Slashdot Mirror
Groklaw's PJ Says SCO's Demise Greatly Exaggerated
blackbearnh writes "Last week, the net was all abuzz with speculation that SCO was finally gone and done for. With the final judgment in SCO v. Novell in, and SCO millions of dollars in the hole to Novell, it seemed like the fat lady had finally sung. But like most things in the legal system, it isn't nearly that simple. O'Reilly Media sought out Groklaw's Pamela Jones, and got a rundown of what's still alive, and why a final end to the madness may be many years away. 'Summing up, it looks bleak for SCO at the moment, but let's enter the alternate realm of SCO's best-case scenario in its dreams: in that realm, SCO wins on appeal, which one of SCO's lawyers indicated might take a year and a half or five years, and the case is sent back to Utah for trial by jury, which is what SCO wanted (as opposed to trial by judge, which is what it got), then everything listed above (except for the IPO class action) comes alive again, presumably, depending on what the appellate court decides. Then SCO is in position once again to go after Linux end users, as well as IBM, et al.'"
Make it stop. Please. I beg of you.
In other words, SCO is a zombie. It can't be killed by normal litigation. Argh, kill it with fire! Do it now!
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
WTF is up with the userpage! It was bad I get slapped with the dumbass firehose-with-Idle's-stylesheet, but now I don't even have a tab for my comments.
If I want Firehose, I'll go to to Firehose. (I don't, and wont)
If I want Idle, I'll go to Idle. (I don't, and wont)
If I want my userpage to be a clean, simple and informative interface, I'll click on my username in the upper right. Oh wait, I can't!
If you want to dick around with the userpage, fine. Just give me a checkbox that says "opt out of this crapfest" like you did with the index and comments.
UTF-8: There and Back Again
I sure hope this SCO doesnt start killing all the other fantasy dimension SCO's and absorbing their power...
http://i.cubeupload.com/T6cyLu.png
If they continue their litigious behavior, perhaps $CO can file bankruptcy again. Either that or go head to head with someone a little more like themselves, the Church of $cientology, which would be terrific entertainment.
The jury is composed of servers running various flavors of Unix.
PJ, the arch-censor of Groklaw, desperately needs you to believe this
To believe that it's possible, or to believe that it's probable?
It seems like if she was looking for job security she would be arguing that it's probable. Instead she's arguing that it's possible. And we all know what possible means. I have a lottery ticket in my pocket. It's possible I've won. Sure as hell wouldn't call it probable though.
And FWIW, Groklaw does far more than merely keep an eye on SCO. Just the other day there was a good article about the Bilski ruling over on Groklaw. The Groklaw front page also has items about the cyberbullying case, and Harvard having a youtube channel.
If there's one thing PJ has probably learned from following the SCO story from the beginning is that you don't put all your eggs in a single basket.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
they are worse than Cylons. They seem to be "killable", but keep replicating. Hell, they don't even improve models. You need to find the Resurrection Ship and put a nuke in its colon.... preferably making it a HUGE swollen colon, that no deep space Ben-Gay nor Preparation H can favorabley re-sequence...
SCO should be SCO^3, which could stand for: "Self-Contained Organism, Secreting Copies Over Secret Channel Outputs"
Or, SCO could be a tag/jingle for: "Semi-Conjugative Ogres: Screwing Companies Over"
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
I suspect this language is really a hangover from English law, where a peer of the realm (ie. someone with a seat in the House of Lords) was entitled to be tried by other peers of the realm, whilst commoners (ie, the rest of the population) were only entitled to be tried by other commoners. I have no idea if this right still exists for peers of the realm.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
After years of hearing about their BS tactics, trying to sue all sorts of businesses, I don't even know what they do anymore. I'm partly joking, but you rarely hear anything about them beyond court cases. Usually, you hear about a company doing something dumb/stupid for a while, then you hear about some product they are releasing or something new they are doing; you know, like companies that provide a service or a product. Not with SCO. I just don't understand how any company like that could ever expect new customers or continued contracts with any dignity. I know they shot themselves in the foot so many times, but most companies I've seen do this in the past are at least worked on something substantial while lawsuits continue. end rant
As I understand it, you can't win an appeal on a factual basis, the appeal is instead all about any procedural errors made during the main trial that could be the basis for overturning the result.
Kinda/sorta. Appeals courts don't decide the facts of the case. Appeals are about matters of procedure or law.
And as far as I can tell, the judge did everything possible to follow procedure and give SCO as much rope as they needed to hang themselves. So, on what basis is SCO going to argue their appeal? Are there any possible levers there?
Well, it's possible that SCO could argue that the judge either misinterpreted or otherwise failed to apply the law correctly in any number of areas. As far as I can see, most of these areas would probably relate to evidence that was excluded by the judge before the trial even began -- during the discovery phase.
That's if -- and only if -- SCO has the money to keep the paying the lawyers. And I believe the bankruptcy court still has the right to prevent SCO from filing any appeals until the bankruptcy is fully settled.
My blog
I always thought that in America, a jury was a jury of peers
Flapping was too much of a problem, so now only the jury foreman gets an AS number.
Why, without your clothes, you're naked, Miss Dudley!
