Bonum Certa Men Certa

Taking Techrights to the Next Level in 2023

"Apple is fighting against powerful and fundamental economic forces. In the short term, Apple’s technological and industrial design prowess can help to prop up dying business models."

--Timothy Lee



Summary: I've reached a state of "closure" when it comes to my employer (almost 12 years for me, 9+ years for my wife); expect Techrights to become more active than ever before and belatedly publish important articles, based on longstanding investigations that take a lot of effort

Today we published the last daily part of the Sirius 'Open Source' series (there will be more coming, there's already stuff on the way, but not to be published on a daily basis). This series covers, explains and concludes my resignation from that dying company*. It also marks a turning point where I can devote all my time to personal software projects and writing projects. I have a lot of unpublished stories. It takes time to process and verify the facts. Accuracy is paramount. It's the scientific way; we don't tolerate "marketing".



"At the moment Techrights is doing internal stuff, including server migrations."The Microsoft GitHub series (Microsoft GitHub Exposé/"GitHub: Where everything comes to die") will resume later this year. Some rumours about GitHub layoffs need verification. Remember that GitHub will one day shut down like CodePlex did. It is inevitable. Users of the platform don't get to decide on when or how it happens. It'll just happen. There's no business model! Since 2018... only losses. Microsoft now tries to 'monetise' GitHub as a plagiarism blender. Will you buy monthly subscription for Microsoft to assist your blurred-away plagiarism? This is in court right now.

At the moment Techrights is doing internal stuff, including server migrations. We're moving to Alpine. There's also self-improvement work around processes. The goal is to increase our capacity and produce more output (Daily Links, articles, videos, analyses focusing on strategic areas), letting new programs do some of the work, offloading/automating some existing tasks and streamlining others.

"The last time I was not employed was the time I finished my Ph.D. (that in itself was like employment as I was a full-time postgraduate student)."Bear with us while we code some new programs. It may seem slow, but we've only just recovered from a sudden disk/storage failure and I've been speaking to people over the telephone about scandals we're eager to expose in February. Curiously enough, some of our articles about Microsoft layoffs are going 'viral' weeks after they were originally published. It seems safe to say that Microsoft layoffs are (quite frankly as usual) a lot bigger than what the Microsoft PR depsrtment claims and we already see rumours about another wave of Microsoft layoffs (already in the planning).

The last time I was not employed was the time I finished my Ph.D. (that in itself was like employment as I was a full-time postgraduate student). At age 40 I finally managed to position myself to focus purely on this site and its community. Quite a few people in IRC have been there for nearly 15 years (our main channel turns 15 in a couple of months), so we sort of 'grew up together' on the Net. Speaking of the Net, tomorrow we change our home connection from copper to fibre. It'll make things easier. There may be brief outages for Gemini (DNS changes). ______ * Sirius is dead company walking. It accelerated its demise by doing irrational things and mistreating staff.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Mass Layoffs at Microsoft, March 2026
When will the media properly investigate this?
An American War on GNU/Linux, Software Freedom, and British Investigative, Science-Based Reporting - Part IV - Escalating to Ministers, Explaining the Severity of These Matters
British Sovereignty at Stake
Garrett Announces LibreLocal Instance in Northampton, Massachusetts (USA)
his message was the only one last month
 
