Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 06 2009 @ 04:26 AM EST

Authored by: TiddlyPom on Tuesday, January 06 2009 @ 04:31 AM EST

Thanks PJ and a Happy New Year to you (and to all the readers of Groklaw here).



Anything that means we can keep Linux alive and increasing market share seems

good to me and Groklaw certainly helps by the wealth of prior art and

as-accurate-as-we-can Unix timelines etc.



As you say, I think that disappearing articles may be a problem and don't

underestimate the extra storage needed if local copies are taken. It might also

be necessary to check whether it is legal to have local copies of all the links

(although what would I know compared to the legal knowledge here ;) )



If I can help I will.



---

Open Source Software - Unpicking the Microsoft monopoly piece-by-piece. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 06 2009 @ 05:19 AM EST

Perhaps this is difficult to retro-fit to Groklaw, but a comment scoring system

(1-5 stars for example, as used by Yahoo and many others) would make like much

easier on you than reading 1000's of emails with list of comment IDs.



JMHO,

Nice to have you back. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Erwan on Tuesday, January 06 2009 @ 05:42 AM EST

I guess the popular OT thread is still OK.



---

Erwan [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: DaveJakeman on Tuesday, January 06 2009 @ 06:10 AM EST

PJ,



It's obvious you put your "time off" to good use and have thought this

through clearly. After explaining it in your usual adept way, I absolutely and

totally agree this is the right thing to do with Groklaw.



Groklaw has the materials and there is so much more that can be done to make

them readily accessible, both for casual visitors or intensive research.



Groklaw has already set a stellar example of what can be done with a blog and a

large, interested following, but I think the best is yet to come. It will

snowball. Good data, well organised and preserved will just pull in more

interest. So Groklaw still has another example to set. It's still a game and

it should be fun.



One of the things that kept me coming back to Groklaw though was News Picks. I

can live without daily articles as we switch to preservation, but the Groklaw

News Picks was something so, so unique. I'll be very glad to see that return.

This again is something that should be helped by "many eyes".



Welcome back,



Dave



---

Monopolistic Ignominious Corporation Requiring Office $tandard Only For

Themselves [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: DaveJakeman on Tuesday, January 06 2009 @ 06:13 AM EST

The usual thing...



---

Monopolistic Ignominious Corporation Requiring Office $tandard Only For

Themselves [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 06 2009 @ 06:17 AM EST

The legality of EULAs with links to ever changing URLS. As in the terms are

modified by terms at URL, that are modified by terms at URL .. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Erwan on Tuesday, January 06 2009 @ 06:25 AM EST

If you have ideas or could help in building a library of PHP, Python or PERL scripts that could help with the task at hand... ---

Erwan [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: ak on Tuesday, January 06 2009 @ 06:41 AM EST

The LinkChecker Add On for Firefox can be used to find broken links on a single page. There also exist tools for complete websites such as Linkchecker Yes, both projects use the same name... [ Reply to This | # ]



wget is also useful - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 06 2009 @ 01:16 PM EST

- Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 06 2009 @ 01:16 PM EST LinkLint - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 06 2009 @ 02:22 PM EST

- Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 06 2009 @ 02:22 PM EST checkbot - Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, January 07 2009 @ 03:46 PM EST

Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 06 2009 @ 06:48 AM EST

PJ, I think that the preservation of Groklaw is a fantastic thing and devoting

the effort to that end for now is well warranted.



I have just one small request. While the preservation project is ongoing, would

it be possible to keep the timelines for the various cases up-to-date with new

filings? As you said, no new evidence or arguments can be introduced in the

appeal, but the there still will be new filings, and most of us don't have our

own subscriptions to Westlaw or one of the other court research services. The

bankruptcy case will plod onward, and at some point I expect IBM to request a

lift of the stay in their case as well, so just updating the timeline would be

of great interest to me, and I know that many others would probably be grateful

for this as well.



