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Groklaw — Don't Go Home, Go Big
jfruhlinger writes "You may have caught PJ's Christmas Day post on Groklaw, expressing her anger and frustration that, after she helped save Novell's Unix patents from SCO's clutches, Novell turned around and sold many of those patents to an open source-unfriendly coalition. She's feeling at a crossroads and wondering what Groklaw should become. Brian Proffitt has a suggestion: a bigger, more community-oriented site."
No, seriously. Groklaw should become a patent consortium run by open source software folks. It should use its resources to fund patent applications by open source projects and should hold those patents collectively so that they can be used defensively if any of the member projects are attacked by software patents.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Last I checked, there were several complaints of post deletions on groklaw, to which her response was she was not really interested in "open" debate. I agree with many of her opinions and analysis of the SCO debacle, but I wouldn't want to be part of any community she's running.
I'm sure she could be valuable as a writer on various IP issues surrounding free software.
They don't have time to be dicking around on some shitty web site.
The scorpion needs to get across the river, but he can't swim. He asks the frog to ferry him across. The frog refuses; he tells the scorpion that the scorpion will sting him and he will drown. The scorpion tells the frog that he won't sting the frog, because if he did, they both would drown. The frog ferries the scorpion. Midriver, the scorpion stings the frog. Before they both drown, the frog asks the scorpion, Why? The frog states: It's my nature.
Expecting gratitude from Novell is like expecting gratitude from a scorpion. The scorpion will sting, and Novell will seek to maximize profit.
I don't think Novell realized the huge bad will it has generated.
What does PJ's rights and personal freedom have anything to do with the judgment that the "site has limited value"? Maybe some people value sites more that don't censor comments.
False. They're a HUGE problem for anything recent. Most of the concepts and technologies in open source span decades, including very new concepts as well as old ones that are covered (wrongly) by new, vague patents.
No, the goal with software patents is to make them a perpetual hazard. Vague, ill defined, and useless for actually implementing the concept in question but always useful for beating down on your enemies and keeping out potential competitors.
I think you misunderstand the argument. Yes, PJ has the legal right to censor her own blog - nobody is arguing otherwise. But, she loses a lot of credibility by doing so. You have to wonder, why can't PJ's argument hold up to opposition? Everybody has to know: when you are reading groklaw forums, you are reading a one-sided debate.
DO NOT TRUST A CORPORATION!
Honestly, why would anyone? They are out for the profit line and nothing else. They are nothing like a real company that is ran by the guy or gal that started it and is chasing a dream... We need to stop thinking they are in any way benevolent. Walmart gives away basic medications because it PROFITS THEM. Companies donate to causes because it Gains them more profit in advertising. There is no soul to these things, they don't care about anything but profits.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I think she fails to see the differences between people and corporations. People can be idealists, corporations exist to make money.
Check out my lame java blog at www.javachopshop.com
Maybe, I dunno, she put a lot of hard work into covering the case, so she might react a bit emotional when countless hours of tireless work were almost for nothing.
Nonsense. Her purpose was to report and analyze and enlighten the FOSS community which she did. If she was intending to have Novell give everything away, she was obviously mistaken and horribly naive.
Amazing discovery: PJ is actually human! Stop the presses!
Well, duh. Of course she had to have some motivation. Do you think people 100% coldly and rationally decide to dedicate so much of their time to a purpose they are completely disengaged from?
I don't really care about her motivation. She either provides a good service to the community or doesn't, regardless of whether she's doing it out of anger, love for the cause, or some robotic need to analyze things in a 100% logical manner.
*sigh*
If she has always struck you at being disingenuous at best (really, at *best*?), then of course it would appear to you that she's lost all perspective.
As someone who earns a living writing code on Microsoft's application stack, I'm not your total idealist when it comes to open source or free software. I do understand that there are reasons that people choose to use proprietary stuff. That said, I have a personal understanding of why free software is important, and why software patents are bad, period, that's not far removed from hers.
You're saying that because she thinks free software is better than proprietary software for her stated reasons, then she's not worth listening to. If that means that you think that the legal research she has done is not fairly representing the issues at hand, then I'd ask you to point out where we can see some evidence of that. SCO making someone angry is grounds for whatever they do afterwards to be self-serving rubbish?
