back in the 80s, kodak developed an instant film,and to make sure it was not infringing the polaroid patent suite, kodak paid for opinions from 3 seperate law firms. Polaroid sued, Kodak lost, and the opinions did not help them one little bit
I looked up the case you mentioned, and you're right that Kodak lost the case, however, Kodak's pre-lawsuit opinions likely saved them from damages due to willful infringement. In a patent case, treble damages are awarded for willfull infringement -- that's where the money is. While an infringer will have to cease infringement, and will likely have to purchase a license, only a willful infringer pays treble damages as punishment. By seeking outside opinions, Kodak likely saved themselves treble damages, which would have amounted to hundreds of millions of dollars.
So, I would argue it's a stretch to say those opinions did not help them one little bit -- they helped Kodak immensely, even though they didn't win the case.
(Also, if anyone wants to look it up, the case actually began in the late 70s, and damages weren't decided until 90-91. The damages opinion went unreported in the Supplement, but is available on Westlaw.)
The article sadly has little more information than the summary. It doesn't say which VMs, only that "exploit is browser independent, as long as it invokes a vulnerable Java Runtime Environment". In other words, the vulnerable VMs are vulnerable.
What a completely uninsightful and thoughtless response to what I wrote. The actual dollar amounts are irrelevant.
The GP's post seemed thoughtful to me. How are actual dollar amounts irrelevant? -- you asked "how much are we paying for polish" and "Doesn't it seem strange that a simple GUI front end for standard OS features is like 1/5th the cost of the entire OS itself". The GP simply replied that it was worth it to him.
Sometimes time is worth more than money, sometimes not. For most people, the opportunity cost of writing the interface themselves is greater $20. For you, it's not. Both are cool with me...
Yours is not journalism, but anecdote, and not well-informed for the weight of the conclusions it posits.
But perhaps more representative of the experience of the "average" user. The "average" user may well not have access to a "professional Mac user" -- and our hypothetical "average" user might have much the same experience as the author.
Is the problem that in school you have it drummed into you how great the USA is, and so don't see the problems? (Sorry I realise this post is a bit trollish, but it is a genuine question).
I can only speak for myself here, so take it for no more than it's worth.
Yes, I think people see the problems. However, there are a variety of issues that make it more complicated than the rest of the world sees.
First, it seems like the US is the target of every other country or country's leaders, even (or especially) our allies. We get bashed (it seems -- this may be true and it may not be) regardless of what we do. Traveling abroad as an American, before or after 9-11, can be a trying thing. You get people who insult you for any number of reasons, and eventually the voices of the "rest of the world" just seem like shrill, jealous antagonists who will complain regardless of what you do. Those who don't travel get the same sense from those who do. It's considered conventional wisdom that if you go to France, the people are going to treat you like crap (again, this is conventional wisdom and not my experience) -- so the input of that country is just considered USA bashing. After a while, you feel a little contrary to the constant holier-than-thou attitude of other countries, and will act accordingly.
Second, there are two political parties in the country with any chance of getting elected, which in many other countries is a foreign concept. Those parties are defined by a seemingly unflinchingly rigid set of issues, which may or may not conflict ideologically with each other, but are what the average voter gets to choose from. The Republicans (in theory) support lower taxes, are pro-life and pro-business, are against gun control, and support the death penalty. The Democrats (in theory) support social programs, are pro-choice, support environmental programs, are for gun control, and are against the death penalty. Both are often run by corrupt, elitist, extremely wealthy people who are out of touch with the general populace. For example, in the last election, John Kerry is a wealthy career politician, who selected a successful and also very wealthy trial lawyer as his running mate. George Bush is also a wealthy career politician, who selected a wealthy businessman with experience in the Federal government as his running mate. Those were the choices (and I chose neither, which is generally known as "throwing [my] vote away"). Had John Kerry been elected, it's almost certain that some interest would have caught his eye. (And if your gut response is "but that wouldn't have resulted in the deaths of thousands of people" then maybe you're right, but that's not the point.)