Thanks, and congratulations to you and the Groklaw community for a job well done

so far. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Winter on Tuesday, January 06 2009 @ 06:56 AM EST

Preservation like intended means archiving and annotating. The three rules of Archiving are :-) Preserve the original Never touch the original Do not change the original Maybe I should stress that, in addition, you should not work on the originals. This includes not correcting "mistakes" or adding later insights. But you need to open the collection. That is done with annotations. There is the Text Encoding Initiative that handles everything you might want to do with adding information to a text archive. Personally, I would advice to add corrections in overlays, so called stand-off annotation (this is from Henry S. Thompson). Here are some links to start: Stand-off Annotation XML tutorial (PPT)

Tutorial on Standoff Markup by Amy Isard (PPT)

XML- based Stand-off Representation and Exploitation of Multi-Level Linguistic Annotation (PDF) For Groklaw this would mean that all original materials are preserved as published, but changes (corrections) are added as overlays (eg, diffs inserted before display). Any additions, like comment scoring or added links could also be added as overlays. Rob ---

Some say the sun rises in the east, some say it rises in the west; the truth lies probably somewhere in between. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 06 2009 @ 07:12 AM EST

Just because appeals aren't supposed to introduce new material doesn't mean SCO

won't do it, does it.



As long as DMB is employed and Novell owed money, SCO will lie cheat and get

away with it (in so far as it won't add any more punishment to them for abuse). [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: JamesK on Tuesday, January 06 2009 @ 07:29 AM EST

I trust you had a nice relaxing vacation. :-)



---

There are 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand binary and those

who don't.

[ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 06 2009 @ 08:45 AM EST

I'm still wondering if SCO will manage to pull off some miraculous 11th hour

legal fu-jitsu move and manage to spin things into actually winning an appeal on

some technicality that allows them to keep the FUD machine rolling and get their

shares back up...



They're not dead yet... [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 06 2009 @ 09:43 AM EST

First of all, thank you PJ for all the incredible work you have done. It has

been invaluable.



Your site has helped me to open the door to FOSS as a serious consideration in

my workplace. Your news picks have been invaluable to bring a constant stream

of "Did you see the article on Groklaw this morning?" to management.

It has been an addiction and a tool. The news picks will be sorely missed. If

it is at all possible, do you have anyone that you could feel comfortable

delegating that responsibility to? I understand and support your decision if

you can't.



It really, really helped. Slashdot and others just did not do it as well.



Thanks. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: ralevin on Tuesday, January 06 2009 @ 10:56 AM EST

It occurs to me (and I find it amusing) that this should lead to a distinct

increase in quite a few people's productivity to thier employer (including

mine). Sort of an economic stimulus....



But this seems like a good time to say thank you to everyone - I've learned a

lot on a wide variety of topics over the past few years. [ Reply to This | # ]



:D - Authored by: DaveJakeman on Tuesday, January 06 2009 @ 11:13 AM EST

Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 06 2009 @ 10:57 AM EST

I was wondering when Groklaw would die, and where we are.



Groklaw needs to keep current and follow other cases and new developments.



Most especially with Novell/SCO and the other parts, IBM, RedHat, AutoZone, etc

etc, as they happen.



But in no way can Groklaw can rest on it's laurels and stagnate, if so, it will

die a slow, boring death.



If GL does nothing new, it will definitely stagnate and die. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 06 2009 @ 12:05 PM EST

I was starting to get worried that the SCO marksmen didn't take Christmas off.



Seriously, it's good to see you're back and OK.



If ever a vacation was deserved, then yours was.



I'm sure I'm not the only one who had dark thoughts on the absence of your

postings......



Dude. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 06 2009 @ 12:45 PM EST

I'm anonymous. I sign my posts, but I don't have an account. There's quite a

few other folks here without accounts who contribute.



We also have anonymous trolls.



These two points create a problem with picking the "best" comments.

How do you know that the pickers are trustworthy?



Slashdot has a moderation system, so that users pick the best comments, but then

it has a "meta-moderation" system to judge the quality of the

moderators. That seems like it might be overkill here, but I only see two

alternatives:



- Allow only people with accounts to pick the best comments on articles (which

limits the number of workers).



- Have someone trusted pick a few articles per worker (or per IP address, or

some such) and judge the quality of the picking of best comments (which adds

overhead).



But basically, I don't think there's any way to solve this problem without

adding some kind of overhead.



MSS2 [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 06 2009 @ 01:24 PM EST

Groklaw now that Novell won, and SCO has filed an appeal.

