Slashdot Mirror
Eulogy For Groklaw
akgraner writes "When I got up this morning, the news was all over Facebook and the free software news sites: Groklaw, the site that was influential in the SCO legal cases, will stop publication on May 16. It's news that I hear with decidedly mixed feelings."
(to the submitter): /. two days ago, also didn't hear of it before...
You're not the only one who hasn't heard this news before; Apparently the editors, even though this was on
Does this re-enforce the conspiracy theories that Groklaw may have been a hired work by one of the parties in the SCO suit?
If anything, F/OSS legal issues are even more interesting now than ever (with lots of activity around Android, Oracle buying Sun, etc).
I can see why PJ might be tired and might want to sell/hand-off groklaw to others interested in continuing the fight. But to just shut down when the SCO case closes. Makes me curious.
Quick - somebody inform Florian Mueller. He won't want to miss the opportunity to add some kind words.
I can't be bothered with snagging a link, but this was just discussed here recently. REPOST.
After Right won out, the soldiers returned to their homes, their fields and their shops. Preference for talk of the long bloody battle faded and was replaced by the need for a coat of paint on the house, the weather and cracker barrel politics. A memorial was placed somewhere, where those who remember the dark days could pay homage, but soon too the grass grew high and the leafs of Autumn covered it, all while a new generation ran with boundless energy in the park nearby and soon the heroes were forgotten, with what had passed before living on in the result of deeds.
And the perfect setting for a new battle to foment on yet another front.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Is this a repost from Saturday? http://slashdot.org/story/11/04/09/2315208/Groklaw-Declares-Victory-No-More-Articles7
Look, it isn't called grok sco, it's called grok law. Why not re-purpose toward legal issues in general or at least some broad subcategory?
It's common for people to create an organization to solve a problem when no solutions exist. Most of the time though those people keep going even after the problems have been solved. Greenpeace and PETA are examples. Their original goals were met and instead of going "ok we won", they just kept going. As they searched hard for relevance, their organizations become more radical and extreme in the process until they get to a point where they become a new problem.
It's nice to see someone actually be able to quit when there's no reason to still exist. I'm afraid groklaw would take the same route as it tried too hard to remain relevant.
It was also "all over" Slashdot...last week. Is this what happens when editors go on vacation?
... but it's worth posting here, but without the aliens.
Go on over to LWN and look at Florian's continued meltdown about how PJ isn't relevant and he is.
http://lwn.net/Articles/437650/
There's a lot said there that exposes Florian's true colors.
He heaps praise on the people who spread the most FUD about Linux. Robert Enderle, MOG, Dan "Lyin'" Lyons, and Ed Bott led the charge in the media against Linux. The only person he left out to praise was Rudy De Haas ("Paul Murphy" pseudonym). I'm sorry, but the list of above people have nothing worth listening to and his defense of them shows what side of the fence he's on.
--
BMO
BGE spotted.
(bitter groklaw exile)
Emphasis on the "bitter"
Even _Arthur has gotten over his exile, why can't you?
--
BMO
On a job well done. Many times the case was a PR campaign, and Groklaw painted the picture plainly from the legal briefs. Time to celebrate the victory, and victory it is, Its sad that a rogue bunch of idiots burned SCO to bankruptcy, as well as wasted a lot of time and money instead of improving a non-microsoft brand. But Groklaw stood as a beacon of clarity.
Thanks again, in honor of what you have done, and the standard you have set for others to follow.
It's a sad day ... There's no other resource like groklaw.net. I remember when the site first went up ... Any suggestions on similar resources?
Anyone can understand why P.J. would want to move on, but it's a shame! The legal complexities surrounding FOSS and patents and games that Microsoft and Google play seem to be getting more complicated, not less, than the days when SCO made it's bold and ridiculous claims. (At the point that SCO started its anti-Linux campaign, that company was already starting to whither.) There's some good work going on at Silicon Flatirons in Boulder by lawyers interested in tech. Maybe one of them will pick up the hole that Groklaw will be leaving.
Julie Bort
Open Source Subnet
The battle isn't over at all, Greenpace is no single topic organization. There are left a lot of problems o address
look. PJ was posting about the Hotz case only a few days ago. She was digging into details of Caliornia vs New Jersey computer law because Sony was trying to sue Hotz in California even though he lives in New Jersey.
Now she just vanishes?
There is -more going on here-. we might not be able to know about it, for years. but something smells wrong. Someone who is as brilliant and inquisitive as PJ doesn't just dump everything for no apparent reason. The site is not called 'SCOvsLinux', it is not called 'scoville' or some other witty name, like so many other 'cause' based sites are (Operation Clambake). It was called Grok Law - > Grok the Law.
PJ obviously had a deep intellectual interest in matters of Law, Patents, and Copyright, and open source software, as well as writing and explaining it to the rest of us. That interest has not disappeared, it is like saying that Mick Jagger decided to give up singing or something. (OK, so actually some artists do stop, like Joni Mitchell. But show me anything where PJ has decided to become a painter or something).
It's my understanding that, after Fukushima, she's going into anti-nuclear activism. Can anyone confirm this?
It's just a rumor, but she did say something about the events in Japan "deeply affecting" her and wrote a comment on one of the nuclear stories about how the designers of the plant should have to be part of the cleanup crew.
Alex Jones arrived on the scene like a fear-monger and did more to divert attention away from Bill Cooper, whereas by association and cunning re-hash it was proven that Alex Jones is simply a pre-payed bullhorn that engauges in yelling matches of mindless parasding of pre-compiled material that I still find mostly true but just without any rememdy and recourse because it has no actio: Jesse Ventura has a presentation style similar, yet these guys are just two half-full cups of piss that nobody has been able to influence to do a better job at getting-rid of their adversaries because there is more evidence that they are the damage-control function planted by their adversaries to mediate between the public and th ecorrupt governments.
As for Art Bell when that pederast was around, he had 2 competitors where the strange(but spirited) one was Mary Sutherland and the original substitute to the actual show was none-other than Rolley James, yet George Noory was the poorly-chosen replacement to pederast Art Bell.
It doesn't quite reach the heights of entertainment Jeff Merkey used to bring but certainly adds to the pantheon of interesting personalities who hang around Free Software.
PJ was gracious enough to give us all many years or her life to increase public awareness of the truth, I suspect she is still quite overwhelmed with her famous anonymity.
I hope she is moving on to do something fun, and not being made "an offer she can't refuse".
I am the unwilling control for my Origin.