My point is that there's corruption constantly, and people simply accept some level of it. For the most part, if it doesn't impact too many lives in the USA, then it's not considered that big of a deal. I would propose that that apathy is true for other countries as well, but those countries can't have quite the impact the US has.
While I'm ranting, the third issue (I think) is that the US is really big and often citizens of other countries don't see that. We have 300 million citizens who have a huge range of issues which are important to them. We have the third largest land area of any country (stats taken from wikipedia page on USA). It's a really big place, and there are a lot of people to be kept happy. The problems that people see are the problems which impact them (or which they perceive to impact them). A defense contractor (and arguably the one with the most experience and ability to carry out the job) receiving a contract from the government is fairly low on the scale of importance until it impacts the average person in some way. People here tend not to travel as much as other countries, because (again) the US has its own great diversity of terrain and people and traveling abroad is often thought to be traveling into hostile territory, not to mention that it's expensive. So, yes, people in
Unless they actually do something libellous in their campaign there's not a whole lot we can do about it.
A party with a reasonable expectation of a patent suit being filed against them could file a declaratory judgment action. That is, rather than allowing the threat of the suit to hang over your head, you sue the threatening party to have your process/method/form of matter/etc. be declared non-infringing or the patent declared invalid.
If you want proof of how "effective" CCTV is in the UK, just look at the 7th July attacks in London a couple of years back. Although they were travelling by pulic transport and their identities were known after the fact, police were able to piece together only a few shots of the attackers, all from one camera, I believe. Their whereabouts and what they did once they reached London, even though they travelled by public transport, and virtually unknown. Bottom line: in a "pull out all the stops" exercise, four people were totally lost in the crowd.
The camera footage of the attempted attacks a fortnight later weren't much better and the perpetrators were able to escape untracked through London. If these CCTV cameras were half as effective as people want to make out, then police would have been knocking on the perps' doors hours if not minutes after they escaped. The reality of the situation is different, and anybody who thinks otherwise is, frankly, an idiot.
That seems like a fair statement -- but if it's true, why have the cameras at all? That is, if 1) they don't prevent the crime, and 2) they provide little aid in apprehending suspects after the fact, then why have them at all?
Actually, it kind of is. For a long time nobody had the chance to ever read the Bible. The populations were illiterate and the Bibles were in Latin. The church leaders who had access to the Bible certainly had no motivation to investigate the seeming inconsistencies in the Bible, as long as the money kept rolling in.
First, this ignores the long history of Jewish criticism of the Tanakh, which was quite active long before the Christian church was formalized. Second, Christian apologetic writers appeared very early in the history of the church -- these were people who defended the practices and philosophies of the new religion against its critics. This implies both that there were critics on a wide enough scale that a reply was needed, and that there were people who would reply.
It is only VERY recently in history that people started openly questioning the Bible in a serious way. http://www.evilbible.com/ has not been around all that long.
Evil bible isn't exactly written in a style that one would expect serious scholarship to be presented. However, it doesn't delve much into dealing with counter-arguments to what it presents. It seems to quote scripture, and then attack the scripture. It points out violence in the Bible, without giving a meaningful context to the violence.
In reality, it actually is a new phenomenon (at the scale happening today).
Perhaps it's a new phenomenon among certain groups of people, but I would say that there have been highly intelligent attackers and defenders of scripture since its inception. The arguments of today are not new in the sense that no one has considered them, or replied to them, before.
Genesis contains a second which many religious folks don't like admitting.
They "don't like admitting"? I have never heard that -- the story is there. Now, people may differ as to the interpretation or the literary harmony, but I've never heard someone claim that the text isn't there.
A pet peeve of mine is that people who post here tend to believe that they're the first to identify a potential inconsistancy in the Bible. These have existed more or less unchanged for a couple thousand years. It's not as though all the minds contemplating the Bible simply skipped over that, and all of a sudden someone on slashdot points it out and "disproves" the Bible.
