Cool plus Adventures in Solar, Camp Snap Cameras and XTEINK X4 Ereader Reviews
- Links for the day
- European Patent Office (EPO) Series: Different Strokes For Different Folks
- Organisation operating in two parallel universes
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, June 30, 2026
- IRC logs for Tuesday, June 30, 2026
- GNU/Linux Measured at 4.4% by statCounter, Even More by analytics.usa.gov
- GNU/Linux has fared well
- Getting Skyped: Closure of Studios Microsoft Bought
- wait till July and the mass layoffs outside XBox
- Several Waves of Red Hat Layoffs This Year, Is This Still Going on Under IBM?
- The PIPs and NDAs hard to get a clear picture
- Sabine Hossenfelder Versus IBM Scamming Shareholders
- IBM has become a garage of BS
- Some XBox Layoffs Underway, At Least Five Studios to be Shut Down
- Insiders are in a state of panic
- Gemini Links 30/06/2026: Music Theory, Addiction, Clown Computing
- Links for the day
- Links 30/06/2026: France Recorded 1,000 Excess Deaths During Heat Wave, Slop Replaced by Human Staff
- Links for the day
- WordPress Becoming What We Feared It Would Become
- WordPress and other such bloatware (WordPress used to be fast and light) are moving in the same trajectory that GAFAM leads
- People Given the Totally Wrong Idea That "Secure Boot" is About Security (It's the Opposite, It's About Handing Control Over to NSA/Microsoft)
- "Secure Boot" with capital "B" is conflating compromise with security.
- Today The Register MS is Publishing Fake Articles About "AI", 100% of All "Content"
- Maybe the media is dying because it is selling its soul [...] The Register MS has no standard
- America Has Cost Europe Too Much
- Countries ought to be controlling all their own systems
- GAFAM Debt Will Surge, in July We'll Know by How Much
- Do not fall for slop or sloppy narratives
- Call for European Patent Office (EPO) Whistleblowers
- The European Patent Organisation (EPO) might not reform the Office
- 400-Page US Federal Court Against Abuses by Google, Microsoft and Front Groups That Abuse Volunteers for American Corporations
- There are 386 pages in total (in the US claim)
- Projection Tactics - Part IV: SLAPP by Americans Against Techrights (UK) to Hide Serious Abuses Against American Women
- "PRs need to stop being complicit in suppression of information via SLAPPs"
- Five Years Ago, After We Broke the Story About Richard Stallman Rejoining the FSF's Board, All Hell Broke Loose (for Me and My Family)
- They generally seem to target anyone who thinks Richard Stallman (RMS) should be in charge or thinks alike about computing
- Projection Tactics - Part II: Causing "Serious Harm" to Many People (Even Animals)
- Narcissists and sociopaths are like that
- Too Many "Marketers on the Payroll" at IBM, Selling Impossible Products That Cannot be Delivered or Will Never Deliver
- IBM is rotting away
- Media Says Microsoft's (XBox) Layoffs May be Record-Breaking
- think somewhere in the range of ~5000 for gaming/XBox alone
- Sirius Open Source's Latest Report: Fake (False) Number of Staff, Almost No Money in the Bank, Overdraft, and Growing Debt (About £100,000 More Borrowed)
- massive (and still growing) debt
- Links 30/06/2026: What's Wrong With EU Age Verification, RSA Keys with Many Zeros
- Links for the day
- This is Not a Security, This is a Circus
- Security does not mean "asked Microsoft for permission"
- Communities Need Strong Leadership, Not Dictators Like IBM
- Leadership in Free software is not ownership [...] Fedora will only last as long as IBM can somehow make some money out of it or leverage it to attract sharecropping
- Patents Are Not "Cash Cows"
- People who deliberately don't understand patents (or believe lies about them) will fail to understand how the world works (or does not work)
- Sad Lives of People Who Think Women Are Just Sexual Toys (All They Have is Money)
- money is still a man-made concept and life is finite
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 123 Out of 200: Why Violence Against Animals Matters
- Starting tomorrow (Wednesday) we'll begin telling stories about what happened last week
- EPO Staff Union's (SUEPO) The Hague Committee, With Help of Lawyer, Challenges Lack of Rewards for Hard Work
- The EPO is not about granting valid patents anymore. The horse-trading corrupt officials just see the EPO as some thing that "prints money"
- Massive EPO Demonstration Today
- It'll start in about 6 hours
- More Layoffs in Microsoft's PR Department, Even Ahead of 'D-Day'
- Notice they are not even waiting for the official date (nor week)
- European Patent Office (EPO) Series: Photo-Ops Galore and Suspicions of Influence-Peddling
- coverage of the EPO's Croatian junket
- Gemini Links 30/06/2026: Music and Broken Hearts
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Monday, June 29, 2026
- IRC logs for Monday, June 29, 2026
