muckrights-sans-merde
bonum fabula frat
### the-sad-niche-muckrights-is-headed-towards-now
*originally posted:* may 2021
muckrights, with its new focus on history and pr tactics, is actually abandoning activism and free software.
public relations and journalism are not (on a good day) the same thing-- public relations is about image control and manipulating perception, while journalism (again-- on a good day) is about giving people information that helps them understand the world around them.
the information muckrights provides these days is misleading-- the bias is becoming obvious, and truth is being abandoned. of course these are claims it will take some time to establish the truth of. and thats being actively worked on; this article is nothing more than an overview. but whats tricky for muckrights is abandoning this cycle of bullshit.
> schestowitz__ guix is not more rms-hostile than debian May 20 15:44 http://techrights.org/irc-archives/irc-log-techrights-200521.html
i have already studied years worth of muckrights posts-- thousands and thousands of them. i am even getting closer to the 50% mark, and muckrights has (in this timeline) already changed their name from the original. i am working on a very extensive summary and overview of muckrights itself, with all of the attention to detail paid to gnu watch. it will not be addressed at the same resolution of course, because there are hundreds of projects in gnu and tens of thousands of muckrights posts.
all the same, i can already state matter-of-factly that muckrights was not always bullshit. even if some people (and thats perhaps an exaggeration) were bullshit, the product WAS useful. i personally found it useful. it helped me as an activist.
today, it takes a lot more effort to find the useful bits, from articles to irc. muckrights has made a number of decisions which simply do not benefit the website, or the community. theyre free to do that (most of it, at least) but they have sacrificed too much of what made muckrights good for the movement. of course it will help to be specific, but lets talk about some of the things they have changed:
### 1. muckrights is not as honest as it used to be
maybe there was always SOME bullshit, though what drew me to muckrights originally was a lower ratio of bullshit to other websites and blogs. there was always some filler, but lately muckrights is being padded heavily with stuff that was neither created by them or for them.
if that were not also part of the new bias, we could just feel sympathetic that muckrights is trying to maintain interest in the website even when they have less to say. however, the reason they have less to say is because of this new bias, which (along with other reasons that are obvious to a number of people) makes me far less sympathetic.
### 2. muckrights has a different narrative than it used to
i dont just mean a different focus-- that changes from time to time. the narrative of muckrights used to be more in line with the free software community. of course, it depends what you mean when you say "free software community". open source has for a long time, had a different narrative and goals than free software, but it pretends to be the same movement (in doing so, it co-opts it). most importantly, open source is not about freedom-- it is about co-opting freedom and offering fake freedom, or corporate control in freedoms clothing.
so muckrights was (to a reasonable extent) more about freedom than not. and this put it in line with the free software movement, a lot of the time.
the problem is that some people in the free software movement continue to care about freedom, even while the free software movement is broadly co-opted and becomes more like "open source" in (too) many ways.
muckrights is not covering this like it would have (or did) in 2018 or 2019. but the problem is there. instead, muckrights panders more, and takes a different tack than it did.
### 3. muckrights attacks things (without any real justification) that it did not used to attack
it also attacks legitimate solutions (just as legitimate as the software muckrights relies on) for freedom. this is particularly unreasonable, unfair and unjust. it also does not justify these attacks (ive stated my own theories on the motivation) but relies on innuendo, similarly to the way that stallman is often attacked with handwaving and outright fabrications.
http://techrights.org/irc-archives/irc-log-techrights-110521.html
> baronhk[m]1 RMS has done incredible damage to OpenBSD for no real reason. May 11 04:00
^ this is most likely very true, and if muckrights still listened to its community instead of pandering fsf-style, they might actually be able to help fix this. instead, they are making it worse, with lies and spin and bullshit.