No word has an immutable definition. Words are defined by usage, and as the GP pointed the word 'rape' has different usages in various parts of the world.
Crimes, however, do have fixed definitions. For example, in the state of Indiana, rape is defined by IC 35-42-4-1. It says
(a) Except as provided in subsection (b), a person who knowingly or intentionally has sexual intercourse with a member of the opposite sex when:
(1) the other person is compelled by force or imminent threat of force;
(2) the other person is unaware that the sexual intercourse is occurring; or
(3) the other person is so mentally disabled or deficient that consent to sexual intercourse cannot be given;
commits rape
The law likely similarly defines rape in other states, as this tracks fairly closely with common law.
Well, the "one year afterwards part" is a bit odd, but the rest looks like any normal employee agreement for a software job. I would just try to get that "one year afterwards" thing removed.
The requirement to inform your employer of patents for one year afterwards can protect both you and them. For example, let's say you file for a patent six months after you left work. You didn't do any of the work for it during your tenure at the company but it does relate to something the company does. Three or four years later the patent is granted, and some time after that the company becomes aware. They're going to claim that you violated your agreement, whereas if you informed them at the time, they can confirm you aren't in violation and that you own it. They could also challenge it immediately, but you're more likely to have evidence of when exactly you created the invention at the time, and you haven't sunk tens of thousands of dollars into the patent process yet.
In any case, it doesn't seem that onerous to me. The provision that anything you invent on your own time is theirs regardless of whether it relates to your work or not seems onerous, but that's a different topic...
one is allowed to debate the wisdom of a super-government dictating product pricing of a private company
I agree with that. On the other hand, EU is its own sovereign. I do not come under its jurisdiction (unless I visit), so my opinion does not and should not have the force of a citizen (and voter) living under its laws. I feel much more justified complaining or defending US policy, as I'm a citizen.
That said, I think the EU needs to stop threatening and start doing -- whatever it does decide to do...
You can use it in keeping with the First Amendment, or you can use it outside of those very real bounds. Saying "MySpace is Free Speech" is like saying "the sounds coming out of your mouth are Free Speech." Well, yeah, unless they're not. As in slander, fraud, incitement, conspiracy, threats, etc.
I think that's exactly what the case said. The Court considered at least one of the girl's postings: Hey you piece of greencastle shit. What the fuck do you think of me [now] that you can['t] control me? Huh? Ha ha ha guess what I'll wear my fucking piercings all day long and to school and you can['t] do shit about it! Ha ha fucking ha! Stupid bastard! Oh and kudos to whomever made this ([I'm] pretty sure I know who). Get a background. formatting left as in the opinion.
The Court found that somewhere in there is a protected expression of displeasure towards the actions of a government actor -- that is, she was mad he banned wearing of jewelry in decorative piercings and expressed her thoughts on the matter.
It's not Shakespeare, but freedom can't only apply to those who speak eloquently.
It's important to note that the Court of Appeals based the polical speech portion of its opinion on the Indiana Constitution and not the Federal Constitution. State Constitutions can allow greater freedom to the people that the Federal Constitution, but not less. In other words, it's possible this would have come out differently in another state. Of course, I'm from Indiana, so it applies around here.
There is one easy answer to your argument..........BULLSHIT
Eloquently put.
Let me put the first reason this way. There is no law that says it is your responsibility to seek such service
I agree, and I stated as much in my post.
The second reason is the Constitutional right to privacy
The US Supreme Court has recognized something of a "right to privacy" in several cases, but of course the Constitution doesn't grant a general "right to privacy" in as explicit terms as I would like. That "right" protects you from unreasonable search and seizure in their "in their persons, houses, papers, and effects" (4th Amendment). It originally applied only to the federal government. By the 14th amendment it's been interpreted to extend to the state governments as well. In the instant case, no government is seeking PJ. At present, it's a private (i.e. non-governmental) entity, and no [federal] Constitutional right exists to privacy from a private entity.
