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Please see the discussion on the talk page. | Groklaw is a blog that was started May 16, 2003 by paralegal Pamela Jones (posting as PJ) at Radio UserLand. Groklaw's name derives from Robert A. Heinlein's neologism 'grok', roughly meaning "to understand completely", which had previously entered geek slang. Image File history File links Unbalanced_scales. ...
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May 16 is the 136th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (137th in leap years). ...
2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
In United States practice of law, a paralegal is person who works in the legal profession, typically as an assistant to a lawyer, and who is typically responsible for researching, analyzing, and managing the daily tasks for cases. ...
This article does not cite its references or sources. ...
A client-side blogging software package from UserLand Software, including an RSS aggregator, outliner and scripting language. ...
Robert Anson Heinlein (July 7, 1907 – May 8, 1988) was one of the most popular, influential, and controversial authors of hard science fiction. ...
A neologism (Greek νεολογισμός [neologismos], from νÎος [neos] new + λόγος [logos] word, speech, discourse + suffix -ισμός [-ismos] -ism) is a word, term, or phrase which has been recently created (coined) — often to apply to new concepts, to synthesize pre-existing concepts, or to make older terminology sound more contemporary. ...
Grok (IPA (GA) or (RP), both rhyming with rock) is a verb that connotes knowledge greater than that which can be sensed by an outside observer. ...
It has been suggested that Geekdom be merged into this article or section. ...
Origins
The blog had two purposes: - To enable Jones to learn blogging software.
- To enable her to write on her favorite field — law.
The first article was entitled The Grokster Decision - Ode To Thomas Jefferson. It was a serious article about the effect of P2P on the music industry, and the recent (at that time) court decision in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, Inc., et al., Plaintiffs, vs. Grokster, Ltd., et al., Defendants, by Judge Steven Wilson in favour of the defendants. The article also covered the previous Napster decision, and why it was different causing the Napster system to be shut down. The article included a quote from Thomas Jefferson, and references to David Boies, who was Napster's attorney. A peer-to-peer (or P2P) computer network is a network that relies on the computing power and bandwidth of the participants in the network rather than concentrating it in a relatively few servers. ...
The music industry is the industry that creates, performs, promotes, and preserves music. ...
For alternate meanings of MGM, see MGM (disambiguation). ...
Second version (revised 2001) of Napster logo: Cat wearing headphones. ...
Second version (revised 2001) of Napster logo: Cat wearing headphones. ...
Thomas Jefferson (13 April 1743 N.S.–4 July 1826) was the third President of the United States (1801–09), the principal author of the Declaration of Independence (1776), and one of the most influential Founding Fathers for his promotion of the ideals of Republicanism in the United States. ...
David Boies (born March 11, 1941) is a lawyer and a managing partner of Boies, Schiller & Flexner (BSF). ...
Second version (revised 2001) of Napster logo: Cat wearing headphones. ...
The second post on May 17, 2003 also covered legal issues - it addressed the then new SCO v. IBM lawsuit (in full, "CALDERA SYSTEMS, INC., a Delaware corporation d/b/a THE SCO GROUP, Plaintiff, vs. INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION, a Delaware corporation, Defendant"), and was titled SCO Falls Downstairs, Hitting its Head on Every Step. It criticized Caldera Systems for the way they were handling the suit outside of court, and the article included quotes from Bruce Perens, Richard Stallman, Steve Ballmer, and Linus Torvalds. The article ended with this paragraph: May 17 is the 137th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (138th in leap years). ...
2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
On March 6, 2003, the SCO Group (formerly known as Caldera Systems) filed a $1 billion lawsuit in the US against IBM for allegedly devaluing its version of the UNIX operating system. ...
The SCO Group, Inc. ...
International Business Machines Corporation (known as IBM or Big Blue; NYSE: IBM) is a multinational computer technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, USA. The company is one of the few information technology companies with a continuous history dating back to the 19th century. ...
The SCO Group, Inc. ...
Bruce Perens is a prominent figure in the open source movement and to some extent in the free software movement. ...
Richard Matthew Stallman (often abbreviated as RMS) (born March 16, 1953) is a software freedom activist, hacker, and software developer. ...
Steven Anthony Ballmer (born March 24, 1956 in Detroit, Michigan) is an American businessman and has been the chief executive officer of Microsoft Corporation since January 2000. ...
Linus Benedict Torvalds ( ; born December 28, 1969 in Helsinki, Finland) is a Finnish software engineer best known for initiating the development of the Linux kernel. ...
- David Boies has agreed to represent SCO. I am trying to remind myself that our legal system is predicated on lawyers sometimes representing people they don't personally admire, and the system really does depend on someone being willing to take on unpopular clients. I know Boies doesn't use email, or at least he didn't the last time I checked. So maybe he doesn't quite get the tech ... ah, hang it all, there's no way around it: I feel bad he's chosen to represent them, especially after I posted an Ode singing his praises, and I hope he loses.
The blog soon became a popular place for Free Software advocates to hang out; its popularity caused it to outgrow Radio Userland, and was transferred to ibiblio as a stand alone web site. David Boies (born March 11, 1941) is a lawyer and a managing partner of Boies, Schiller & Flexner (BSF). ...