But Groklaw started with SCO and IBM suit(s) which is (are) still stayed. There are still certain issues that remain unresolved like UNIX code in Linux. [ Reply to This | # ]



What about IBM? - Authored by: TomWiles on Sunday, January 11 2009 @ 01:43 PM EST

Authored by: Guil Rarey on Tuesday, January 06 2009 @ 01:36 PM EST



What are we preserving?



1) The primary document collection: This is a collection of all the filings in

all the cases, and all related regulatory filings. As primary source material,

this is fantastic stuff and is worth archiving unto itself.



2) PJ and other's major research articles and commentary. Also worth preserving,

but, PJ, really, it's a long way from finished but what you have here is the

rough draft of a really good book. You might consider consolidating, editing,

and partially rewriting the articles as a book. If you do, do preserve the

articles as written, warts and all, but presenting a consolidated view of the

whole story might be worth it.



3) Sussing out significant commentary within the discussion threads. Worth

doing as a gloss on the preserved articles, but also, if preserved anywhere but

on Groklaw or a direct mirror of the site, do we need to worry about copyright

on the comments?



Me and my analytical brain need to get back to work...



---

If the only way you can value something is with money, you have no idea what

it's worth. If you try to make money by making money, you won't. You might con

so [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 06 2009 @ 01:41 PM EST

Why didn't Allison Amadia grab the opportunity to change the contract clause

about the transfer of claims related to the Business instead of changing the one

about no transfer of copyrights? [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 06 2009 @ 01:43 PM EST

Who is the target audience for having this research material as state of the art

legal material?



Don't get me wrong, but does not the legal people have better systems in place

for handling legal research?



It seems to me that the current value for Groklaw is mostly anti-FUD. All the

lies from the case mean that the freedom haters by selective quoting can keep

the FUD going for eternity. If Groklaw becomes silent as active commentary of

FUD then the research material present here does pretty much loose it potency.

Most listeners will not have the patience to do legal research on the Groklaw

collection, but just assume the FUD-spreader is talking truth. We present here

can use it for some effect, but at the end of the day we are just random voices

on Internet that few will listen to.



I would think that expanding the Groklaw methodlogy to a network of other blogs

that cower Groklaw topics would be a good reason to drop work at the Groklaw

itself. I don't think that filling the blanks is of any practical value... [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 06 2009 @ 01:56 PM EST

Suggestion:



Allow tagging for comments!



This will allow scoring comments, with a convention of tagging with stars, as in

*, **, ***, ****, *****.



This way one can achieve the same as with scores, but then also more, since tags

are free-form. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 06 2009 @ 01:58 PM EST

One way to digital text and still graphics is to *drum roll* - convert them to

analog.





Printing "everything" out to microfilm isn't cheap, but in principle

it is human-readable with the aid of simple tools and if it's not color it lasts

for generations.





In principle, you can also print the digital files to microfilm if you provide

detailed documents about how the data is formatted. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 06 2009 @ 02:05 PM EST



Andy Updegrove posts his own newspicks, as does Roy Shestowitz at Boycott

Novell. And where does SJVN work these days? There are some blog links on the

left side, so maybe those could be reorganized to show the best daily sites.



Let's see some suggestions for best permanent links for our daily news fix.



[ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 06 2009 @ 02:16 PM EST

Does this mean that I can take the "Laura and Me" link

down from my website ?



/Arthur

[ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: rsteinmetz70112 on Tuesday, January 06 2009 @ 02:28 PM EST

It seems to me that completing the record would involve covering the appeal.

Although as PJ points out new materials should not be introduced there will of

course be briefs, oral arguments and decisions.



---

Rsteinmetz - IANAL therefore my opinions are illegal.



"I could be wrong now, but I don't think so."

Randy Newman - The Title Theme from Monk

[ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 06 2009 @ 02:29 PM EST

$ wget -o /dev/null -O - http://groklaw.net/robots.txt

User-agent: *

# Block Generic Directories

Disallow: /admin/

Disallow: /backend/

Disallow: /cache/

Disallow: /help/

Disallow: /images/

Disallow: /layout/

Disallow: /mycal/

Disallow: /pdf/

Disallow: /quotes/

Disallow: /staticpages/



# index - only allow the first page

Disallow: /index.php?



