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Groklaw Putting Comes v. Microsoft Docs Online
An anonymous reader writes "PJ of Groklaw is working on putting the documents from Comes v. Microsoft online, to make them searchable and accessible to everyone. If you don't remember their history, the plaintiffs got these documents from Microsoft during discovery after fighting the lawyers tooth and nail. After realizing how embarrassing the documents were to Microsoft, they put them online and later got a very large settlement from Microsoft by agreeing to take their website down. The web being what it is, these documents had already been mirrored and were later (legally) made available on the Pirate Bay. Now Groklaw has put them online and is looking for people to help transcribe them, so that documents like the infamous Evangelism is War presentation will not be forgotten."
I somewhat doubt microsoft fought and bribed to suppress anything complimentary. I like the way you smear PJ, btw. Wouldn't PJ's best source of income be getting a microsoft bribe to keep the records obscure?
Being a shill is bad enough, but is anybody even paying you to post this shit, or is this some sort of public service? Groglaw is also a sort of public service, but somehow they have credibility.
When you get out of grammar school they'll teach you about reasoning in a little more detail, but for now, what you did there is called a "false dichotomy", arguing from the premise that only two alternatives are possible.
It works very well to trap the unwary, because the dishonest part is unspoken.
If this post is making you angry, perhaps you'd like to put more effort into detecting false premises in your own.
As always, all IMO. Insert "I think" everywhere grammatically possible.
"Too bad those people caved, but that need not cost us the ability to know what they wanted so badly to hide."
Note to potential "cavers": You can certainly sanitize the information you plan to agree to keep secret, give it to reliable third parties, then take the money.
It isn't honest, but there is no reason to be honest with your enemies. We are past the point of moral obligation to such people.
Doesn't look like they turned it over to anybody. It was mirrored by others and Microsoft made a bad deal. Someone on their team should have known this could happen and advised, like the OP mentions, to ignore it rather than drawing more attention.
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Can we have an example of an open format that Microsoft can't implement? And no, the GPL does not prevent a proprietary software maker from making a compatible application.
While patents are clearly BS protectionism, what you describe is an extra layer of BS. Patents do not work that way at all. You can only patent a method, not an implementation. You cannot selectively license a patent (0|+inf). You are intentionally mixing ideas from copyright and patent to create bullshit.
If it "would not be hard to do...", please do. Otherwise, being shamed as a bullshitting shill will lose you your $241 bonus.