Clockwise from top: The logo of the GNU Project (the GNU head), the Linux kernel mascot Tux the Penguin, and the FreeBSD daemon Free software is a term coined by Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation[1] to refer to software that can be used, studied, and modified without...
A client-side blogging software package from UserLand Software, including an RSS aggregator, outliner and scripting language. ...
ibiblio (formerly SunSITE and MetaLab) is a collection of collections, and hosts a diverse range of publicly available information and open source software. ...
Main focus The main focus of Jones's writing now became the Caldera Systems vs IBM litigation (note that Caldera Systems changed its company name to The SCO Group during this time). Jones is known among her audience for her ability to explain complex legal issues in simple terms and the research she used in putting together articles. The SCO Group, Inc. ...
International Business Machines Corporation (known as IBM or Big Blue; NYSE: IBM) is a multinational computer technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, USA. The company is one of the few information technology companies with a continuous history dating back to the 19th century. ...
The SCO Group, Inc. ...
The blog website became a community effort. While Jones, as a paralegal, understood law, she was not a programmer. Many of her readers were, so, when technical issues arose, she had a solid backing from those who did understand them. This enabled her to solicit guest commentary on a variety of issues, such as: In United States practice of law, a paralegal is person who works in the legal profession, typically as an assistant to a lawyer, and who is typically responsible for researching, analyzing, and managing the daily tasks for cases. ...
- Linux Kernel coding practices
- C Language programming
- Operating systems programming
- Operating systems history
- Standards Organizations
Each of these issues appeared to have some application to the case, and most would be revisited many times. Additional topics include later lawsuits by The SCO Group against Daimler Chrysler, Autozone, and Novell, as well as the countersuit by Red Hat, which appeared to be related to the original suit against IBM. The implications of these were also covered. The SCO Group, Inc. ...
DaimlerChrysler AG (Xetra: DCX) , (NYSE: DCX), with headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany and Auburn Hills, Michigan, is a prominent automobile and truck manufacturer, formed in 1998 by the buyout of the Chrysler Corporation (USA) by Daimler-Benz (Germany). ...
AutoZone NYSE: AZO is a Fortune 500 corporation based in Memphis, Tennessee which is engaged primarily in the business of the retail sale of automotive parts and accessories. ...
Novell Inc. ...
A lawsuit is a civil action brought before a court in which the party commencing the action, the plaintiff, seeks a legal remedy. ...
Red Hat, Inc. ...
Effects Groklaw in effect became an application of Open Source principles to legal research. As such it has been cited by the attorneys for several firms in law journal articles. It has also won several awards: Open source refers to projects that are open to the public and which draw on other projects that are freely available to the general public. ...
- 2005 Best News Site - ConsortiumInfo*.org - Pamela Jones/Groklaw: Best Community Site or Blog (Non-Profit)
- 2005 Dana Blankenhorn - Corante - PJ - Best Blogger of the Year
- 2004 The Inquirer - Groklaw: Best Website of 2004
- 2004 TechWeb Network Readers Choice Award - Best Independent Tech Blog
- 2004 Linux Journal Editors' Choice Award - Best Nontechnical or Community Website
- 2003 OSDir.com Editor's Choice Winner - Best News Site
Neutrality Jones has often stated that she stands for the rule of law.
Jones's articles have been opposed by a variety of parties over the years, including The SCO Group, who have been less than pleased at the negative publicity the blog has brought them. At one point McBride and Stowell claimed that Jones worked for IBM[1], [2], [3] which she denies[4], [5], as did IBM in a court filing[6]. She was also attacked by Maureen O'Gara who posted alleged personal details of PJ (including her home address).[7] [8] [9] The SCO Group, Inc. ...
International Business Machines Corporation (known as IBM or Big Blue; NYSE: IBM) is a multinational computer technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, USA. The company is one of the few information technology companies with a continuous history dating back to the 19th century. ...
Maureen OGara is a technology journalist. ...
Expanded coverage Anticipating further legal threats against GNU, Linux, and the free software community, Pamela Jones launched Grokline, a Unix ownership timeline project, in May, 2004. One result of the Groklaw/Grokline work was obtaining and publishing the 1994 settlement in USL v. BSDi [10], which for over a decade had been sealed by the parties. The document was obtained through a California Open Access statute (the university being a publicly funded institution is required by law to make almost all of its documents public), and the release of the settlement answered many questions as to the ownership of the Unix Intellectual Property. Grokline was a community-based, collaborative research project, designed to trace the ownership history and survivable legal enforcement rights of UNIX and UNIX-like software code. ...
This article is in need of attention. ...
Filiation of Unix and Unix-like systems Unix (officially trademarked as UNIX®) is a computer operating system originally developed in the 1960s and 1970s by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie and Douglas McIlroy. ...
For the 2006 film, see Intellectual Property (film). ...
A further effort is the Linux documentation project Grokdoc. Grokdoc is a MediaWiki based wiki for Linux usability, maintained by the Groklaw operators. ...