Geminispace Continues to Grow
Geminispace Will Soon Have 5,000 Capsules
Very Little Slop About "Linux"
We hope to see slop eradicated by year's end
BBC Lied for Its Longtime Sponsor (Bribes for 15+ Years) Bill Epsteingate, in Effect Covering Up Sex Trafficking of Underage Girls
The state of the media is truly awful
Microsoft GitHub is Not Free Hosting and It Won't Last
Not for much longer [...] Microsoft is afraid to say that it is pulling the plug, but it seems inevitable
"The Lost Generation" Came Back, This Time Literally
Based on my limited experience with young people ("alphas"), they're lost
IBM is Not Likely to Survive Another Decade
Despite having already survived over a century [...] Last week we saw claims that some company would likely acquire IBM for its remaining assets
IBM Has Just Been Sued Again by Its Own Staff (This Time a Manager, Stephen P. Gutierrez)
IBM's behaviour towards its staff can prove costly
When a Company Says Its Layoffs are "Due to AI" Check the Debt (Typically the Real Reason for Mass Layoffs)
The mass layoffs at Microsoft continue, but Microsoft hides those in some of the same ways IBM does
Doing More With Less
primacy of concepts rather than bells and whistles
Andy and Helen in Cybershow on Divesting From the United States' Technology and Politics
It is no longer considered a taboo to say this and it's not "anti-American" because many Americans can relate to and agree with such criticism
Links 10/03/2026: "GEMA v. Suno Copyright Case" and "Valve Faces PRS Lawsuit Over Allegedly Unlicensed Steam Music"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 10/03/2026: Woods in UK, Slop Laziness, and "Small Technology and Small Economic"
Links for the day
Microsofters' SLAPP Censorship - Part 8 Out of 200: Gross Misuse of UKGDPR to Protect the Agenda of American Back Doors (Mass Surveillance)
Responding to bunk claims regarding UKGDPR and claims of 'analytics' in our sites
Links 10/03/2026: Oil Prices Rising, South Korean/US Military Assets Redirected
Links for the day
Links 10/03/2026: Rust Rewrites by Slop "20,171 Times Slower", "You MUST Review LLM-generated Code"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, March 09, 2026
IRC logs for Monday, March 09, 2026
Attacks on Techrights Make Techrights Stronger and Attract More Whistleblowers to Techrights
The harder they attack us, the more productive we become
The Register MS Has Just Taken Money From Google (Where the Former Chief Editor Now Works) for Femmewashing and Ponzi Scheme Promotion
now The Register MS not only promotes a Ponzi scheme but also bags money to pretend Google respects women
People at IBM Are Still Smart Enough to Understand What's Really Going on
"I would never refer someone to work at IBM that I liked! I hope all of you have reviewed IBM on Glassdoor."
European Patent Office (EPO) to "Eventually Eliminate the Tasks Performed by Formalities Officers"; EPO Run by People Without Experience in Patents
full paper
RMS is 73 Next Week
Richard Matthew Stallman (RMS) turns 73 exactly 7 days from now
Iran & FSFE: blackmailing women, from football to the French Government (CNIL)
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
An American War on GNU/Linux, Software Freedom, and British Investigative, Science-Based Reporting - Part III - Very Strong Legal Basis for an Appeal
The case is now being escalated to a Foreign Secretary and former Deputy Prime Minister
Police investigations, lawsuits & Debian leader election candidate shortage
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Richard Stallman (RMS) Has Defeated Cancel Culture, a Mostly American Phenomenon
RMS is talking now
No Slop Found in RSS Feeds, Only in Google News
No slopfarm will survive for very long, certainly it'll go bust as soon as readers (if it had any) know what it is
Links 09/03/2026: Many Security Breaches and a Pandemic of Censorship
Links for the day
People Who Work or Worked at IBM Hate It
bluewashing is only the first step
Richard Stallman (RMS) Talks in 30 Minutes, Next Stop Bern (Last Stop)
We assume he'll travel back to Boston after that
IBM's Fedora as a Booster of Slop Disguised as Code or Computer Programs
Maybe we should also stop seeing a doctor and instead ask chatbots about symptoms?
Richard Stallman (RMS) Talk Five Hours From Now
there is growing recognition for what he really did for everybody