To the best of my knowledge PJ was a paralegal, has never been a lawyer, and therefore is not an officer of the court. Furthermore, whatever she was before 2003, she is now unambiguously a blogger. Neither more nor less.
You are absolutely correct -- that was a bit of a jab on my part. I'm not a huge fan of Groklaw, or the way it is run. PJ's opinions are taken as fact or as prevailing legal opinion in their entirity by many, and that is annoying to me. She advocates a position, which is of course a lawyerly thing to do, while leaving out other arguments (see, e.g., the groklaw wikipedia page).
She may or may not work for IBM -- it doesn't really matter to me, and I honestly don't think it matters legally. At the same time, if she really values the law instead of a pulpit for her personal ideology, she should seek being served. She can blog about her personal experiences -- about a blogger becoming involved in her topic.
Correct, she's not, she is simply assumed to be by many. She is a paralegal, and is not admitted to the bar in any jurisdiction. I suppose that's just a pet peeve of mine...
True, but until they actually reach her with a subpoena, she's not under any legal requirement to do so. Hearing about a subpoena in the news (or via a motion she's retrieved from the internet) isn't nearly the same thing as actually being served. And if she's not actively dodging it (for example, if she's honestly taking a long-planned vacation somewhere and prefers to keep the destination private), then that's just SCO's tough luck.
I mean, really, why make it easy for SCO?
She's not under an affirmative duty to seek being served, but as you say she's neither allowed to avoid it intentionally. I would argue that as an officer of the court, and one who (I hope) believes in the system, she should in this case seek service. It's not going to make anything easier for SCO, as she has nothing to hide. She can be clever in her deposition and publish it on the site for our amusement.
That's just my opinion, of course, but it seems reasonable and logical to me. There's no reason to lower oneself to the tactics of the other side.
Agreed. Surely she could get in touch with them, right? Presumably she has nothing to hide, and could easily let SCO know "here I am, stop this nonsense". Groklaw shouldn't be about its creator.
If you're sending documents to customers they generally don't need edit support. PDF allows for markup support if you want them to add comments or fill in fields. There should be no need to give MS formatted documents to people.
Don't I wish -- I'm an attorney and there are always alterations by the other side. The other attorney has to earn his or her cash, too.
I agree with many of the other posters -- formatting simply isn't spot on perfect when you open a document started in Word (or excel or powerpoint) with more complicated layouts. OO.org 2.1 is the best version yet as far as that goes, but I still open some documents, and have the formatting be off. I haven't tried any database work, so I can't comment on that.
Also, before sending something out to a customer that I've written in OO, I check it on a machine that has Word or Excel or Powerpoint (whatever is appropriate) to ensure the formatting remains the same.
In prior versions, I noticed an issue with tracking changes, but I haven't looked at that recently, so I don't know if it still exists.
Actually, it's this kind of patent use (abuse) - restraint of trade - that should be forbidden. It should be prevented becuase of the monopoly and incumbent carrier status that Verizon holds on the wired telephone market.
Are you saying that any use of a patent by Verizon should be barred? The problem with broad statements like that is that historically the government is not good at drawing those kinds of lines. How do you determine that a patent is being used "to forward the condition of man"? Is it only if it's given away for free? Is it only if the patented subject matter is new and non-obvious?
The patent office is supposed to determine just that. That it fails indicates a failure in the patent office, and not a failure of the law.
The developer can do a wider variety of things under public domain than under GPL, but most of those things are in conflict with the freedom of users.
I disagree with that statement. No one can remove something from the public domain. Once it is there, it is there. The developer can do what he likes, but he is unable to remove a work from the public domain.
Ultimately, I believe your argument is that RMS has drafted a superior copyright law, which should be perpetual.
Slashdot Mirror
I looked up the case you mentioned, and you're right that Kodak lost the case, however, Kodak's pre-lawsuit opinions likely saved them from damages due to willful infringement. In a patent case, treble damages are awarded for willfull infringement -- that's where the money is. While an infringer will have to cease infringement, and will likely have to purchase a license, only a willful infringer pays treble damages as punishment. By seeking outside opinions, Kodak likely saved themselves treble damages, which would have amounted to hundreds of millions of dollars.
