Interview with Groklaw's Creator

McSnickered writes "Linux Universe interviewed Groklaw's creator and maintainer, Pamela Jones (PJ). It's a great tete-a-tete with a paralegal who devotes her free time to poking holes in SCO's dubious claims."

Comments

PJ's an interesting figure

[0x0d0a]

PJ may be the highest-profile female member of the Linux community I'm aware of. She's doing legal work rather than coding, but damned if she hasn't done a hell of a lot for the Linux community and public perception during the last few dark months.

Someone who can come out and say "IAAL, and based on my research this person is in the wrong" is an awfully big deal. The FSF does a lot of legal work too (though in the software world it seems to stick mostly to FSF-owned software...even if it does a lot of nice technology civil rights work), but they don't often sit down and post their analyses.

The problem is that, while a lot of Linux developers are very smart, logical people, they sure as hell aren't lawyers (Linus: "I just ignore patents, since I really don't like them"). So far, most non-code help Linux has gotten (with the notable exception of documentation) has been paid by companies rather than volunteer, in the spirit of the Linux community. The legal area is one where a helping hand is terribly appreciated.

PJ is amplified by her Groklaw project. Groklaw tends to be regularly amplified in public awareness by Slashdot. Slashdot reaches people on both sides of the SCO issue (reading IBM's filings sounds suspiciously like PJ's work is helping them out) as well as in the mainstream media. CNN and the AP regularly use Slashdot as an "early warning" system for things that might be interesting to check out.

PJ is probably currently the single most influential person combatting Linux *legal* FUD. It used to be technical FUD was the only issue that Linux had to worry about, and folks did a pretty good job at shooting it down. Legalisms, however, left folks at a loss, and resulted in massive semiinformed arguments on Slashdot and other forums (which I certainly am guilty of taking part in).

Thanks, PJ. You've probably done more for Linux's marketshare in the last few months than anyone putting out, say, a VM patch.

Re:PJ's an interesting figure

[Demona]

It was my understanding that Linus does not ignore patents becaues he doesn't like them, but because it is his opinion that engineers and developers who attempt to research patents in the hope of avoiding trouble actually increase their risk of liability.

Re:PJ's an interesting figure

[swillden]

It was my understanding that Linus does not ignore patents becaues he doesn't like them, but because it is his opinion that engineers and developers who attempt to research patents in the hope of avoiding trouble actually increase their risk of liability.

What's really sad is that no one seems to recognize what ought to be obvious to everyone: The patent system is not working.

The goal of the patent system is to increase the flow of ideas by giving inventors a way to get their ideas out in the open without losing control of them. If the system worked, you should expect to see all software developers searching the patent databases on a regular basis, looking for published solutions to the problems they're trying to solve.

Imagine:

Programmer: Hey! I found a patent that describes a perfect solution to our problem. Dude, it's *really* clever, I never would have thought of it in a hundred years and it's a perfect fit. If we can license it for a reasonable cost, I can probably have it implemented and tested in about a month. Maybe less if the patent owner has an implementation he'll license to us. If not, all the detail I need to build it is in the patent publication.

Manager: A month? That's fantastic! We had a man-year budgeted for researching an approach to that. Give me the patent holder's info and I'll ring him up. Given that it'll save us a bundle and get us to market several months sooner, we can almost certainly afford whatever license fees he wants. Give me a couple of days to see if the deal's going to come together, and then I'll give you the green light. In the meantime, why don't you hit the patent database and look for...

Instead, the system is so badly broken that developers are advised *not* to look at the patent database for fear of what they might see. And it's not just Linux developers either. Every big software company tells its developers the same thing: "Tell us about anything you invent that might be patentable, but don't bother looking patents up. We have attornies to take care of that. If you write something that infringes, we'll decide how to handle it when the issue arises."

Have you *ever* heard someone suggest a patent search to find ideas to use? Patents are severely broken.

Linux/GNU headlong rush

[Oriumpor]

What I keep seeing over and over again occuring to linux is something that (unfortunately) corporations anticipate. Seeing as how we continually describe the Free software MOVEMENT as a movement and not as an organization it limits the scope of influence Linux can truly have.

Unless there is a Software Alliance or even a Community Alliance where we throw down our entrenched religious Debates (VI! NO, EMACS!) (BSD! NO, LINUX!) (MANDRAKE! NO, REDH-er FEDORA!)
and say Screw you software-patent-mandating-closed-source-installing -extreme-License-and-DRM-shoehorning bastards. We are a community and there is no state that governs us all. Who is to say you couldn't run a CVS tree with a published SSH console to VIM and run all your coding on that little gun platform offshore the UK. Or hell, get a laptop put an ISUN on it and fire it into space with a nice big Yagi Wifi antenna pointed at Linus's current GPS coordinates.

Litigation won't stop the movement, it will only stop the legal adoption thereof. And I'm so SURE developing countries will listen to the US court ruling.

If anything this is giving microsoft time enough to lock people in with their horrendous DRM. And a big enough cash incentive for SCO that the current CEO will allow it to come to a head, if only so that he can cash out when he sees the train coming straight at him.

Re:The power of peer review...

[OECD]

I don't even worry too much about errors. When they happen, someone notices within the first hour of a story going up, and I can just correct.

This is the thing that worries me about blogs and other online information sources. Yes, it's true that corrections can (if the poster wants to) be made quickly, but there seems to be correspondingly less concern about getting it right in the first place.

It's a bit like spellcheck: it helps your spelling, but it encourages you to stop thinking about your spelling. Then, if you find yourself without spellcheck, you cant spel any thing. The difference is that we're dealing with the truth, and not spelling, here.