That's an *awful* lot of protest over a person expressing disappointment...
I get what you're going for, it just doesn't sound likely...or impartial, for that matter.
"Murphy was an optimist" - O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law
You have to wonder, why can't PJ's argument hold up to opposition? Everybody has to know: when you are reading groklaw forums, you are reading a one-sided debate.
I don't think that PJ has ever tried to present herself as being an impartial observer; she openly advocates for the side she feels is in the right. Why should she provide a soapbox for her opposition, who already were rather well funded and perfectly capable of providing their own platforms? I note that PJ was never invited to offer commentary on SCO's website, and no other legal expert seemed interested in presenting his own blog covering the case from poor downtrodden SCO's side.
In any event, having watched oh-so-many basement-dwelling wannabe lawyers trot out their weighty opinions on questions of law here on Slashdot, I can certainly understand why PJ - a trained legal professional - might get tired of matching wits with the unarmed. For that matter, she may just not want to let troll/countertroll flaming and bickering distract from constructive discussions and drag down the level of conversation. The sensible hostess knows when to send the belligerent, uninvited guests home.
~Idarubicin
So on one side we have a bunch of lying cheating dastardly bastards who will do anything they can (legal or not) to destroy FOSS. On the other side we have PJ who insists on allowing people to post anonymously on her site which entails the extra burden of throwing out the trash people post that is designed to discredit Groklaw.
And for this she is criticized. Give me a break. PJ is human and like all humans she is both opinionated and imperfect. Like the rest of us, she has flaws and is not always right. I imagine that while throwing out the trash she has probably deleted some posts that may not have deserved it. But by criticizing her for protecting her reputation and the reputation of Groklaw (while at the same time allowing anonymous posts) you are aiding and abetting the enemies of FOSS.
You sir/madam are implying that PJ lacks integrity because she has been forced to delete terrible posts that make Groklaw look awful. The truth is she has more integrity than almost anyone else I know (of). It is her integrity that makes the Groklaw site shine despite the fact that it is run by imperfect human beings. IMO PJ is a true hero because she maintains her integrity even though her site is constantly bombarded by posts from people who completely lack it.
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
I've never understood why Coolidge was considered a poor president. His tenure seems exceptional and he remained popular even up to his resignation. His actions on civil rights were particularly enlightened, even though thwarted by Democrats in the legislature. Perhaps people don't like him cause he was a Republican. Who knows?
Slashdot has managed to get by fine for more than a decade without a similar deletion policy. I would prefer the distinction between troll and serious debater be left up to the reader, and not the admin. I don't want to be a part of any site that can only deal with trolls through heavy handed moderation. I think many here feel the same way. If she's been deleting posts, where is the exact line? Are we even able to see what posts were deleted to see if they deserved deletion? I doubt it. It's this lack of transparency and seeming lack of interest in open discussion that turns me off of any community she may head.
Now, PJ is hardly alone in running her site this way. But I'm a free software supporter with strong ideals and high expectations. Slashdot, for all its flaws, manages to meet these ideals. Groklaw has fallen short.
I have always found this a very American point of view. It always reads as if there is a big [PERIOD] behind it, meaning "to the exclusion of everything else". If that's true than it's just ridiculous. Corporations exist only to make money? If that would be true than we've gone seriously wrong somewhere in history. It should be all about *us*, people, living and breathing beings of flesh and blood. Corporations should exist for the benefit of society and society should exist for the benefit of the people that live in it. Our capitalist system might work best if corporations *focus* on making money, but definitely *not* to the exclusion of everything else. I think it's not too strange to demand that they do so within a certain moral and ethical framework, not passively following the boundries drwan by laws and regulations but actively seeking to be an asset to society and to its people.
I can almost hear you say "dream on", but I think it starts with chaning this way of thinking where nothing else is expected of a corporation than money, money and ever more money.
I think she fails to see the differences between people and corporations. People can be idealists, corporations exist to make money.
I am tired of hearing this argument. Corporations have a reputation to maintain and this has a real value on the balance sheet. Microsoft's bad reputation costs them everyday in the fact of other corps not wanting to do business with them and in influential consumers not recommending their products. Managers who ignore the fundamentals of serving their customers do so at their peril. We may live in cynical times, but reality will ultimately knock at the door.