So, I would argue it's a stretch to say those opinions did not help them one little bit -- they helped Kodak immensely, even though they didn't win the case.
(Also, if anyone wants to look it up, the case actually began in the late 70s, and damages weren't decided until 90-91. The damages opinion went unreported in the Supplement, but is available on Westlaw.)
The article sadly has little more information than the summary. It doesn't say which VMs, only that "exploit is browser independent, as long as it invokes a vulnerable Java Runtime Environment". In other words, the vulnerable VMs are vulnerable.
And, of course, PJ is NAL. She is not licensed in any jurisdiction to practice law...
The GP's post seemed thoughtful to me. How are actual dollar amounts irrelevant? -- you asked "how much are we paying for polish" and "Doesn't it seem strange that a simple GUI front end for standard OS features is like 1/5th the cost of the entire OS itself". The GP simply replied that it was worth it to him.
Sometimes time is worth more than money, sometimes not. For most people, the opportunity cost of writing the interface themselves is greater $20. For you, it's not. Both are cool with me...
At worst, in twenty years we'll get the perfect phone. I suppose I can wait that long for perfection...
But perhaps more representative of the experience of the "average" user. The "average" user may well not have access to a "professional Mac user" -- and our hypothetical "average" user might have much the same experience as the author.
Is the problem that in school you have it drummed into you how great the USA is, and so don't see the problems? (Sorry I realise this post is a bit trollish, but it is a genuine question).
I can only speak for myself here, so take it for no more than it's worth.
Yes, I think people see the problems. However, there are a variety of issues that make it more complicated than the rest of the world sees.
First, it seems like the US is the target of every other country or country's leaders, even (or especially) our allies. We get bashed (it seems -- this may be true and it may not be) regardless of what we do. Traveling abroad as an American, before or after 9-11, can be a trying thing. You get people who insult you for any number of reasons, and eventually the voices of the "rest of the world" just seem like shrill, jealous antagonists who will complain regardless of what you do. Those who don't travel get the same sense from those who do. It's considered conventional wisdom that if you go to France, the people are going to treat you like crap (again, this is conventional wisdom and not my experience) -- so the input of that country is just considered USA bashing. After a while, you feel a little contrary to the constant holier-than-thou attitude of other countries, and will act accordingly.
Second, there are two political parties in the country with any chance of getting elected, which in many other countries is a foreign concept. Those parties are defined by a seemingly unflinchingly rigid set of issues, which may or may not conflict ideologically with each other, but are what the average voter gets to choose from. The Republicans (in theory) support lower taxes, are pro-life and pro-business, are against gun control, and support the death penalty. The Democrats (in theory) support social programs, are pro-choice, support environmental programs, are for gun control, and are against the death penalty. Both are often run by corrupt, elitist, extremely wealthy people who are out of touch with the general populace. For example, in the last election, John Kerry is a wealthy career politician, who selected a successful and also very wealthy trial lawyer as his running mate. George Bush is also a wealthy career politician, who selected a wealthy businessman with experience in the Federal government as his running mate. Those were the choices (and I chose neither, which is generally known as "throwing [my] vote away"). Had John Kerry been elected, it's almost certain that some interest would have caught his eye. (And if your gut response is "but that wouldn't have resulted in the deaths of thousands of people" then maybe you're right, but that's not the point.)
My point is that there's corruption constantly, and people simply accept some level of it. For the most part, if it doesn't impact too many lives in the USA, then it's not considered that big of a deal. I would propose that that apathy is true for other countries as well, but those countries can't have quite the impact the US has.
