Slashdot Mirror
The Voice of Groklaw
Random BedHead Ed writes "LinuxPlanet has an interesting interview with Pamela Jones, the paralegal and blogger who created Groklaw. Groklaw has become an indespensible site for geeks who need even more SCO updates than even /. provides - and if the site's inclusion in the footnotes of one of IBM's court documents is any indication, it's been handy for people involved in the case as well. No wonder the site won Best News Site in O'Reilly's OSDir.com Editor's Choice Awards for 2003. It shows how useful and influental a well-run collaborative website can be."
It shows how useful and influental a well-run collaborative website can be.
Yes, unlike Slashdot.
That's one way to get revenge for /. not being chosen news site of 2003!
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
Slashdot has a crush on Groklaw. Cowboy Neal, Pamela Jones, it could work.
If I got agitated every time about this like you do then, well, I wouldn't posting this message. (Unless someone writes an astral interconnect module for Perl.)
Someone making ridiculous claims and wanting a huge heaps of money isn't actually news. Much more people do this for a living than you might guess.
Over 90 years and counting !
I like the artistic touch in the top right... it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside...
/. should get a new layout (or a choice of layouts)...
I suspect that the site's relevance and appeal will dim considerably when the court starts handing down some harsh rulings in SCO's favor as its discovered that IBM engineers improperly released code into the Linux development stream.
The only way such rulings can happen is if the judges are corrupt, since the facts are not on SCO's side. Groklaw will become more and more relevant once judges step outside the line and harass people like this.
Do more reasearch before you start trolling. Mickey D's was serving coffee within 10 degrees F of the temperature at which meat packing plants boil the skin off pigs. McDonalds was doing this for the express purpose of saving a few bucks a week on coffee, as they knew that hotter coffee obscures the bitter flavor from the hours-old pot of coffee left over from the last meal rush in the store. Further, the woman in question required multiple skin grafts and was hospitalized for ten days. Trial evidence demonstrated that most fast food places did NOT serve coffee that hot and that had she spilled coffee from such a place, she would not have been burned nearly as severely (no skin grafts or hospitalization would have been necessary). The damages awarded by the jury were ONE DAYS' profits (not gross receipts) from McDonalds' world-wide coffee sales alone. The trial judge suggested a remittiture of half that (that means he told the plaintiff that if she didn't accept his suggestion, he'd order a new trial), which is what I understand was actually paid. Now, knowing the facts, flame away.
Groklaw is the best thing, so far, to come out of the case.
There is an ever increasing need for common ground between the legal and geek communities, and Groklaw appears to be it. Neither techs or lawyers understand each other's worlds, this goes a long way, to bridging the gap.
A hearty "atta boy" to Pam, and a nomination for whatever annual award there is on the web.
I don't buy it. The author of Grok Law is a paralegal, not a real laywer.
Which is her strength, she does research for a living. Many of the people who post on Groklaw are people who have worked on Linux for years. They know where the bodies are buried. If there was a smoking gun we would have seen it long ago. She runs a professional, well thought out site. She will be arround for a long time after Darl and Co. bite the dust.
Save a Life. Donate Blood. Please.
Having a graduate degree in a funky fusion of computer science and law, I know all to well about the challenges involved in getting the geeks, lawyers, and everyone else, involved or not involved, to understand one another. It is a challenge to write and explain things in a way with a goal of getting as many people as possible to understand what is written and where the fewest people feel like they are being patronized, belittled, hearing "old news," etc. From what I can see (maybe others think differently), Jones does a good job in meeting that challenge.
I hope to see other cases on Groklaw, in addition to all the SCO stuff, both from the US and the rest of the world. I'll be more than willing to contribute stuff. Just keep the site going!
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
If the legal department of IBM ever doubted Open Source and that model of cooperation, I expect Groklaw has convinced them of the success you can achieve by free discussion. If I were an IBM lawyer I would check Groklaw several times every day and keep notes. I really believe Pamela Jones has made a difference that will work in favor of Linux. Thanks, PJ!!
