Slashdot Mirror
Groklaw Turns One
JuliusRV writes "Today is Groklaw's one-year anniversary! As PJ writes, 'What a difference a year makes. When we started, all the headlines were saying that SCO was going to destroy Linux or at least make it cry. Now, looking around today, I see almost everyone predicting SCO's imminent doom instead. I think the truth, as usual, isn't in the headlines, and that it's somewhere in between those two extremes.' Thanks, PJ and all other Groklawyers, keep up the good work!"
"Imminent doom" may be closer to the truth than you think.
Any news on how GrokDoc is comming along.. I really like the sound of this project.. :-)
"Consider how lucky you are that life has been good to you so far. Alternatively, if life hasn't been good to you so far
I'm glad that I can still use Linux, as it's the best operating system for serving up obscene volumes of multimedia content over the web. If SCO had been able to make good on their threats (and I'm sure now that if it hadn't been for Groklaw, nobody would've ever heard about this), our operating costs would've gone through the roof and we would've ultimately had to shutdown. Cheers, Groklaw! And let us hope you have another 1 year of existence ahead of you!
Software piracy is victimless theft.
I wonder what it would take to bring about the demise of SCO. I always assumed that SCO were a company who had turned to litigation because they couldn't sell products. Given that they've started to lay off staff around the world you'd think that their belts must need tightening. Does history have any examples of these things turn out?
Regardless of what you think of the business direction SCO has taken, it must be worrying for the staff who still have families to feed. ATle ast they'll still be able to afford GNU/Linux...
Cogito, ergo sig.
The remaining question for SCOX is "how low can it go"? Except for that bump in early April, when SCO tried, unsuccessfully, a stock buyback to prop up the price, the decline from 14 to 5 has been close to linear. If you just project the line out, SCOX goes to zero around late summer. It probably won't go to penny stock levels for a while, though; they have some cash left. But with no licensing revenue and a huge legal burn rate, they can't go on for all that long.
The real question at this point, and it's one the players in the Open Source industry need to think about, is, who ends up with the rights to UNIX when SCO is gone? Sun? IBM? Red Hat? Boies?
It's sad, in a way, to realize that the best thing the original UNIX can do is go away.
It seems like groklaw is not accessible from China - or perhaps it is just from my location.
Anyone else in China able to get to it?
Why would it be inaccessible, I wonder?
Some are already saying that SCO may be the tip of the iceberg as far as FOSS IP problems are concerned, even as SCO's case seems to be declining. (See the current issue of Fortune magazine, with Darl McBride on the cover, unfortunately not available online except to paid subscribers). Of course, one can argue that proprietary software should be held to same standards, but in practice FOSS is an easier target because the source code can be examined by hungry lawyers and they can always bring up the worldwide, quasi-anonymous nature of development of some projects.
I'm betting on Microsoft, maybe through Baystar but most likely directly.
-- Free software on every PC on every desk
I didn't watch much of the OJ trial, but I've heard from others that one of the things that OJs lawyers did was eliminate any juror that might vote for conviction from the jury and get them replaced with alternates. There were many jurors eliminated, and they almost ran out of alternates.
That's the part that's about "buying freedom". I don't think anyone should be able engineer a jury like that. The problem isn't that everyone can't do this, it's that if you have enough $$ you can.
Corporate cases like this are a bit different of course since the judge is going to be (hopefully) un-engineerable. Microsoft got off scot free by just stalling until the administration changed and the new justice dept dropped the whole matter.
AccountKiller
I always assumed that SCO were a company who had turned to litigation because they couldn't sell products.
Well, that was only the tip of the iceberg.
The rest of it is that BayStar (and others?) delivered a truckload of cash to SCO with a prod in the ribs and a wink.
SCO is evil.
BayStar is more evil, because it funds companies to play the asshole/evil war against the big guns - encouraging companies to take up the rifles of Intellectual Property (and I don't just mean those companies being funded - I mean other companies seeing BayStar make a dollar and wanting to jump on the bandwagon).
This ENCOURAGES shitty patents. The broader the better: the more you can sue.
Linux must have looked like a fucking gold mine to BayStar.
I find the whole idea disturbing. I'm crossing my fingers that before SCO dies, BayStar breathes its last too.
For whatever its worth, SCO's Mexico Webpage has been dead since friday (no ping answer). I know, it might be anything, but I still hope I can eventually see the same anwser I get from SCO's Polland exwebpage on the mexican site.
My other OS is the MCP!
(please mod me underrated, not funny ... I'd like some more karma)
Then say something insightful or informative, don't crack a standard slashdot joke and beg for karma.
-Colin
Neither. I probably didn't put it very clearly.
I don't profess to be a legal expert, but the American legal system was based on common law. That means that to a great extent the law is what "makes sense" (as interpreted at the time) rather than what is "universally true".
My primary intention was to point out that to simplify something as vast and complex as the American legal system down to a statement that money is the sole determinant of the law is a distortion of the truth. I say that because it is my feeling that the first step in abandoning your own social responsibility is to say that you can do absolutely nothing to shape events because everyting is being controlled by monied interests. Apathy suits the needs only of those who depend in it for cover.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
I'm not too familiar with moderation on Groklaw, but I would not be surprised to find your assessment correct. Moderation without accountability or transparency is rampant on the net. Outright deletions of trolling posts is a great way to win the battle but lose the war. Slashdot deserves mad props for being able to combat the trolls without resorting to mass post deletion. Some don't understand why this is so important. I was in a discussion with the owner of fark, and he saw outright deletions as just as "bad" as slashdot's moderation. The difference is that I can see everything pushed to -1, and feel confident that moderation is being applied correctly. In other systems, I have no idea if moderation is being abused.
To bring this back to the topic at hand, PJ should realize that the best way to fight ignorance and stupidity is with information, not moderation. Quashing the views of your opponents in any discussion makes you no better. The reason Groklaw has been so successful is in drudging up info that SCO would rather have had remained forgotten. The ultimate lesson should not be that SCO is bad, but that information is good. More information almost always leads us from deceit and error to truth and understanding.
--
As a final aside, I was so fed up with the abusive moderation on fark and other sites I've seen that I created my own to stand as a counter example of the way to run a web forum. It will likely never be very popular, but hey, it's better than just randomly bitching about such moderation. You can read more about it here.
When it's all about "sides", something important is missing. Both sides selecting jurors has to result in "balance of prejudice" and not "commitment to truth". In fact the latter quality could be seen as dangerous to both sides: an unknown quantity; better to have someone "on your team"!
Wikileaks, no DNS