While I'm ranting, the third issue (I think) is that the US is really big and often citizens of other countries don't see that. We have 300 million citizens who have a huge range of issues which are important to them. We have the third largest land area of any country (stats taken from wikipedia page on USA). It's a really big place, and there are a lot of people to be kept happy. The problems that people see are the problems which impact them (or which they perceive to impact them). A defense contractor (and arguably the one with the most experience and ability to carry out the job) receiving a contract from the government is fairly low on the scale of importance until it impacts the average person in some way. People here tend not to travel as much as other countries, because (again) the US has its own great diversity of terrain and people and traveling abroad is often thought to be traveling into hostile territory, not to mention that it's expensive. So, yes, people in
A party with a reasonable expectation of a patent suit being filed against them could file a declaratory judgment action. That is, rather than allowing the threat of the suit to hang over your head, you sue the threatening party to have your process/method/form of matter/etc. be declared non-infringing or the patent declared invalid.
The camera footage of the attempted attacks a fortnight later weren't much better and the perpetrators were able to escape untracked through London. If these CCTV cameras were half as effective as people want to make out, then police would have been knocking on the perps' doors hours if not minutes after they escaped. The reality of the situation is different, and anybody who thinks otherwise is, frankly, an idiot.
That seems like a fair statement -- but if it's true, why have the cameras at all? That is, if 1) they don't prevent the crime, and 2) they provide little aid in apprehending suspects after the fact, then why have them at all?
First, this ignores the long history of Jewish criticism of the Tanakh, which was quite active long before the Christian church was formalized. Second, Christian apologetic writers appeared very early in the history of the church -- these were people who defended the practices and philosophies of the new religion against its critics. This implies both that there were critics on a wide enough scale that a reply was needed, and that there were people who would reply.
It is only VERY recently in history that people started openly questioning the Bible in a serious way. http://www.evilbible.com/ has not been around all that long.
Evil bible isn't exactly written in a style that one would expect serious scholarship to be presented. However, it doesn't delve much into dealing with counter-arguments to what it presents. It seems to quote scripture, and then attack the scripture. It points out violence in the Bible, without giving a meaningful context to the violence.
In reality, it actually is a new phenomenon (at the scale happening today).
Perhaps it's a new phenomenon among certain groups of people, but I would say that there have been highly intelligent attackers and defenders of scripture since its inception. The arguments of today are not new in the sense that no one has considered them, or replied to them, before.
They "don't like admitting"? I have never heard that -- the story is there. Now, people may differ as to the interpretation or the literary harmony, but I've never heard someone claim that the text isn't there.
A pet peeve of mine is that people who post here tend to believe that they're the first to identify a potential inconsistancy in the Bible. These have existed more or less unchanged for a couple thousand years. It's not as though all the minds contemplating the Bible simply skipped over that, and all of a sudden someone on slashdot points it out and "disproves" the Bible.
Crimes, however, do have fixed definitions. For example, in the state of Indiana, rape is defined by IC 35-42-4-1. It says
(a) Except as provided in subsection (b), a person who knowingly or intentionally has sexual intercourse with a member of the opposite sex when:
(1) the other person is compelled by force or imminent threat of force;
(2) the other person is unaware that the sexual intercourse is occurring; or
(3) the other person is so mentally disabled or deficient that consent to sexual intercourse cannot be given;
commits rape
The law likely similarly defines rape in other states, as this tracks fairly closely with common law.
The requirement to inform your employer of patents for one year afterwards can protect both you and them. For example, let's say you file for a patent six months after you left work. You didn't do any of the work for it during your tenure at the company but it does relate to something the company does. Three or four years later the patent is granted, and some time after that the company becomes aware. They're going to claim that you violated your agreement, whereas if you informed them at the time, they can confirm you aren't in violation and that you own it. They could also challenge it immediately, but you're more likely to have evidence of when exactly you created the invention at the time, and you haven't sunk tens of thousands of dollars into the patent process yet.
In any case, it doesn't seem that onerous to me. The provision that anything you invent on your own time is theirs regardless of whether it relates to your work or not seems onerous, but that's a different topic...
I agree with that. On the other hand, EU is its own sovereign. I do not come under its jurisdiction (unless I visit), so my opinion does not and should not have the force of a citizen (and voter) living under its laws. I feel much more justified complaining or defending US policy, as I'm a citizen.