Slashdot, for the most part, posts summaries and links to stories along with comments by readers, moderated and meta-moderated by readers. It doesn't do any investigative journalism, which is what Groklaw does day and and day out. The people who are investigated don't like it and will do anything they can to shut up or discredit Groklaw. Slashdot does not have significant content other than links and readers' comments which is why it can get by with the moderation system.
The idea that this reflects "strong ideals" is absurd in the extreme. If most people had similar "ideals" then content-less Slashdot would cease to function because there would be no content-ful sites to link to. If anything, it is PJ and Groklaw who are showing integrity and ideals by taking a stand for what is right and what is true. The irony is that it is because Groklaw takes a stand that people are actively trying to destroy it which in turn leads to the policy of deleting nasty posts.
It is also important to note that there has always been open invitations at Groklaw for Darl McBride, and other targets of investigation to post their side of things. These are rejected and instead Groklaw gets a flood of posts by people who are pretending to be members of the FOSS community who are trying to discredit Growlaw.
I'm not saying Groklaw is without flaws but I am saying that the deletion of posts that are designed to discredit the site is not one of them. This has nothing to do with a "lack of transparency" because the posts that are deleted do not reflect PJ or the Groklaw community. The deleted posts lack transparency because they are almost always anonymous and they are almost always by someone pretending to be a member of the community who is not.
As you may be aware, almost all content-ful sites have this problem. Do you also say "no thanks" to Google, Youtube, WaPo, the NYT, etc? Funny thing is that when you say "But I'm a free software supporter with strong ideals and high expectations" and then condemn Groklaw for doing what what is required of all sites that do investigative journalism then you start to sound very much like either a stupid friend of FOSS or a sly enemy.
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
If PJ regularly featured tough challenges to her worldview and responded to them with reason and nuance, then she might be credited with merely trying to create a high S/N discussion site. The impression I get from many posters to this discussion is that she simply removes the side of the debate she doesn't agree with. I'm not capable of proving that's the case. Any evidence of that would be deleted from her site. Lacking any transparency in moderation it's difficult to just take her word that nothing she deleted had any value to begin with. Those charging her with tyrannical moderation seem to be disaffected supporters more than sockpuppet trolls. There could be a conspiracy there, but we'd need evidence to believe that. Maybe if all the post IP addresses came from Darl McBride's house that would be believable. Otherwise I regard it as fanciful.
I have always found this a very American point of view. It always reads as if there is a big [PERIOD] behind it, meaning "to the exclusion of everything else". If that's true than it's just ridiculous. Corporations exist only to make money? If that would be true than we've gone seriously wrong somewhere in history. It should be all about *us*, people, living and breathing beings of flesh and blood. Corporations should exist for the benefit of society and society should exist for the benefit of the people that live in it. Our capitalist system might work best if corporations *focus* on making money, but definitely *not* to the exclusion of everything else. I think it's not too strange to demand that they do so within a certain moral and ethical framework, not passively following the boundries drwan by laws and regulations but actively seeking to be an asset to society and to its people.
I can almost hear you say "dream on", but I think it starts with chaning this way of thinking where nothing else is expected of a corporation than money, money and ever more money.
It's not a "way of thinking", it's a genuine structural problem with sharemarkets and corporate governance. Take Cadbury for example. The company did have motives other than profit -- it was founded with a particular emphasis on supporting its employees. Last year, Kraft wanted to buy Cadbury. The management wasn't keen on this, and fought it, until Kraft increased their offer very slightly. At this point, a problem with modern corporate governance kicked in. The chairman could not demonstrate that the share price would rise above Kraft's offer in the short term; that meant that strictly he could not recommend to shareholders that they should reject the offer -- he had to say that the offer was in shareholders' best interests. Many of the shareholders were pension funds. While some fund managers personally did not like Kraft taking Cadbury over much either, as managers in charge of other people's investments they didn't feel they could act against the recommendation of Cadbury's board, and so felt they had to accept the offer. So, even though nobody personally liked the deal, the requirements of everyone's role mean that they had to choose to approve the deal. This was compounded by a large number of funds that bought shares and immediately voted for the deal, because of their requirement to make money for their investors (in this case through the differential between the share price and the deal price).