# Block All "detailed" php bits

Disallow: /article.php

Disallow: /calendar.php

Disallow: /calendar_event.php

Disallow: /comment.php

Disallow: /links.php

Disallow: /newsitems.php

Disallow: /pollbooth.php

Disallow: /portal.php

Disallow: /profiles.php

Disallow: /search.php

Disallow: /submit.php

Disallow: /users.php

Disallow: /usersettings.php

$ [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 06 2009 @ 02:30 PM EST

As a very long-time reader, and sometimes contributor to this site, I have to

say it's sorta bad way to leave us.



I started reading this site when the site first started, there were a lot of

lulls over the time, but now it's the end.



as such I no longer have any reason to read this site, and I expect a large

majority will be joining me.



Groklaw was really good at times, excellent or better in cases. Some of the

politics was way over the top and got sickening though, a lot of people left.



PJ needs to reconsider, there are a lot better, professional resources for

"archiving" such information, lots of alternatives exist. But GL

should also reconsider not covering other things, unless this was just a hobby,

and if it was, it's done now.



I'll miss the good times, but I won't necessarily miss the site, as strange as

that sounds after all these years. I notice the IRC channel has been dead for

practically ever as well (which is sorta typical).



So I wish good luck, I say goodbye, and whatever happens happens, it was sorta

nice knowing you all.



Yes, I have an account but I haven't used it in years. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 06 2009 @ 03:57 PM EST

> Would you like to know how you can help?



While I support this goal, I'd actually like to know how I can help get the very

real need for up to date legal news and commentary covered some other way. Does

anyone have suggestions for other sites that can continue this side of Groklaw's

work? Should we start one?



- cjb [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 06 2009 @ 04:34 PM EST

Are you saying it is over, finished, no more?



No chance of being overturned on appeal?



And what about the IBM lawsuit?



The value - for me, as a non-legal reader over many years - of Groklaw was on

one hand the immediate news about what actually happened in the lawsuits and on

the other hand the commentary to the news. Personally, I wouldn't know what to

do with a Groklaw preserved for posterity.



But anyway - thank you all for all the hard work put into the site by PJ,

supporters and commentators. It was very informative as long as it lasted. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 06 2009 @ 04:40 PM EST

Let me put in a vote that continuing with some low level of coverage of the

appeals process would still be interesting. Those of us not in the legal

profession do not have experience in what filing an appeal is like, and as

others have suggested, the players in the this case may likely try to find ways

to cheat and introduce new material in the appeals cases anyway.



Also, the bankruptcy case and the arbitration in Switzerland are also

continuing, and there might be interesting stuff from there.



So my suggestion is that a low level of status updating might still be

appropriate, even while the preservation tasks take priority.



Would that be possible?



[ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 06 2009 @ 04:45 PM EST

I've followed this effort since the beginning. Learned a ton, so thank you.



I have to agree with the person who said, "don't touch the

originals".



Frankly, I don't understand why Groklaw just isn't archived as a static

collection, then annotated with some entry pages. This leaves the time line,

discussion threads (and that's where a TON of insight lies), and all of the

conclusions in place.



There is the dissappearing document problem still. The only answer there is to

just go and obtain as many of them as possible, then fix links. Agreed on

that.



I suspect there will be a fair number of these that no longer exist. That again

is a case for preserving the commentary as well as the overall information over

time as I believe was proposed by PJ.



Having accomplished that, this then becomes sco.groklaw.net, and is static, and

the new groklaw.net starts running as it should.



Maybe, maybe consider each major new case getting a similar identifier when

warranted, so that preservation is a notch easier next time?



some_bad_old_company.groklaw.net would then be the front page for that

discussion, operating much as this one does now. If one were to just go to

groklaw.net, there would be a summary, news items, changes and such.







Thanks again.



[ Reply to This | # ]



Preservation - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 06 2009 @ 04:49 PM EST

Authored by: mpg on Tuesday, January 06 2009 @ 04:53 PM EST

Of course I fully respect PJ's right to do whatever she wishes, but I think I'm

not alone in looking for a bit of clarification on this, if only because it

seems like such a big shift to many of us:



Does the goal of preservation of the existing materials directly imply that

Groklaw will no longer be a blog-like resource for educated commentary on legal

affairs centering on the open source arena?



If the answer is yes, then we as a community should find a way to create a new

Groklaw, to track and fight the next SCO-like or OOXML-like affair that happens.

Would be tough to keep the quality high without PJ at the helm, but the

anti-FUD power of the "old" Groklaw is too big to let go away.

[ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 06 2009 @ 05:15 PM EST

There is value in the flaws, assumptions, conclusions etc made as the the

information by all parties was released and commented on ie as events unfolded.





I would suggest not going back and revising history (fixing errors etc), but

only annotate what corrections should be made (in the case of typos etc) or

observation of known future rulings.



In this way you can read the documentation forward and have to guess what the

legal strategies are and if they will work and you can also read the

documentation backwards (newest to oldest) to piece together how the legal

maneuvering failed.



My 2 cents. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 06 2009 @ 05:22 PM EST

One option would be to improve the technology beneath the site.



1) It would not be too challenging to use HTTrack or some other site indexing

service to create full copies of external web sites and store them for

preservation.



2) It would only require a little more work to create a system for monitoring

those sites for changes, and creating backups only when content is altered.



3) It would only take a little more work to create a system that notifies people

when things change.



M [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 06 2009 @ 06:43 PM EST

"It was the first time the Internet was ever used to put geeks together to

help with distributed legal research."



I cant disagree with the importance of preserving the materials (the message),

but...



It would be a tragedy if the community didnt preserve this great meeting place

between IT and Legal People (the messenger).



bug1 [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 06 2009 @ 08:03 PM EST

Groklaw is something like an established brand name. Groklaw has been quoted -

or mentioned - in many major publications, groklaw has has won many awards, and

has substantial, established, reader base.



Groklaw is not just about the scox case. Groklaw has covered, in considerable

depth, many legal issues relating to IT. For example the OOXML scam, or the

pants suit.



Although I would welcome PJ to write more articles, I think groklaw is well

established enough to survive without PJ.



JMHO. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: newton on Wednesday, January 07 2009 @ 12:25 AM EST

Hi PJ.



I think there's still room for a handful more stories.



Towards the end of this piece on preservation, you mentioned that SCO kept

changing their story and that it was never possible to work out what they'd

dream up next.



Well now we have the complete cronology, and we can look back on the early days

and see what they thought up next.



We can see the shifting sands of their narrative, the lines of argument they

abandoned, and the lies they told. It's all buried in Groklaw's archive, but

it's in separate threads which are yet to be drawn together.



I think there's room for some articles to give "closure" to the story,

which go back to the early days and follow some of their more important or

outlandish claims from the beginning all the way through to the end.



Most of us don't have the expertise to do that, but some people in this

community do. That's always been the biggest strength of this website.



As the story draws to a close, it needs its epilogue. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, January 07 2009 @ 12:47 AM EST

When it comes to digital preservation, the rule of thumb for me is spread it

like wildfire. Which means in the case of groklaw, I'd suggest the following:



Bundle all official documents into one tarball, including the original pdf and

where available the txt versions of all actual legal documents. At the top

level of the archive, have the timelines, with links pointing to subdirectories

in the archive.



Once this is created, put Bittorrent to work. Have a single "download the

complete history of the SCO litigation proceedings" tarball that is passed

around again and again. Should be signed and all other current technological

measures applicable used to be able to verify a given download is the

"real" download. As hard disk storage continues to grow it should be

considered a mere nothing to have 30+ gigs (or whatever it turns out to be) of

historical information stowed for safekeeping - with 1000 gigs no longer being

something that causes raised eyebrows the limitation is now bandwidth - hence

using bittorrent to let everyone help spread it around. The more the merrier,

and the more who have it the better it's chances of surviving for the long

haul.



The comments are a tougher problem and will take longer, but the official record

itself (minus holes) is already well organized and I think is the logical place

to focus initial efforts. After that the more time consuming task of groklaw

generated content can be focused on with the complete official records archive

as a starting point.



Thank you for a magnificent effort and contribution to informing the world. [ Reply to This | # ]



Suggestions for distributing the contents - Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, January 07 2009 @ 09:07 AM EST

Authored by: SilverWave on Wednesday, January 07 2009 @ 02:02 AM EST

Welcome back PJ :)



Yep you/we won so this makes sense.



Its a bit sad but nothing stands still.



Thanks for all the hard work over the years and all of the valuable insights you

have provided.



