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."

Comments

slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

It shows how useful and influental a well-run collaborative website can be.

Yes, unlike Slashdot.

I think you overrate this SCO thing.

[Samuel Duncan]

I worked nearly sixty years in industry with owning my own business for 45 years. I encountered such strange lawsuits every 3 years or so.
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.

Re:I think you overrate this SCO thing.

[scrytch]

I worked nearly sixty years in industry with owning my own business for 45 years. I encountered such strange lawsuits every 3 years or so. 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.)

Delusional IP lawsuits are certainly nothing new, even ones surrounded with press releases. SCO may even have some kind of case against IBM. It's Darl's grandiloquent pronouncements (to use a genteel term) about IP, Linux Hippies, and the unconstitutional GPL making the baby jesus cry that's what's generated so much "buzz" in this community.

Apple's "look and feel" lawsuits spring to mind ... those created a lot of buzz, and that was before online communities were nearly what they are now. So while it's nothing new, I don't really think that automatically means the community it affects will or should be jaded about it.

Check CPAN, there might be a Tie::Plane::Astral in there somewhere

Best thing to come out of the SCO case

[jhines]

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.

Re:Best thing to come out of the SCO case

[bratgrrl]

Absolutely right. Groklaw is fantastic.

The part I get depressed over- Groklaw is unique because PJ does actual research and fact-based analysis. Sure, we expect ZDNet to print uninformed, baseless opinions, but all these other "real" news and financial media- Forbes, Washington Post, NY Times, etc etc, publish shallow, 'he said she said' garbage. 'This one says I didn't do it, the other says did to.' What crap. Why even bother? In the SCO deal, Forbes reached a new low with Daniel Lyons. There's a guy whose allergy to facts is epic. Read the actual court papers? Research the issues? Nahhh, that would be wrong.

Re:Best thing to come out of the SCO case

[Sesostris III]

I have to agree. To be frank, my view is that the impact of the Groklaw site will reverberate far beyond the bounds of the SCO case, Linux and the GNU GPL.

What PJ has done with Groklaw is what investigative journalists should be doing in the more *serious* papers. Unlike (say) Woodward or Bernstein (of Watergate fame), most modern journalists seem to be purely interested in controversy (which sells) rather than truth. Unfortunately, this focus on sensationalism can be exploited for ulterior motive, and can be more akin to news manipulation than news reporting.

I think with sites such as Groklaw there may be a shift back again to the reporting for detailed truth rather than for sensation. OK, PJ is not a reporter, but she is a researcher, and research is something reporters are meant to do (as well as paralegals!).

It also shows that it is possible for individuals to make the detailed truth of a matter available to all, even if the 5th Estate refuses to do its job! Hopefully others will be encouraged by PJ's example.

Re:Pfffffttttt

[Nurseman]

I know I shouldn't feed the trolls but :

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.

I for one...

[tuxette]

...would like to congratulate Pamela Jones for a job well done. It's especially refreshing to see a woman who doesn't have some kind of techie degree so active in and passionate about the open source movement!

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!

Re:I for one...

[ir0b0t]

Pamela Jones' story inspires me. I struggle with technical topics, and her description of how she escaped MS in the law office by using knoppix and Mandrake was helpful to me. I'm not always sure whether the opensource community realizes how much it has to offer other professions --- esp. the legal profession which can (on bad days) be so adversarial that the benefits of more community-centered approaches to problem-solving are missed. ***

The true power of Open Source work

[ksp]

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!!

"grok" is from "Stranger in a Strange Land"

[kclittle]

...by R.A. Heinlein. It's Martian for "understand deeply". I also personally believe that "geek" is Martian for "terribly attractive".

Re:Pfffffttttt

[fermion]

A real lawyer would tell you what is probably legal and what is not if we assume certain things are true. For the sake of the case, and their client, they will assume that these facts are true.

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.

FOSS Spirit Spreading

[rjamestaylor]

Funny either way you interpret it.

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

Re:FOSS Spirit Spreading

[Ohreally_factor]

Excellent analysis! A few things bear emphasis:

As important as the reprinting of legal documents, press releases, articles, etc., are both the commentary and the research. The documents are very important, of course. The anti-FUD campaign relies on having a central repository, a searchable database. Indeed, much effort has gone into transcribing PDF documents so that they might be more easily searched. Kudos to the selfless volunteers.

The commentary is important because it allows those with a legal background to explain the finer points of the law, and those with a technical background explain some of the complexities of the code. In other words, we compare notes.

The research is important because facts are being uncovered that might otherwise be passed over. Assertions made by SCO can be countered with a multitude of facts, facts which are gleaned by volunteer researchers poring over old mailing lists.

The last thing that I think should be emphasized, you put thusly, "Indeed, the Open Source community is spreading outside the domain of technologists into other disciplines." There is precedent for this method in Academia, but Academia has always been somewhat aloof from the rest of society. Or perhaps it's the other way around. At any rate, Open Source is a cultural phenomenom, not just a development method. It truly is a social movement, one that is idealistic and practical at the same time. It's a paradigm shift, and Groklaw is a manifestation of that.

If Open Source is viral, it is viral in the sense that it is invading our culture, and changing it. I don't believe that it will lead to an overthrow of capitalism, but I do think it will counter balance capitalism and de-emphasize the capatislist marketplace as the be all and end all.

Anyway, I could go on, but I've yakked enough.