Slashdot Mirror
SCO Legally Assaults PJ of Groklaw
Litigious Bastards writes "SCO has just filed court papers saying that they were unable to subpoena PJ of Groklaw. While they apparently sent their crack team of process servers out looking for random people named Pamela Jones, it would appear that they were unable to locate the bright yellow envelope labeled 'Email PJ' on the Groklaw website to ask for directions to serve her in person. They're once again accusing her of working for IBM or Novell, and Groklaw is now hosting over 20 documents PJ claims were planted in the media in an effort to discredit her. As she says, 'And so the stupidest lawsuit in the history of the world just got stupider. And a whole lot meaner.'"
Well, this is for the New York City Civil Court (your mileage may vary), but it would seem that it is up to the server to find the person to be served. I really don't think they can legislate that the person being served make themselves more available, sonce there's no real way to know who will receive a subpoena ahead of time.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
It's funded by Microsoft. Your Windows dollars at work.
According to everything I've read, SCO wants to depose PJ for the Novell case not the IBM case. But they also want to include the deposition in the IBM once it is done. All depositions in the IBM case should have been done by now. They are trying to do an end-around the rules.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Given the fact that Maureen O'Gara, a reporter(and I use that loosely)tried to find out where PJ lived, and then published photos of her alleged house, brother and mother without ever verifing if it really was the right Pamela Jones I too would be a bit paranoid. If I published photo's of Darl Mcbride's house you can believe he wold have the police after me even if it was the wrong house.
Given the facts in this case, and what Darl has said ad done, I too would be scared of what Darl would try to do.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Why avoid it?
Those are the 3 that come to mind in the first 10 seconds of thinking about it.
Given the way SCO has treated it's previous deposees, I wouldn't do a thing to make their lifes any easier to find me. I don't need any more abuse in my life. If they can follow the rules & find me - so be it, if I can't quash the supeona, I'll show up. Until they follow all the rules - something they seem to be unable to do- I'm sitting on my butt laughing at them.
She has? She hasn't been evasive at all about this issue. She has stated quite clearly, on many occasions, that she does not work for IBM, IBM does not pay her, the fact that IBM contributes to ibiblio had nothing to do with ibiblio's willingness to host her site, nor her decision to ask ibiblio for hosting, and that she really is just a paralegal with a passion for open source software and nothing better to do with her time than groklaw.
You can believe that she's lying, if you want, but she certainly hasn't evaded the issue at all. IIRC, IBM has also publicly denied any support for PJ or Groklaw. And if you believe their fine attorneys would allow them to lie about anything like that, you're nuts.
I know few people actually want to appear in court but since she has so much to say re SCO why not just accept the supoena and nail them in the courtroom.This statement implies that the has tried to avoid the subpoena. She says "No one tried to serve me that I knew about. No one informed me of any deposition date." Again, she could be lying, but her articles on Groklaw over the years indicate that PJ has a deep and abiding respect for the law and the legal process, and it seems very likely that had SCO or BSF used the e-mail link on her web site to let her know they were looking for her to serve a subpoena on her, she would have given them the information they needed.
Also, it seems very unlikely to me that a person who knows the law as well as PJ obviously does would do anything so foolish as lying in public about elements of a lawsuit related to her personally -- leave that to SCO. I'm sure she even cleared her disclaimer with her attorney before posting this most recent article, which deliberately doesn't say much, and points out that since she's personally involved, she can't say much.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
It's shed light on the ridiculousness of software patents
On the contrary, it's shown that the system, slow as it is, at least works reasonably. They abandoned the lame-o patent claims long ago when it became clear they weren't winning them. Not to mention which, no software patents were never declared invalid in this case; rather, it simply became clear that SCO's interpretation of the licenses was retarded. In that sense, the patent claims were a matter of contract law, which was what was in fact disputed. Since then, this has become purlely a copyright case, and they're obviously losing that too.
and brought clarity to copyright law.
I don't know what's been clarified, other than the fact that there isn't any SCO-owned code in Linux save what they put there and has since been removed. Copyright law has always been clear with regard to this case: don't copy what isn't yours. Problem is (for SCO), IBM didn't.
Additionally it's shown that there are companies who are willing to stand up for Free Software, even at great expense.
I'd be wary - IBM is standing up for themselves. When they start filing amicus briefs in cases they're not involved in, that don't impact them directly, then I'll agree with that. Are they?
The first assumption here is that SCO has honestly tried to serve PJ with a competent subpoena. From what I remember about SCO and subpoenas, they have consistently delivered them to the wrong address (Chrysler), to the wrong people (Intel), had technical defects (Intel, Oracle), had procedural defects (Oracle, Intel, the Open Group), and with inadequate notice (Intel, Oracle, the Open Group).
When the subpoenaed Chrysler, they sent it Chrysler's old corporate HQ which they moved out of years earlier. SCO sent a subpoena to Intel's legal department even though Intel had told them that they retained outside counsel for these matters, and SCO had worked with that outside counsel 45 days earlier. They send Oracle and Intel subpoenas for depositions without listing what topics to depose and wanted to take the depositions (in NY) 2000 miles from Intel's HQ (in CA). In CA where the OpenGroup, Oracle, and Intel are located, you are not allowed to drop a subpoena demanding a deposition and expect to be followed. According to rules, there must be a meet and confer with the other party (especially if they are third party to a lawsuit) to arrange these matters. When some of the procedural and technical defects were finally resolved, all three were given less than 24 notice to appear to testify about a broad number of subjects. Intel specifically objected noting that the depostion would require the appearance of 6-8 people and about a month of preparation to gather all the required documents.
With SCO it has always been about tricks and delay.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Note that receiving funds 2nd had through a foundation that is supported - in part - by IBM doesn't make her a party.
I think that any one of those might cause a gag order.
As for interfiering with their business, commenting on a legal case in progress isn't illegal. Stating your opinion isn't illegal. Telling people to stay away from a company because they are crazy enough to sue their customers might be tortuous interfierance, if it wasn't provable that they are in fact suing their customers. So that's not going to initiate a gag order.
Skipping to disseminating information not publicly available, Groklaw has on occasion posted things that were supposed to be filed under seal. The reason that was done is that the documents themselves were misfiled. PJ has deliberatly removed those documents from the archive each time this has occured. Other than that, I don't recall seeing anything that was presented that isn't part of the public record - IE, you can go down to the courthouse and pick up every document listed on Groklaw that originates in this case. Secondary comments & supporting documents or documents brought in from other locations to refute SCO or bolster IBM & Novell have likewise been available for public consumption - published works, web pages available from the internet, etc.
The only real hope SCO would have to get PJ silenced as a party to the lawsuit would be to prove she is an employee of IBM. Even then, they would have to show a reason to gag her when she's only commenting on publicly available documentation. They would also have to show how her discussions are any more biased than the SCOinfo.com site SCO itself maintains.