That said, I think the EU needs to stop threatening and start doing -- whatever it does decide to do...
I think that's exactly what the case said. The Court considered at least one of the girl's postings:
Hey you piece of greencastle shit.
What the fuck do you think of me [now] that you can['t] control me? Huh?
Ha ha ha guess what I'll wear my fucking piercings all day long and to
school and you can['t] do shit about it! Ha ha fucking ha! Stupid bastard!
Oh and kudos to whomever made this ([I'm] pretty sure I know who).
Get a background.
formatting left as in the opinion.
The Court found that somewhere in there is a protected expression of displeasure towards the actions of a government actor -- that is, she was mad he banned wearing of jewelry in decorative piercings and expressed her thoughts on the matter.
It's not Shakespeare, but freedom can't only apply to those who speak eloquently.
Eloquently put.
Let me put the first reason this way. There is no law that says it is your responsibility to seek such service
I agree, and I stated as much in my post.
The second reason is the Constitutional right to privacy
The US Supreme Court has recognized something of a "right to privacy" in several cases, but of course the Constitution doesn't grant a general "right to privacy" in as explicit terms as I would like. That "right" protects you from unreasonable search and seizure in their "in their persons, houses, papers, and effects" (4th Amendment). It originally applied only to the federal government. By the 14th amendment it's been interpreted to extend to the state governments as well. In the instant case, no government is seeking PJ. At present, it's a private (i.e. non-governmental) entity, and no [federal] Constitutional right exists to privacy from a private entity.
You are absolutely correct -- that was a bit of a jab on my part. I'm not a huge fan of Groklaw, or the way it is run. PJ's opinions are taken as fact or as prevailing legal opinion in their entirity by many, and that is annoying to me. She advocates a position, which is of course a lawyerly thing to do, while leaving out other arguments (see, e.g., the groklaw wikipedia page).
She may or may not work for IBM -- it doesn't really matter to me, and I honestly don't think it matters legally. At the same time, if she really values the law instead of a pulpit for her personal ideology, she should seek being served. She can blog about her personal experiences -- about a blogger becoming involved in her topic.
Correct, she's not, she is simply assumed to be by many. She is a paralegal, and is not admitted to the bar in any jurisdiction. I suppose that's just a pet peeve of mine...
I mean, really, why make it easy for SCO?
She's not under an affirmative duty to seek being served, but as you say she's neither allowed to avoid it intentionally. I would argue that as an officer of the court, and one who (I hope) believes in the system, she should in this case seek service. It's not going to make anything easier for SCO, as she has nothing to hide. She can be clever in her deposition and publish it on the site for our amusement.
That's just my opinion, of course, but it seems reasonable and logical to me. There's no reason to lower oneself to the tactics of the other side.
Agreed. Surely she could get in touch with them, right? Presumably she has nothing to hide, and could easily let SCO know "here I am, stop this nonsense". Groklaw shouldn't be about its creator.
Don't I wish -- I'm an attorney and there are always alterations by the other side. The other attorney has to earn his or her cash, too.
Also, before sending something out to a customer that I've written in OO, I check it on a machine that has Word or Excel or Powerpoint (whatever is appropriate) to ensure the formatting remains the same.
In prior versions, I noticed an issue with tracking changes, but I haven't looked at that recently, so I don't know if it still exists.
Are you saying that any use of a patent by Verizon should be barred? The problem with broad statements like that is that historically the government is not good at drawing those kinds of lines. How do you determine that a patent is being used "to forward the condition of man"? Is it only if it's given away for free? Is it only if the patented subject matter is new and non-obvious?
The patent office is supposed to determine just that. That it fails indicates a failure in the patent office, and not a failure of the law.
I disagree with that statement. No one can remove something from the public domain. Once it is there, it is there. The developer can do what he likes, but he is unable to remove a work from the public domain.
Ultimately, I believe your argument is that RMS has drafted a superior copyright law, which should be perpetual.