Now, a lawsuit has been filed against Red Hat, on behalf of Allan Wood, who was a Senior Director at the Linux giant.
That lawsuit alleges significant racial, relgious, and gender discrimination. And, based on what information we currently know about Red Hat's discriminatory policies... his case looks incredibly strong.
We just filed a federal lawsuit against IBM’s subsidiary Red Hat for illegal racial discrimination. IBM has allegedly implemented illegal anti-white and anti-male quotas. We will use every tool to hold IBM accountable:
With our co-counsel, including Barnes Law, we filed a lawsuit on behalf of our client against the International Business Machines Corporation’s (IBM) subsidiary, Red Hat, for violating Civil Rights laws by allegedly engaging in discriminatory employment and termination practices against white males.
Our plaintiff is a white male and was a dutiful Red Hat employee for eight years, rising to the position of Senior Director. He was an exemplary employee who had never received a negative review during his time at Red Hat.
But for the discrimination he faced, he was on the path to becoming one of the top executives at Red Hat…
In 2021, Red Hat began implementing illegal diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) requirements. In accordance with its illegal activities, Red Hat hired a Chief Executive Officer of DEI to spearhead these programs — mandating employee training while implementing employment quotas aimed at achieving diversity goals by illegally treating race as a dispositive factor for employment and advancement.
On several occasions, managers and executives at Red Hat commented to our plaintiff and other employees expressing their dismay at the lack of diversity in the workforce and their desire to achieve certain workforce quotas based on race and gender. Red Hat executives indicated that these DEI initiatives would influence certain hiring and employment decisions.
Our plaintiff was vocal about his opposition to these discriminatory policies and continuously advocated for hiring based on merit and skill rather than other immutable characteristics.
Red Hat made express statements, both vocally and in writing at company events, that were derogatory towards white individuals and presented an anti-white agenda. Red Hat also remarked on the low number of women employed and expressed anti-male rhetoric. Red Hat made it clear that it was going to implement heightened DEI policies, with the sole intent of increasing diversity.
Red Hat has made it clear that it is in favor of discriminatory policies that the Supreme Court has found unconstitutional.
In the case of Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) v. Harvard, decided together with SFFA v. University of North Carolina, Red Hat, along with 70 other corporations, filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in support of affirmative action:
At a kickoff event in Texas, Red Hat brazenly announced its “Bold DEI Goals,” which included quotas.
Red Hat sought to remake its workforce demographic, seeking to reach 30% women globally and 30% associates of color in the United States by 2028.
Just two weeks after this announcement, our plaintiff was informed by his manager that his role was being eliminated following several months of discriminatory treatment.
Upon information and belief, 21 of the total 22 individuals were white males.
Last year, James O'Keefereleased a recording of IBM Chief Executive Officer and Board Chairman Arvind Krishna promising to fire, demote, or deny bonuses to corporate executives who fail to meet the corporation’s racial, national origin, and sex-based hiring quotas or hire too many Asian individuals.
Following this shocking footage, we filed a federal civil rights complaint with the EEOC against IBM for alleged racial and sex discrimination.
We also wrote to IBM’s Board of Directors, demanding an end to the corporation’s systemic violations of law to prevent the waste of corporate assets and harm to shareholders.
Today, we are proud to file this lawsuit to continue to fight corporate America’s destructive, illegal, and odious use of illegal DEI initiatives that are fundamentally anti-white, anti-male, and anti-equality.
Ads are filling the entirety of the Web -- websites, podcasts, YouTube videos, etc. -- at an increasing rate. Prices for those ad placements are plummeting. Consumers are desperate to use ad-blockers to make the web palatable. Google (and others) are desperate to break and block ad-blockers. All of which results in... more ads and lower pay for creators.
It's a fascinatingly annoying cycle. And there's only one viable way out of it.
Each time I moved over the last decade, I got rid of more and more old computer stuff (e.g., a TRS-80 CoCo 2, a wire-wrapped 8088 board, a wire-wrapped 6809 board, Borland C++ 3.1 with all the manuals, Turbo Pascal 6.0 with Turbo Vision, DR-DOS 5.0, Codewright 4.0). It was only being kept because of nostalgia and that nostalgia lessened with each move. The nostalgia returned after discovering various retro-computer YouTubers as my health declined. Only several small items are left, such as this Windows NT 4.0 CD. I’ve been thinking of spinning it up in a virtual machine the past couple of years. If I do, perhaps I should make a video.
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Most publications (podcasts, articles, or videos) keep their lights on through paid advertising.
Companies pay a publication's bills and, in exchange, their podcasts are filled with advertisements (sometimes with more advertisements than actual show) -- their articles littered with animated ads and pop-over videos -- and, even more importantly, the creators refrain from ever criticizing the advertisers. After all, you don't bite the hand that feeds you.
