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Groklaw Turns Ten
Founded just to cover the SCO/Caldera UNIX lawsuits back in 2003, Groklaw has proven itself a great place to read and discuss many of the major tech trials since. And today, it turns ten: "We made it. A decade of Groklaw as of today. Who'd a thunk it?
Not I.
When I started, I thought I'd do a little fiddling around for a couple of months to learn how to blog. But then all you guys showed up and taught me some important things that I didn't know, and vice versa I hope, and here we are, on our 10th anniversary, still going strong, together on a very different path than I originally imagined. The important moment for me was when I realized the potential we had as a group and decided to try to surf this incredible wave all of you created by contributing your skills and time. I saw we could work as a group, explain technology to the legal world so lawyers and judges could make better decisions, and explain the legal process to techies, so they could avoid troubles and also could be enabled to work effectively to defend Free and Open Source Software from cynical 'Intellectual Property' attacks from the proprietary world."
This despite a smear campaign by SCO and nearly shutting down in 2009. And it's archived in the Library of Congress.
The judicial process has a lot of say-so in our digital lives these days. Groklaw is and will remain an important bastion of freedom when there's an issue of dangerous legal precedent at stake. I think it's a much more powerful platform than WTP, because most of the petitions on WTP are ignored or answered with a form letter and put to bed. At Groklaw you can contribute to fighting the folks who want a quarter every time you make a device with rounded corners, or every time you call fopen() on a UNIX clone.
Oh, and: I hate software patents. That is all.
It's always nice to have someone follow and translate the legalese for the rest of us.
Here's to another 10 years!
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I read groklaw regularly and get a lot out of it. It chaps my ass that I feel like it is useful and helpful to know all that legal crap. (I just want to code.) There is a bit of a cult of personality over there on groklaw which can be off-putting at times, but Pamela has done a damn good job. Kudos to you Pamela. You have made a difference.
I wish someone would put together a final analysis of the fiaSCO and all of the players. There was a lot of underground activity that Groklaw did not cover fully such as Yarro, Robbins, the 'suicides', the message board trolls (Merkey?) etc.
It would be great to see interviews from the perspective of the last rats off the ship and how they feel about the whole thing. By this time there has to be people ready to tell the real story.
There's a book waiting to be written here.
Well it was started just for the SCO fiasco and when SCO lost big time, there wasn't a need to keep it going. She wanted to move on like any of us. Luckily she found someone she could trust to keep it going.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
I'd love to see a good investigative reporter pick up and run with the story. I'm afraid, though, that the folks who "know where the bodies are buried" won't talk.
Perhaps if someone went at the story like they did in All The Presidents Men and just follow the money.
Amazing to see a decent company ruined by it's own management.
I liked Caldera and owned OldSCO stock before they made this ridiculous lawsuit happen. I got out before they killed the company.
But that word was invented by every libertarian's second favorite failed-sociologist turned successful science fiction writer. It's much better than letter our entire vocabulary be dictated by Ayn Rand.
You may have missed the reference to Stranger in a Strange Land, and you may need to have your geek badge revoked, because apparently you don't grok with fullness.
What does it matter who she is? Any one with two brain cells could see the SCO shakedown for what it was. She provided useful information and insight into legal matters that most of slashdot did not have.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
And you are free to ignore anything and everything she says. The thing is you can't question her legal analysis, can you? Questioning her background is as ridiculous as not voting for Obama because you heard on the Interweb that he was born in Kenya.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Founded just to cover the SCO/Caldera UNIX lawsuits back in 2003,
Actually, that's not true. It was founded so that Pamela Jones could learn about blogging. It just happened to occur at the same time that the SCO debacle was starting.
~Loyal
I aim to misbehave.
When SCO attacked first I was furious. I knew they lied, but really didn't know any additional details how these guys can be beaten. IBM decided to charge back. And then when PJ with Groklaw appeared, it was like we saw the light. At the beginning there were some nervous times, but everything turned out well. Then she started to blog about software patents and other legalese related to open source - and it was clear for me that it's not just PJ, it's community project, and it's here to stay. She also made us geeks not to be afraid from courts and lawyers and understand our rights and how system works.
So, thanks PJ. Thanks community. IMHO without Groklaw idea of open source would be in much different place than it is now.
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
Yo Maureen O'Gara, you psycho-bitch stalker! hows it going these days?
Please list an example of how her legal analysis was wrong. So what you are saying is her analysis of this case can't be used for every hypothetical or imaginary case? That's why you have to look at each case individually. (And why judges have to rule on each one separately). SCO did not 1) own the copyrights and 2) was as vague as they could be when pressed by the courts to specify exactly what IBM was alleged to have done. They didn't have a case; it was an extortion scheme. Even SCO's expert that they hired could find no evidence of IBM infringement. The last leg that had to stand on was IBM backed out of Project Monterrey. While it is true IBM stopped working on a project that was designed to bring Unix to Itanium, they did fulfill the basic contractual obligations. They (like everyone else) saw that Linux had far more potential and abandoned the platform.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Pamela Jones was in the employ of International Business Machines at some point during her tenure at GrokLaw.
That is not correct.
It was one of the allegations against her that she was employed by IBM in an attempt to discredit Groklaw.
It has never been documented, and there is no reason to believe it is true.