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Eulogy For Groklaw

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the end-of-an-era dept.

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."

3 of 70 comments (clear)

  1. this is rare by gothzilla · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  2. Re:grok what? by fwarren · · Score: 5, Informative

    PJ pretty much says it all. In 2001 the battle was SCO fronted by Microsoft trying to destroy Linux. SCO was attacking IBM, but was also trying to take out Linux with FUD such as the $699 per cpu Linux license. The battle was on the desktop and in the server room. Groklaw was there, and combat the FUD and the community was able to defend Linux from SCO.

    Now the battle is in the cloud and mobile space. Microsoft, no matter what conduit they work through is an attack on Google. Google is a large company with plenty of brains and money. They can take care of themselves.

    There is truth to this, Groklaw relied on our collective memory of computer history from the 1970s to the end of the 1990's. If enough of us looked over the details SCO presented, we would notice where they got the facts wrong. This "community" will not be nearly as useful in the battle over the smartphone and the cloud.

    All I can say is I enjoyed the site, it was quite a ride. Thanks PJ for keeping us geeks in the loop.

    --
    vi + /etc over regedit any day of the week.
  3. Re:Quick by tomhudson · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Oh, he'll be by. Just like he was on LWN and zdNet and here and everywhere else, pushing the whole "PJ is not a real person" and "groklaw deletes comments." (Groklaw, a moderated blog, deletes comments? Quel scandale!).

    His moaning and groaning on LWN is typical

    The word "her" needs citation. There was an avatar named "PJ", who claimed that "PJ" meant "Pamela Jones", but there was never any verifiable track record, such as past and current employers, and "PJ" never presented "herself" in public. I just explained in another comment here that this lack of transparency wasn't reasonable.

    But assuming that "PJ" is a person, I don't know what you mean by "talent". "PJ" claimed to be a paralegal, admitted not to have programming knowledge, and very apparently failed to understand the world of business. In other words, we talk about a person who apparently would have liked to become a lawyers but failed to get there, and who missed some other important perspectives that "she" would have needed to provide holistic analysis of the issues "she" covered.

    What a load of crap, considering
    1. not only that Mueller is not a lawyer, but has done his best to give the impression he is, and not corrected it when people fell for it
    2. has always been aware that PJ is a real person - he posted his crap on SJVNs blog at zdnet, the same Steven J Vaughan-Nichols who wrote that he's met PJ.

    3. when I pointed out to this piece of work on the weekend that PJ had spoken with SJVN and RMS, he didn't ask for any citation for SJVN, just RMS. He already had seen the SJVN article. He's such a bad liar.

    Of course, what can you expect from someone who is trying so desperately, and failing so badly, to re-invent themselves as a mouthpiece for hire for somebody ... ANYBODY ....

    He's just another amateur troll, one of those "useful fools" we occasionally hear about ...