What is the sound of one hand clapping?
cat
The silly thing is that saying that McDonalds was unfairly treated. McDonalds believes in using and abusing the courts. The case cited is an prime example of such abuse. Another good example of this was when they sued private individuals in England for claiming that the food was not good. It was a waste of the courts time and an abuse of the laws of England.
A few big lawsuits are publicized to make the public believe that the suits are costing significant amounts of profits. Most of these are a result of the companies attempt to abuse the courts to hound customers into submission. Anyway, we now know that what is costing profits is the embezzlement by top managers and other such corruption. Of course, a key defense to such corruption is shareholder lawsuits, which are becoming increasingly difficult for anyone but the biggest players.
Might i suggest that the lameness filter be modified to disallow the word McDonalds and lawsuit to be used in the same post.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
"The coffee was perfectly safe..."
As long as you didn't accidentally spill it on yourself, in which case you required skin grafts and 10 days hospitalization.
Sorry, dude, but you must be using a different dictionary for the phrase "perfectly safe" than the one I use.
"She spilled the coffee, McDonald's did not."
McDonald's heated it to over 180 degrees, possibly much higher, given the pressure it was kept under. Not the customer.
And I'm not sure what universe you live in where 180 degrees is "well short of the boiling point", maybe one where Vonnegut's Ice-9 is commonplace, but here on Planet Earth the boiling point is 212 degrees at sea level, and lower at higher altitudes, so I'd say 180 degrees is pretty close to boiling.
To protect her against the fanatical army of pro-SCO terrorists.
(And every time groklaw gets
The only problem with this is that everybody knows what few techies they have left are probably too stupid to even know how to carry out such an attack.
My rights don't need management.
"Optimum coffee serving temperature: 185 to 200 degrees F (source. Coast Coffee)"
That's bonkers. 185-200 might be a good temperature to *prepare* the coffee, so it doesn't get scalded, but that's *way* too hot for drinking.
I urge you to test this for yourself. Please take photographs, so we can all fall off our chairs laughing at your self-inflicted third degree mouth burns.
140 degrees, give or take 10 according to taste and tolerance, is about the best temperature to serve coffee.
Generally, bash is superior to python in those environments where python is not installed.
It's not right. Pamela lives somewhere in the Northeast, not in Minnesota.
There are no pictures of PJ on the Internet, as far as I know. She likes to guard her privacy as much as is possible under the circumstances.
OTOH, a paralegal will try to discover what things are true and what things aren't. It is important to know the all the facts, even if all those facts are not presented in court. This is so the lawyer does not ask a question that might lead to unwanted introdcution of evidence. The skill of a paralegal is discovery of such facts. The only thing one can say is that the second skill of the paralegal may be the highlighting of wanted facts at the expense of unwanted facts.
What is amazing is that the busiest person in most law offices is the paralegal. Long after the lawyers have left for a game of golf, the paralegals are winning the case.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
There are no pictures of PJ on the Internet, as far as I know. She likes to guard her privacy as much as is possible under the circumstances
Maybe to avoid the affections of countless socially-isolated, dateless nerds???
Nah.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
Jones is a savvy user, and her ideas for what needs improvement would be valuable, provided we listen and react to input such as hers. The props are nice, but don't help identify what we need to improve as much as good, honest feedback does.
On the whole, though, a pretty good interview...
Items above a certain temperature are dangerous. We learn this as children, and conduct our lives accordingly. That a grown woman was foolish enough to put cup of coffe between her legs (knowing that it was hot both from years of experience, and from having purchased McDonald's coffee many times over the years), that she was then foolish enough to squeeze the cup tightly enough to cause it's contents to spill over her thighs and genitals says absolutely nothing about the relative safety of McDonald's coffe. It highlights only her unfortunate foolishness in choosing to handle the product in an unsafe manner.
The contest for ages has been to rescue liberty from the grasp of executive power. -- Daniel Webster
Sure.