---

RMS: The 4 Freedoms

0 run the program for any purpose

1 study the source code and change it

2 make copies and distribute them

3 publish modified versions



[ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, January 07 2009 @ 02:32 AM EST

- Fight and inform about patents

- More actively try to reach and educate politicians, decision makers and law

students



- closely monitor donations/bribe money and unethical influence by monopolic

companies on politics and business.

- analyse repressive software EULAs and see if/how they could be challenged. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, January 07 2009 @ 10:22 AM EST

PJ,



I respect your decision. This is your blog site, and you do what you feel

is important. I also agree that preserving the SCO saga is important, you have

created a historical document.



However I am concerned. The saga is not over, if you consider the saga as

attacks on an open source operating system. There are still lawsuits being

filed against Linux distributors, and threats against Linux distributors,

alleging Linux contains proprietary intellectual property.



There is still the broader issue of how the legal system interacts with

information technology. In this regard, I have found your blog extremely

informative. You have provided a perspective into the legal system I'd had no

clue about.



In this regard, I have found your posts uniquely informative, and I thank

you very much for your viewpoints and informed opinion. Because of the new

direction you are taking this blog, I fear the loss of your insight in future

legal shenanigans unrelated to SCO. The RIAA and MPAA are still out stirring up

trouble. The RIAA has dropped Media Sentry, and going with a new investigative

company. Microsoft has yet to specifically identify the patents Linux

infringes, a new trial has been ordered for Julie Amero, who's forensic expert

was not allowed to present his evidence because he had not disclosed it to the

prosecutor in time, just to name a few issues at stake. I ask myself, who else

might provide the insight into these legal issues the way you have.



I hope the archiving and preservation project can be quickly put in place so

that your unique abilities might soon made available here. As an individual who

has data on paper tape, five and a quarter inch floppy disks, three and a half

inch floppy disks, and some even on reels of nine track tapes, the last which I

can no longer access, as well as CDs, DVDs, SD memory chips, and hard drives, I

can appreciate the effort that is required to make sure that all the information

here on Groklaw is both preserved for the long term, and is accessible.

Considering the long term changes to come in the next ten years for both data

storage, and data access methods, I don't envy your task. For all we know,

Microsoft might come out with some new file storage standard that is completely

incompatible with everything we have today, and that might become the defacto

industry standard. So I really appreciate where you are going with this SCO

saga to preserve it for posterity.



A long time observer. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, January 07 2009 @ 10:46 AM EST

Thank you for your site P J and your desire to want to know the truth.



It's fascinating to see how the law works concerning the IT world.



I look forward to working with you.



MikeP9 [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: vb on Wednesday, January 07 2009 @ 11:58 AM EST



I understand the usefulness of preservation. I have a strong feeling that there

are not very many court cases (with the size, duration, and complexity of the

SCO litigation) that have as much legal documentation converted to plain text

and HTML. It's surely got to be a law school gold mine.



That brings me to my point: education. For me, Groklaw is mostly about

education. I've been reading Groklaw since May 2003. I finally created an

account a couple of years later. Following that SCO cases has been truly

educational. PJ, along with many insightful commentators, have provided a

wealth of education. Worthy of note of are a few seminal posts by PJ analyzing

significant and complex SCO filings. The "English" translation and

analysis made it possible for a non-lawyer, like myself, to follow the magic

tricks that SCO performed.



There has been plenty of court drama and entertainment too. The SCO fiasco has

been interesting and entertaining to follow in a way that few intellectual

property court cases will ever match.



Here is my plea: don't stop the educational focus of Groklaw. There are plenty

of other intellectual property disputes that will rock the technology world.

Those future case may also require the collective memories and experience that

many Groklaw readers, including myself, have. Keep us engaged with news and

interesting court cases and we'll be here when the next SCO-like monster

emerges.



vb [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, January 07 2009 @ 12:38 PM EST



Now Groklaw's appeal will be greatly diminished

When PJ's new input is gone,

But it's better for something to be "great" and "finished"

Than "all right" and "still going on".





-Wang-Lo.

