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Groklaw

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Groklaw is a blog that was started May 16 2003 by 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.

Contents

Origins

The blog had two purposes:
  1. To enable Jones to practice her writing.
  2. 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.

The second post on May 17 2003 also covered legal issues - it addressed the then new CALDERA SYSTEMS, INC., a Delaware corporation d/b/a THE SCO GROUP, Plaintiff, vs. INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION, a Delaware corporation, Defendant, court case and was titled SCO Falls Downstairs, Hitting its Head on Every Step. It was a hard hitting piece that was critical of Caldera Systems for the way they were handling the suit outside of court, and had quotes from Bruce Perens, Richard Stallman, Steve Ballmer, and Linus Torvalds. The amount of research done to assemble the article was impressive, and it ended with this paragraph:

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 Open Source advocates to hang out, in fact it became so popular that it outgrew Radio-Userland, and was transferred to Ibiblio as a stand alone web site.

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). This brought her an immense audience - her ability to explain complex legal issues in simple terms, and the excellent research she used in putting together every article impressed many readers.

And a simple explanation of what was happening was badly required. Most of Jones's audience were programmers and technicians, with no legal experience. Statements made by the management of The SCO Group, and a complete lack of any response from IBM (other than 'no comment') left most of them confused. Her steady analysis of events, statements, and court records provided a much needed resource.

The blog quickly became a community effort - while Jones as a paralegal understood law, she was not a programmer or technologist and many of her readers were, so when technical issues arose she had a solid backing from those who did understand those issues. This enabled her to solicit guest commentary on a variety of issues, such as:

Each of these issues appeared to have some application to the case, and most would be revisited many times. Later lawsuits by The SCO Group against Daimler Chrysler, Autozone, and Novell, and the counter suit by Red Hat which appeared to be related to the original suit against IBM, and their implications were also covered.

Effects

Groklaw in effect became an application of Open Source principles to legal research. As such it has been cited by the attornies for several firms in law journal articles. It has also won several awards:

Whether it has had any actual effect on the court case is moot. Its effect on the Open Source Community is now a part of history.

Neutrality

Jones has often stated that she stands for the rule of law. The blog itself however is not neutral - it is part of the Open Source Community, and Open Source values are openly espoused there. This has been used as a criticism of the blog in the past, however the critics have missed an important point - a blog is a personal statement, and a neutral blog is a contradiction in terms.

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 they were claiming that Jones worked for IBM, which she denies, as did IBM in a court filing. She was also attacked by Maureen O'Gara who posted alleged personal details of PJ (including her address).

Expanded coverage

Anticipating further legal threats against GNU/Linux and the open source 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 [link], 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.

A further effort is the Linux documentation project Grokdoc.

Groklaw has also extensively covered patent problems with software and hardware, misuse of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), Open Standards, DRM, and has published Peter Salus's Unix/GNU/Linux history The Daemon, the GNU & the Penguin.

See also

References

External links

 

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