Groklaw has also extensively covered patent problems with software and hardware, use of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) against FSF ideals, Open Standards, DRM, GPLv3, and has published Peter Salus's Unix/GNU/Linux history The Daemon, the GNU & the Penguin. A patent is a set of exclusive rights granted by a state to a patentee (the inventor or assignee) for a fixed period of time in exchange for the regulated, public disclosure of certain details of a device, method, process or composition of matter (substance) (known as an invention) which...
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a United States copyright law which implements two 1996 WIPO treaties. ...
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a controversial United States copyright law which criminalizes production and dissemination of technology that can circumvent measures taken to protect copyright, not merely infringement of copyright itself, and heightens the penalties for copyright infringement on the Internet. ...
Open standards are publicly available specifications for achieving a specific task. ...
Digital Rights Management (generally abbreviated to DRM) is an umbrella term that refers to any of several technologies used by publishers or copyright owners to control access to and usage of digital data or hardware, and to restrictions associated with a specific instance of a digital work or device. ...
The GNU logo The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU project. ...
Peter H. Salus is a linguist, computer scientist, historian of technology, author and editor of books on computing. ...
MathFox assists as the webmaster for Groklaw and associated websites.
Editorial policy Groklaw has comment guidelines that emphasize politeness and orderly conduct. Groklaw allows anonymous postings and does not screen comments before they are published. This means that some kind of moderation is needed to keep the site readable. However, the actual comment enforcement policy has been heavily criticized. The policy is enforced with warnings, removal of comments and threads, removal of accounts, and blacklisting IP addresses. PJ has stated repeatedly that two of her goals are to keep Groklaw acceptable reading for the legal profession and to supply a place where people interested in FOSS and Law can exchange views, ideas, and information. FOSS is an acronym for free and open source software that is most often used in English-speaking military software communities. ...
Criticisms The earliest complaints leveled against Groklaw regarded heavy handed censorship and deceptive practises to foil the detection of the censorship. This took the form of comments that were visible to the writer but not visible to any other readers. Long-time contributors who complained about this deceptive practise found their accounts deleted without warning. This sparked heated discussions on blogs outside of Groklaw, eg http://www.ip-wars.net/ and the Yahoo forums. However all discussion of the censorship was itself censored on Groklaw. Brenda Banks was a Groklaw moderator who believed some account deletions were not for reasons of civility but rather because the account owners were asking questions about OSRM, a company that employed PJ.[citation needed].
The most significant complaint against Groklaw is that it often isn't used for discussion of law, but rather a pulpit for PJ to deliver her ideological opinions about open source software. This was highlighted most recently when PJ spoke out against Word import filters in OpenOffice, resulting in harsh responses from several Linux developers on the blog aggregator http://planet.gnome.org/. Miguel de Icaza wrote: Miguel de Icaza Miguel de Icaza (born c. ...
I would reply to each individual point from PJ, but she either has not grasped how open source is actually delivered to people or she is using this as a rallying cry to advance her own ideological position on ODF vs OfficeXML. [11] Another critical complaint is that the articles and commentary are woefully inadequate once they stray outside Groklaw's core competency of legal explanations. The following quote is by Paul Hudson, author of several books on the PHP programming language and editor of Linux Format magazine: But since the SCO case has quietened down, the site has started to post other “news” from the Linux world, and to be honest, now that it has strayed outside of its core competency of paralegalism, Groklaw is starting to suck. [12]
SCO subpoena In February 2007, Forbes claimed that SCO tried to subpoena PJ. SCO has claimed that PJ was acting on the behalf of IBM. The exact nature and need of PJ's deposition remains unclear. Forbes claimed that SCO failed to serve the subpoena since they could not identify PJ's whereabouts. No such subpoena or any reference to said subpeona has been made officially on the court record or on PACER, although one of SCO's filings does refer to a prospective deposition in SCO versus Novell. [13][14] PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records) is an electronic public access service of the United States federal courts run by the Administrative Office of the United States Courts. ...
On February 10th, 2007, Jones announced she was taking a break from updating Groklaw due to health concerns. During PJ's absence, the site was updated by the site's administrator, MathFox. PJ made a brief return on March 8th, when she commented on an article dealing with IBM's request for Summary judgement on many issues versus SCO. She stated however, that she was still resting, and would not be returning fully at that time, [15]but was back at work a few days later. February 10 is the 41st day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ...
2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the CE era. ...
March 8 is the 67th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (68th in Leap years). ...
A summary judgment is a legal decision in a case made when one party to a lawsuit requests summary judgment by pre-trial motion. ...
See also The SCO-Linux controversies are a series of legal and public disputes between the software company SCO Group (SCO) and various Linux vendors and users. ...
A weblog (now more commonly known as a blog) is a web-based publication consisting primarily of periodic articles (normally, but not always, in reverse chronological order). ...
Darl McBride (b. ...
Ralph Yarro III is currently chairman of the board and the largest stockholder in The SCO Group, Inc. ...
The Canopy Group is an investment firm founded by Ray Noorda, headquartered in Lindon, Utah. ...
References
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