(paraphrase of remark by Roy Blount Jr.) [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: DaveAtFraud on Wednesday, January 07 2009 @ 01:20 PM EST

I finally got around to reading the treeware version of the January issue of Scientific American. Besides the usual fascinating articles on all sorts of science stuff, there was an article entitled "Science 2.0". This article looked at how many researchers are now actively collaborating online using tools like wikis and such. This led to a discussion of digital preservation that pretty much matches P.J.'s original post for this discussion. I will point out that "science" researchers face a far more difficult problem since new discoveries continually reshape the science landscape (as opposed to SCO just continually re-inventing the past to remove inconvenient facts). One of the online contributors to the article (SA posted an early version on their web site) pointed out that a group is currently working to adress this problem and pointed readers to WebCite. I suggest we see how many of the issues regarding preservation are already being addressed by this and other groups. Also, responding to one of the previous posts suggesting that nothing be changed, I would add that that doesn't stop us from creating an updated version that includes corrections and having a link to the original. We may find the "link rot" has already made "changes" that can be fixed but only by modifying the original. That is, the original no longer reflects it's original content. Cheers,

Dave

---

Quietly implementing RFC 1925 wherever I go. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: OrlandoNative on Wednesday, January 07 2009 @ 01:56 PM EST

...one eventually dies.



Groklaw is and was like an organism. Organisms which don't grow usually die.



In the online world, it's only slightly different. While a site may not be

entirely lost; if it fades from interest; eventually it becomes hard to find;

even with the search engines.



Also, one must remember that this site did not *start* out with the SCO vs

Novell litigation - it started out with the SCO vs *IBM* litigation, and is that

completely over yet?



While I don't disagree that an effort should be made to ensure the preservation

of what is *already* existing on this site; I think the site itself has

'outgrown' *just* being about SCO, IBM, Novell, or any *one* (or even a few)

lawsuit(s).



There will be legal issues involving software, licenses, copyright, and other

'internet age' concepts for some time to come.



Perhaps we should allow the site to continue to 'grow' as the participant's

interests expand...



Just a thought. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, January 07 2009 @ 03:51 PM EST

I would suggest to continue coverage of the SCO vs. Linux

fight till all SCO claims against Linux will be dropped

either by SCO or by the appeal court(s). [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: MattZN on Wednesday, January 07 2009 @ 04:40 PM EST

What an incredible Saga this was. I've had Grok on my daily read from day-1 and

I have to say I'm a bit sad to see the final chapter coming to a close.



PJ, you absolutely MUST write a book. Don't try to wiggle out of it! A book is

the single best way to preserve the essence of what Groklaw did here. Don't

even worry about losings creds by taking advantage of our capitalist society

('cause I just know that might be the only thing stopping you). You MUST write

a book! I promise to buy ten copies and leave them to my kids.



Digital preservation is the pits. It's hard as hell to do. A Book will last

longer.



-Matt [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, January 07 2009 @ 08:10 PM EST

You may not be appreciating how helpful you have been to people involved in the

"open source principles" struggle (as your mission statement phrases

it), and how hard it would be for us to obtain such links and insightful

analysis elsewhere.



Here is one example which comes to mind, your "What is Wrong with

RAND?" analysis:

http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=20080417104016186



Some of us are out here every day fighting pitched battles within our

organizations trying to justify policy and real world decisions having impacts

on millions of lives, against the types of disinformation campaigns you write

about in that article.



If we are to accomplish any change and actually win these battles, we need all

the ammunition we can get. Large-scale behavioral, attitudinal and

organizational changes are always tied together with legal and policy

rationales. Yours was the best supportive analysis ammunition available, the

best justificiations we could point to for counter-arguments against the

previling proprietarily-enforced wisdom, and you are taking it away!



The SCO battle was a tiny spec in the grand scheme of winning this stupid war

for tech freedom. I don't want to lose such helpful analysis just as we are

starting not just to defend ourselves against massively funded unfree

opposition, but actually trying for once to go on the offensive.



Please reconsider, PJ! [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: sproggit on Thursday, January 08 2009 @ 01:50 AM EST

With so many threads and ideas in the comments to this article, it would be all

too easy to post a reply here that ran for pages and pages.



But in the interests of brevity, there are two critical thoughts I'd like to

share.



The first may be self-evident - apologies if so - but it's important. PJ made a

masterful understatement when she wrote about Groklaw in terms of the time it

has run. For us that may be true: for PJ this was undoubtedly a life-changing

experience. We got to read and comment about articles - PJ had threats against

her safety, not to mention mud-slinging from sleazy and unscrupulous so-called

journalists. So, request to all - before we post any more articles here that can

be paraphrased with a statement along the lines of, "What I want out of

this..." let's all have the decency to pause and reflect on the immense

personal contributions of people like PJ, Steve Martin, Mathfox and others.