212 F = 100 C
180 F = 82.2 C
140 F = 57.67 C
In other words, "Tort Reformer AC" is arguing that 85 - 95 C is the proper temperature at which to serve coffee (185-200F), whereas everyone with common sense is telling him that's nuts, and that 50 - 60 C is probably a better temperature at which to serve coffee, although even that's a little too hot to drink. But we all prefer it a little on the hot side, cince it will cool down before you finish it.
Actually, once you put it all into degrees Celsius, it becomes even more obvious how clueless "Tort Reformer AC"'s arguement is.
Slashdot was (not at the expense of _is_) extremely influential in the beginning of widespread Open Source adoption among technologists and future-technologists -- Slashdot helped the up-coming generation of developers, admins and destined tech-management types to understand and appreciate Open Source. When I was in my late teens (early/mid 80's) Microsoft was cool, Apple was a religion and IBM was the "Big Brother" Monopoly. Since, oh, the late 90's the tide changed so that Microsoft is the "Big [DRM] Brother" Monoploy, IBM is cool and Apple is a religion (some things don't change). Slashdot was pivotal for this generational mindshift. Face it, the real victory with Open Source/Linux isn't measured by server installations or stock market capitalization alone; the compelling trend is the number of developers adopting the Free platform. Stunning, because a major component of business technology decisions is available talent pool. This is one reason VB/ASP, inherently brain-damaged, were so popularly implemented; better technology existed but there was no end of available developers (hence, Balmer's love of developers).
Groklaw provides a different purpose. FOSS is no longer in its infancy or adolescense. Proprietary software can not reasonably claim that FOSS is insecure, under-performing, amatuerish, or unproven. Proprietary software is on the defensive on those fronts; the technological hurdles have been jumped. Proprietary software has shifted to fight for its survival and relevancy based on fears of litigation and regulation. IP infringement worries, singled out in 2002's Halloween document (IIRC), was the biggest concern on business leaders' minds so we have SCO vs. IBM (which is a legal case primarily to give pretext to SCO slandering Linux and its developers in public). Not a coincidence. To counter this broadside, as proprietary software vendors must have hoped, the loosely banded FOSS community would have to pay for serious legal representation which it had no structure to begin to afford; akin to Walmart suing Joe And Betty's Corner Mart and Bovine Rendering Plant -- no contest.
What happened was two-fold, and I bet proprietary software antagonists behind SCO vs IBM were caught off-guard. First, IBM didn't do the less expensive alternative and settle with or buy out SCO, but chose to fight this fight. Also, Redhat didn't sit this one out in order to protect its necessary profit margins, choosing instead to answer SCO's slander and FUD with its own suit. Businesses don't like to litigate when it is cheaper to settle, thus the surprise.
Second, the community didn't just flock to Slashdot and bitch about how SCO sux, nor did it mount DDoS attacks against SCO (which would have brought the wrath of public condemnation against it, as SCO must have hoped, since they obviously had prepared Press Releases for such an occasion; the DDoS attacks SCO did experience were not community based, and, in fact, the community worked to stave off such attacks). Nor did the community just rely upon RMS (notably silent, BTW), ESR, Bruce Perens and many other FOSS heavy weights to answer SCO's charges (though their input is important). What happened was unexpected and in the truest spirit of Open Source: a beneficiary of Open Source development offered her special skills to solve a threat against the community which earned her appreciation. Groklaw was born: Open Source, community-based legal research and analysis, lead by Pamela Jones. She has donated her expert skills, time, sweat, and resources. Moreover, others who appreciate FOSS have donated their expertise, time, resources, as well bring clarity to the fuzzy fog of FUD from SCO and others who would destroy Free and Open Source Software. The community has accepted her as the maintainer of this project, much as it accepts the maintainers of technical projects. As a result the legal briefs and backgrounds along with the quotes from all parties in the press and media are available for public scrutiny. Indeed, this resource
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello