Showing headlines posted by schestowitz

In a manic rush to crucify the father of Free software (who had started the GNU/Linux operating system almost 40 years ago) thousands of delirious people signed an utterly ludicrous petition (full of distortions and lies) — a petition managed by an employee of IBM. Now, years later, some of them want their names to vanish.

In his speech at the University of Pisa on June 7, Richard Stallman addressed the topic of machine learning systems (so-called “artificial intelligence”) and answered the question of whether the training data should be released. 29:00 – 54:00 and 58:40 – 1:04:00 in the video.

The Linux Foundation is gradually becoming a shadow of Microsoft, just like the Open Source Initiative, where most of the money comes from Microsoft and the official blog promotes Microsoft, its proprietary software, and Microsoft’s side in a class action lawsuit over GPL violations (with 9 billion dollars in damages at stake). So it all started with one Board member after the “Microsoft loves Linux” PR charade (money passed to Jim Zemlin, who gives talks at Microsoft and is ‘married’ to Microsoft); then it became two (more money paid for the second seat; the Linux Foundation openly advertises that Board seats are up for sale with upper bound of 2) and now it’s three through the loophole (subsidiary to evade membership limits being exceeded, just like at the OSI and Redmonk). It’s like a completely covert takeover in slow motion and the “AT-LARGE DIRECTOR” is also a Microsoft employee (all 3 are female, so talking about this hostile act of entryism will get baited as being sexist); Mr. Mason is no longer there, so no geeks or Linux developers left in the Board (it’s just ‘suits’ and corporate actors). As a reminder, Microsoft is also in the Technical Advisory Board of the Linux Foundation and its current Board members keep pushing for Linux to be outsourced to Microsoft's GitHub despite being fiercely anti-GPL (the licence of Linux), totally proprietary, and having already had two rounds of layoffs this year. It’s not like Microsoft is even the sole problem in that board.

The Linux Foundation must be spending tens of millions of dollars on contractors, so what does its own staff do all day long?

A couple of years ago the Linux Foundation paid almost 6 million dollars a year for an overpriced office space (vanity; no practical advantage) following a relocation to one of the world’s most expensive places; the figure has since then jumped by nearly 2 million dollars

The Linux [sic] Foundation‘s tax filings (divulged by the Nonprofit Explorer) show that it now pays “CHRIS ANISZCZYK” and “JAMES ZEMLIN” more than it pays “LINUS TORVALDS”, sans bonuses. Torvalds fell to third place already. Mr. Zemlin pays himself over $1.2 million a year.

By abandoning OpenSource.com and OpenOffice.org/LibreOffice IBM sends out a clear signal that it doesn’t understand or simply does not care about the community of Free software users; its siege against the FSF and other institutions never ended and today we look at who’s being laid off or shown the door (the work environment is intentionally being made worse)

IBM seems to have shut down OpenSource.com (it’s online but inactive; nobody works on it anymore). The Linux Foundation did the same to Linux.com in 2019 and then trashed it (because it doesn’t care about Linux, except as a brand to milk).

If one counts Android as “Linux”, then it’s probably fair to say that nowadays most people already use “Linux” on the client side (the server side has been prominently GNU/Linux for a very long time) and if one counts Chrome OS as GNU/Linux (technically it is), then it seems reasonable to expect 10% market share by year’s end or some time next year

It seems like Mr. Torvalds, the founder of Linux, has been tragically compelled to use proprietary software for E-mail (the primary means/tool for collaboration around Linux); this concerning trend, however, would be consistent with a lot of what we’ve been seeing from Jim 'respect Microsoft' Zemlin and his associates at the Board of Directors (proprietary software boosters)

This year, LibrePlanet was hybrid with on-site and online options from the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center.

TRApp, term that lends its name to this article, is short for "Telescreen-Running App". It sounds just like "trap". Any similarity is not purely coincidental.

Richard Stallman's talk is now available.

(editor's note: Stallman's talk starts at 18:20 into the video.)

Ken Thompson has shared incredible news; he's moving to GNU/Linux

A recent Reddit post caught my attention as a Christian, humanist and computer scientist. Allegedly, an employer claimed to be troubled by a worker citing "Religious Reasons" for their refusal to use Microsoft

5 of the things that will hopefully change over the next 5 years; today we give a short list

The above video explains how both my wife and I were being bullied by management just weeks or at most a month after a shell was created in the US after the Gates Foundation had secretly (under NDA) offered money to the CEO. Only a few years prior to that he told me (face to face in Alton Towers) that Microsoft had contacted him over the phone to complain about me (regarding things I wrote in Techrights). Funny how Microsoft likes to complain about you behind your back… to your boss. I only found out and wrote about it years later. It was risky to even mention this, but I did it anyway.

Mainstream media or corporate 'tech' media is presenting a real issue — an issue of unmaintained or unpatched WordPress plugins — as an issue to do with “Linux” and even the term "backdoor" is misused (“Linux” is mentioned a lot in the context of villainy to scare away potential adopters)

Most egregiously, the highest levels have been staffed not by experienced administrators with an understanding of the demands and complexities of a university network, but by "industry dropouts" who bring toxic corporate buzzwords and hostile values into an institution that requires curious, tactful consultation, openness, trust and cooperation.

Disempowering technologies take away legitimate control from their operator. For example, not being able to stop a Windows upgrade at a critical moment. I've quit counting the classroom hours lost to inefficient and dysfunctional Microsoft products that ran amok out of my control while students stared out the window.