in particular, the primary author of muckrights runs a shadow campaign against theo de raadt, but does not give a real reason for doing so. he repeatedly attacks him in irc, throwing his name into situations where it makes absolutely no sense to do so. he did the same thing to me, and i knew all the facts regarding that, so i know exactly what hes doing with de raadt.
de raadt said some really arseholish things about stallman, many many years ago. and i was offended by those things-- i avoided openbsd for YEARS because of those attacks; not because they were offensive, but because i thought they were unfair.
but unlike me-- muckrights knew the context of those attacks, and they were REALLY no big deal, and they were in response to stallman being a lot less than diplomatic with the authors of openbsd (many, many years ago).
i should note that i still disagree with the response from openbsd to stallmans rants at them. i think they were disproportionate. but when i judged them originally, i only had one side of the story. muckrights had both sides, they stated both sides (unlike these days, where what muckrights offers is a relatively one-sided perspective on a number of things) and they even refuted the idea that what openbsd did was a big deal.
the only person i know from the openbsd world who attacked stallman recently was todd miller. i have no respect for miller-- at all, and i do not believe de raadt had anything to do with it. i have looked for attacks on stallman from openbsd, and i challenge ron to PUT UP or SHUT THE FUCK UP about theo de raadt, because right now his campaign of innuendo is nothing more than bullshit. and i know first-hand, that one of rons campaigns of innuendo and bullshit can last months (probably years).
lets be clear about this-- ron can say whatever the hell he likes about de raadt, BUT IF ITS ALL BASED ON LIES then he can suck a big bag of dicks. dont run smear campaigns and lie about people and call it journalism, you tabloid writing piece of shit:
http://techrights.org/irc-archives/irc-log-140521.html
```
schestowitz__ maybe openbsd wants to rename to "trust", not
"foundation", seeing the likes of GatesPAC and
ZemlinPAC May 14 17:05
Techrights-sec I'm not sure they are eager to admit outside
influence. May 14 17:31
```
alt-channel conversations between ron and trsec are sometimes bizarre, but just a month or two ago he was telling trsec i was "back" at muckrights (this was completely made up, and later he did a video that made it clear i was NOT back) so i dont know how often he bullshits trsec, or indeed who trsec even is (but ive long suspected its shawn) but i know hes lied to him recently. this could easily be another lie.
if its true though, why not do a story about it? muckrights used to talk about such connections all the time. or for that matter, why have this as a private little conversation off to the side, not in the main channel where the various bsd fans (at least several seem to be becoming bsd fans) will pick it apart? is that because its actually bullshit, but he knows (or assumes) trsec wont bother to check on it? thats the thing about innuendo-- ron doesnt bother justifying half of his bullshit anymore, he just goes around pulling on peoples dicks about things-- like a tabloid.
if ron has FACTS about de raadt or about openbsd, im interested in those. im less interested in his fabrications and spin-- although i now work to expose those for what they are.
what really pisses me off about this is not that i care so much about de raadt (i admire him a bit, for his technical work and certain decisions hes made, though im also the one who pointed out to muckrights that it was john gilmore and richard stallman who convinced bsd to use free licensing in the first place) but that i suspect this is finger-pointing and scapegoating, for the sake of protecting those whose gross negligence is a more substantial factor than anything de raadt (or openbsd) ever actually did. THATS a fucking shame if so, and the shame belongs to muckrights.
i will stand up for de raadt against bullshit the same way i do for stallman, and i will call de raadt out on bullshit, when it happens, as i will with stallman. both have done substantial work that helps free software, and both deserve fairness and honesty (from each other, and from muckrights). instead, ron has suggested recently (as torvalds once did) that openbsd is a bunch of "masturbating monkeys." do you have anything (at all) to back that up, ron? or are you actually the one jerking everybody off?