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Last Month at The Lunduke Journal
To give you an idea of what you're making possible, here is a simple list of the shows and articles published by The Lunduke Journal during the last month (October) alone.
Crazy, right? Some of these news stories you won't find covered anywhere else. If it weren't for The Lunduke Journal... so many stories simply would never be told.
A huge thank you to each and every supporter of The Lunduke Journal -- both new subscribers... and those of you who have been with us since the beginning. Absolutely could not do it without you.
Last week at The Lunduke Journal (Oct 20 - Nov 2, 2024)
Linux v. Russia! Internet Archive Weirdness! RISC OS Web Browsing!
Ok, first off: I totally forgot to publish a "week in review" article last week. Woops. My bad. So this article covers the last two weeks.
Second: Over the last 14 days, apparently there's been 16 shows. Hot dang.
And the news has been all over the map! The big story, obviously, was the "Linux v. Russia" craziness. The really wild part of that story is that it's still ramping up. The next month is going to see some wild stories relating to open source software and sanctions compliance.
Oh! Oh! And the Internet Archive stuff! Insane!
But, you know what my absolute favorite news story was for the last two weeks? The one about RISC OS having WiFi and a modern web browser now. That story just made me happy. It's nice to know that, even when various software companies and organizations are losing their darned minds... there's still bright spots of nerdy joy out there.
Reminder: Check out Lunduke.com for all the handy URLS. Podcast RSS feeds, contact info, direct links to some of the big shows and articles and a bunch of other goodies. And be sure to subscribe to The Lunduke Journal to help support the work... and make sure you don't miss out on anything.
Apple Removes Ability to Run Unsigned Apps in macOS 15.1
Big Tech's war against "sideloading" continues.
On Monday, October 28th, Apple released the macOS 15.1 update. And, with that update, Apple has ratcheted up their war on "sideloading" by completely disabling the ability to run unsigned macOS software.
Just a little over one month ago (September of 2024), the initial release of macOS 15.0 brought with it a new round of restrictions on running non-signed (also called "non-notarized") applications. With 15.0, users could still run non-signed software... but they needed to jump through a few extra hoops by openning the System Settings and manually enabling each application they wanted to run.
This change made running unsigned software on macOS a bit more annoying -- additional steps to do something that used to be a simple "double click on the darned icon" process. Annoying, to be sure. But, luckily, all software could still be run.
That all changed -- less than 45 days later -- as Apple released the 15.1 update to macOS, which included the removal of the "Click around in System Settings" option to allow unsigned apps to run.
Now, in 15.1, when you attempt to run a non-notarized piece of Mac software, you will be greeted by a simple error message: "The application 'Finder' does not have permission to open '(null)'."
No option to run the software whatsoever. Effectively banning all non-signed software (such as those developed by a hobbyist).
The War on Sideloading Continues
This isn't exactly a surprising move by Apple. Over the last few years, all of the Big Tech operating system companies (Microsoft, Apple, and Google) have pushed -- with increasing intensity -- to lock down what software users are allowed to run on their computers.
Increasingly restrictive "application signing" systems, and the removal of "features" which allowed non-signed applications to run, have been a stated goal of all three corporations.
All in the name of a war on, what Big Tech has termed, "Sideloading".
What is "Sideloading", you ask?
"Sideloading" is most simply defined as "The act of installing software on a real computer." And Apple, Google, & Microsoft are determined to stop people from doing that.
That's right. Apple considers you having the freedom to install whatever software you want on the computer you own -- something every real computer (including those made by Apple) have done since the dawn of Personal Computing -- to be a "threat".
With macOS 15.1, Apple is taking significant steps to neutralize that "threat".
No software freedom for you.
The Last Workaround
As of now -- with macOS 15.1 -- there remains one final way to work around these draconian and artificial restrictions.
To do so requires the complete disabling of "Gatekeeper", the system which verifies downloads and restricts the running of non-signed applications.
This can be done via a fairly simple terminal command run as root:
sudo spctl --master-disable
However, it should be noted that with Apple's ever increasing requirements of application "notarization" -- and increasing reliance on the Mac App Store for software distribution (which ties into Gatekeeper) -- the full disabling of "Gatekeeper" seems likely to cause issues going forward with "Apple approved" methods of installing software.
Likewise, at Apple's current rate of attacks against "sideloading", the ability to turn off Gatekeeper may not be long for this world at all.
Don't Laugh, Google & Microsoft Users
While the news, today, is focused on Apple (their fight against the most basic freedoms of computing -- the ability to run software)... both Microsoft and Google have made it clear that they are all in on the war against sideloading.
Case in point: Google is migrating Android software away from "APK" application packages... to the far more restrictive "AAB" application bundles. Microsoft, likewise, is pushing for a reliance on their online store.
So users of Android, ChromeOS, & Windows shouldn't laugh. You're next.
Users of a variety of open source, alternative operating systems (such as Linux, BSDs, and many others), however, can laugh all they want.
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