Wikipedia says otherwise:
the right to be tried by fellow peers in the Lord High Steward's Court and in the House of Lords, abolished 1948;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peerage
Use at your own risk
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
Jeesus, some people (like whomever modded me off-topic) just hate to have (or let others in on) fun. Don't you realize that LAUGHING or helping someone laugh is a lot more healthier than disparaging a single person? Not as if i'm a politician with so much power over others that i MUST be under scrutiny for the good of the public.
I thought i was being funny. Maybe YOU don't know the issues of facebook for f/b users who hated "their" view of their profiles changing. There is a parallel here.
Besides, last week i saw to my dismay, LOTS of what qualified as "redundant" comments -- as many as 20 in a sub-200-comment topic -- and virtually NONE was marked redundant. This tells me i have one or more foes who sign up looking to slam-dunk/grind or agitate people.
Slashdot's moderation systems asks people to concentrate on being positive. Apparently, slashdot doesn't seem to track and reign in people who "stalk" or abuse karma/moderation points.
If i am so worthy of being bitch-slapped/fucked with and having my scores capriciously capped, slashed and turned from a positive rating/description to redundant/off-topic/troll, then WHY is my Karma never changing. Is that, too, another issue with Slashdot's karma and scoring systems? That could very well BE why these pages are being reshuffled. Maybe slashdot's core controllers are finally sick and tired of cowardly stalkers who never get listed as foe/hater, and gleefully do damage to people.
I virtually NEVER attack specific people here. I don't mod people, mainly because MY sense of humor often is at variance with others', and so, who am i to say what IS humor to a broad spectrum of readers here. It makes me feel good, and my day a few notches better when someone takes their time to comment back and on the occasion when they mod me up, or at least find some way to avoid undercutting me. Undercutting is, to me, a vindictive, petty way to suppress someone, literally censor them, by forcing others to have to read below -1 just to sleuth out player-hate victims.
This isn't a grouse: it's what i see/feel going on. I at first hated the new layouts, and to some extent thought the previous was better, but now, if the long range goal is to bury player haters, i whole-heartedly hope VA/slash adopt a player-hater tracker!
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
saw the type of deleting
the most interesting thing about it is that you can't always see it. The software Groklaw uses will still show your comment to your own IP address. I actually commented a few times about things I thought PJ might delete (criticism of her ban on "politics", where she doesn't really define what that means) and then checked if this was true. Sure enough; I had stepped over the line. From my own IP address I could see the comment. From all other IP addresses I tried it was invisible. Kind of cool really. Makes the Chinese govt. seem deeply unsubtle.
the real question however, is what's the alternative. Groklaw covers things that seem difficult to find in the same quality elsewhere. It's a bit like CNN. It's got it's US/conservative bias, but it's also got the money to cover things that few others can afford to cover.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
Generally, though with some exceptions, a judge decides the law of a case, and a jury will decide the facts. If there is no jury, a judge decides law and facts. The facts are almost always decided at what's called the "court of first instance", and the facts are based upon submissions to the court through affidavits, documentary evidence, and sworn witness testimony ("evidence"). It is the duty of the trier of fact to decide, where conflicting stories exist, the credibility of the evidence. Usually in civil trials a fact is "found" where the trier of fact decides that on a balance of probabilities (i.e. chances greater than 50%) a fact is true.
An appellate court, which one appeals to after a decision at the court of first instance, generally modifies the decisions of the court of first instance in only specific circumstances. Those circumstances typically include a mistake in the interpretation or application of the law, or the creation of new law based upon fundamental principles of justice.
Generally, however, the appellate court is never a trier of fact (as a judge or jury is at the court of first instance). An appellate court is not privy to the assessment of credibility, direct or cross examination of witnesses, etc., it generally cannot call witnesses, parties to the proceeding cannot introduce new evidence (unless it is crucial, and even then in only limited circumstances), etc. As a general rule, appellate courts determine law, but not fact. The facts were already decided at the court of first instance. For that reason, the standard for changing the facts of the court of first instance by an appellate court is exceptionally high, usually with a test being described as something like the facts found in the court of first instance were "patently unreasonable", which is to say politely "absurd".
Generally the policy behind the exclusivity of fact-finding being by a court of first instance is that parties get one shot at the evidence, which is to encourage full disclosure and expedition of the entire court process. It also specializes the Judges of the courts, and creates "higher courts" that may focus their attention on logical and policy questions. With exceptions, it is often, but not universally, thought that higher courts will attract greater academic aptitude.
That being said, if there is either a patently absurd finding at the court of first instance, or alternatively there is a procedural unfairness, sometimes an appellate court will send the proceeding back to a court of first instance for a new trial.
I think it would be rather odd for SCO to get another crack at the facts. It is rather likely that, given adequate funding, they could keep at this for quite some time.
On the Internet nobody knows you're a sock puppet.
Oh, sorry, they do. Never mind. Hi Darl!
HOLY FUCK! As if the new user page weren't bad enough, it mixes the classic green color scheme with whatever the theme is for the current subdomain, if you happen to be on one. You thought http://slashdot.org/~CleverNickName looked bad? Check out http://yro.slashdot.org/~CleverNickName or http://games.slashdot.org/~CleverNickName or http://it.slashdot.org/~CleverNickName!!!!!
Orange links on green? My eyes! Ze googles, zey do nossing!
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
'Nuff said. Except it's not enough because this sorry excuse for a redesign is still there. Oh, god, it's like a 15 year old with no concept of color got let loose with FrontPage and wanted to do a MySpace lookalike but without the same professionalism and restraint.