### 4. muckrights has abandoned attacking things it justifiably attacked before
the other way in which muckrights activism is replaced with pr bullshit and innuendo is in what he DOESNT hold accountable anymore. and although nobody says muckrights HAS TO write anything at all, its just as much a shame that it no longer goes after things it should go after, as it is that they unjustifiably attack good people (who help the movement) and good projects making good decisions.
a lot of projects make the terrible decision of forcing their users to work with microsoft. this is painted as irrelevant to people who just "use" the project in binary form, but wait a minute-- free software also requires you have the source code.
if youre going to work with the authors on the same project, or (sometimes) even if you just need to get the latest source, many authors now require you to deal with microsoft github. and when i was on board, muckrights covered this in detail. now however, the subject is nearly abandoned, along with the fight-- rons chestbeating about people leaving github (which is still at least partly true, but i think he always exaggerated) is for now a lost cause, and without that he doesnt talk much about it. this is just one example, and there will probably be a summary of 2019 and 2020 before 2021 is covered in detail.
### 5. they actively discourage their own most trusted community members from exploring other options-- and protect rons terrible decision to "stay the course" with debian
this is the most troubling, and perhaps explains why ron sits (more or less) idly by while his website is basically censored. ron is too much of a coward (intellectually and technologically-- but if he admitted the limits of his technological bravery-- which isnt really that shameful, all he would have to do is abandon his intellectual cowardice about this subject and tell the fucking truth, which he is using muckrights to paint over instead) to leave debian, so hes going to wait for everybody else to save it and sit on his flabby arse year after year, while the rest of us struggle for freedom.
i wouldnt put it that way, if muckrights was still an honest website. if muckrights was still honest, then just writing it would be a worthwhile contribution. but if it was still honest, they wouldnt be attacking (then pandering to) the people who are struggling for freedom, while acting like a pr agent for people who have spent the past few years jerking off everybody and taking donations under false pretenses.
instead, muckrights attacks those doing the good deeds and gives the credit to the people doing nothing at all-- except bending over for microsoft. this is shameful, but whats more-- it isnt muckrights. its just a bunch of shit.
of course when all you have to say is bullshit, you have to pad that out with SOMETHING. and they do. the epo/patent stuff is still relevant, in all fairness, and since muckrights pretends to be groklaw (hardly, pj never shit on and lied about her own contributors like muckrights does) they pretty much have to do patent stuff. and its not like its necessary to prove how thats relevant to free software, just ask the guy who helped write gpl3.
but all the stallman history stuff is interesting, both by itself and as a tactic, because its the same thing the fsf is doing to cover up the fact that (like muckrights) they dont really fight for you anymore. theyre simply being taken over by microsoft, in ways that muckrights USED TO cover, when it was honest.
instead, muckrights is about pointing the finger at basically innocent people, while pretending that it would be some kind of disservice to the free software movement to continue (as they did for years) telling people just what the fuck is ACTUALLY going on.
the fsf was taken over by pr bullshit, and now muckrights is too. only the fsf gets its pr bullshit for free from a grant, and muckrights gets its pr bullshit for free from the fsf.
its not a news website anymore, its a spin website. its an amateur pr firm, pretending to do activism when its mostly just recycling old stories, telling lies and publishing epo leaks.
but muckrights was nice i think, when it actually LOOKED like it had some integrity. what do they really think their website is about? its certainly not activism anymore. if you care about real freedom, muckrights is more likely to attack you than help at all. the "new" muckrights is more about spin, and making it look like ron is still free. he knows he isnt.
and just like when people attack stallman, hes attacking the people who actually are trying to make things better. maybe if he could justify doing that-- but no! its all bullshit, lies and innuendo. THATS pr though. it isnt journalism.
does ron think pamela jones ever did pr bullshit? or was he only pretending that she inspired him? perhaps she should have been more explicit about the fact that it takes INTEGRITY to do what she used to do. learn to fake that, and you can do exactly what muckrights does these days. also, history is a great thing to cover-- but not as a way to disguise (as the fsf does) the fact that you no longer give a shit.
=> https://muckrights-sans-merde.neocities.org