What the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) and Action Fraud UK Have in Common
Don't let London become the world's "crime capital"
EPO Strike 10 Days From Now, Planning Assembly Tomorrow, Last Couple of Strikes Had High Participation Rates (1,500-1,600 Staff Went on Strike)
The next strike is in 10 days' time and then there will be another strike
Dr. Andy Farnell on How GAFAM, NVIDIA and Others Lie to People Via the Sponsored Media to Prop Up Lies Under the Guise of "AI"
Lots of key aspects are covered
Links 09/03/2026: GAFAM Outsourcing, "MAGA Political Meddling" in EU, Indonesia Bans Social Control Media for Children Under 16
Links for the day
Using Slop (and Slop in Articles) to Attack Copyleft 'on Budget'
This article is pure BS from an anti-GPL and anti-RMS 'activist'
Why The Register MS Sold Out to Microsoft: They're Losing Lots of Money, The Register MS is Bleeding to Death, Based on Its Own Financial Records
With over 6 million pounds in debt (nearly 10 million US dollars) we guess it's likely some other company will take over the site (if it deems it worthwhile)
Microsofters' SLAPP Censorship - Part 7 Out of 200: Like With the Serial Strangler From Microsoft, Misuse of UK-GDPR to Try to Hide Embarrassing Facts
They do and say really bad things, then allege it's a "privacy violation" to mention those things
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, March 08, 2026
IRC logs for Sunday, March 08, 2026
Gemini Links 09/03/2026: Exponentials and Tailscale
Links for the day
Sloppyleft
Article by Alexandre Oliva
Hard to Replace 'Human Touch'
The reason many people insist on using GNU
Richard Stallman Gives Talk in 20 Hours at Ostschweizer Fachhochschule Campus in Rapperswil-Jona
The talk is in English
The Slop Companies Gamble at Our Economy's Expense and They Know It's a Losing Bet (So It's a de Facto Robbery)
The crash of this bubble isn't just inevitable, it's already happening and receding sporadically because of false announcements about money that does not actually exist (to "buy time")
Suppressing Speech by Blackmail, the Iran Story
When Debian wanted to stage a seemingly legitimate election it needed to have more than one candidate running; so eventually the female partner of a geek rose to the challenge (had no coding skills at all, no technical history in Debian) and lost to the "incumbent German"
Too Focused on Buzzwords the Media is Paid to Saturate the Collective Mind With
Just because companies do really bad things in the digital realm does not imply "AI" or follow from "AI"
Discrimination and Prejudice Against Female Journalists
we can shame people who attack a reporter on the grounds of gender
An American War on GNU/Linux, Software Freedom, and British Investigative, Science-Based Reporting - Part II - Trying to Put People in Prison for Committing the Act of Journalism
This is abuse of process
Attack on Copyright and Copyleft by Code Conversion Is Nothing New, It Predates Slop (Code Produced by LLMs) by Several Decades
Even back in the 90s many people converted programs from one language to another. That could invalidate copyleft (and copyright), which already existed
Almost a Slopless Weekend for "Linux"
Let's hope slop will come to an end or sites will cease linking to slop
Insiders Explain Why IBM is Dying and the Inherent Culture Problem
There are many ways to shave this IBM cat
Links 08/03/2026: Microsoft Lost $400 Million on "Project Blackbird" and Half the States Sue Over Illegal Tariffs
Links for the day
Links 08/03/2026: Cisco Holes Again and "Blatant Problem With OpenAI That Endangers Kids"
Links for the day
Activism/Journalism in Our Blood
one must fight for one's principles
Gemini Protocol in Its Prime
What's particularly neat about Gemini Protocol is that it's fast and cheap
Microsofters' SLAPP Censorship - Part 6 Out of 200: Intentionally Misnaming Women, People Who Offered to Testify That They Too Had Been Subjected to Similar Abuse
Today it is International Women's Day
Even Fedora Leadership Cannot Figure Out the Microsoft Kill Switch/Back Door, 'Secure' Boot
It does not actually enhance security
Bruce Perens: Richard Stallman "Has Achieved His Goal"
Stallman's next talk is tomorrow
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, March 07, 2026
IRC logs for Saturday, March 07, 2026