Personally, the only significant comment I can make at this juncture is,

"Thank you," and to show my appreciation with another financial

contribution.



Finally, just a proposal... and I have no idea if this would be possible... but

is there any way that this site would fit onto one or a small number of DVDs

such that they could be sold as an "Application"? Doing so would help

preserve the content since by making copies we improve resilience of the

underlying data. It becomes available for legal students and technology

historians alike, through sale of the DVDs we may be able to create a fund to

preserve this web site, etc.



Microsoft have a habit of borrowing other people's ideas. A FOSS version of

Encarta with Groklaw content, anyone?



Just a thought. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 08 2009 @ 09:47 AM EST

Does anyone know the current status of this project, did it ever get completed? [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: sgtrock on Thursday, January 08 2009 @ 10:15 AM EST

Personally, I find it sad that Groklaw is becoming an archival site. Don't get

me wrong, I think it's a noble cause and a worthy one. However, I think

choosing that to be Groklaw's goal for all future activity is a mistake.

Groklaw is unique in that it brought together lawyers and technical types to

address shared interests and issues. The dialog here has been generally civil

and constructive. The analysis of the shared documents was outstanding. No

place else on the Net offers the same amalgam of factors that made this site so

valuable.



I predict that unless the dialog continues around related and/or new topics, in

less than six months Groklaw will become a mere shadow of its former self. The

need for archiving is nowhere near a compelling enough reason to draw people

back day after day. :(



It's been a fun ride and a wild one. I hope it's not over. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 08 2009 @ 10:37 AM EST

Thanks for everything, PJ. I wish you could figure out some acceptable mechanism

to turn the stories and newspicks over to the comunity. I'm afraid that without

those the community you created will mostly disperse, and thus the larger

community will be deprived of a valuable tool which in my mind seemed to be just

beginning to manifest it's potential. I have greatly enjoyed your work over the

past years, and have found it very useful and inspirational. I will sorely miss

it. God Bless you. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 08 2009 @ 12:01 PM EST

The part I'm looking forward to is lessons on setting up and running a site like

GL. No doubt folks here will be interested in issues like patents and tech, and

non tech matters like health cases or political cases.



For me it's elder abuse and elder exploitation. I'm aware of cases in Illinois,

for example, where conduct by the lawyers involved has been shameful - or FAR

worse. Despite huge amounts of documentation the courts just don't care

(professional courtesy to the lawyers involved??). Sites like GL don't exist

for such activities but elders are losing millions or even billions of dollars

(in just 3 cases I'm aware of in Illinois, elders were or are being bilked -

with a blind eye from the courts and despite massive evidence - of almost $7.5

MILLION. That's THREE cases, folks. And EVERY one of the victims had Wills,

trusts, etc. - the lawyers who are involved know how to break them and the

elderly victims usually can't keep track of the complex scams used against

them). As the population ages, this is an area that will affect EVERY person.

But despite sites like the Illinois Atty Gen site on elder exploitation nothing

is done and the AG, law enforcement, and courts simply don't give a tinker's dam

- there isn't enough public outcry or open access to information about the

tricks and lies used to perpetrate the frauds. Illinois, for example, has NEVER

had even one successful elder exploitation lawsuit in a state of 18 million

people, over the many years since those laws were published, and with proven

losses and abuse. The AG, the IARDC, the JRB, at least three different bar

associations (Kane, Dupage, and Cook counties) are emasculated and worthless,

and in all three counties, the "review boards" are peppered with the

very people involved in the acts. Nice way to cover your tracks: first thwart

the law in court, tying up elders and bilking their accounts for "legal

fees", and then, if somebody complains, bury the matter in a

"committee".



That's what GL did to SCOG - made it impossible to hide behind lies or fraud.

Our elders (and soon, all of us) are affected by abusive and/or exploitative

attorneys and their accomplices like "court appointed" Guardians (God

help you if you get one of those in Illinois!). So you can see why I'm hoping

we'll soon have "Groklaw How-To" material: there are important matters

waiting to be brought to light, and the wide audience and open nature of a site

like GL will make it harder for perpetrators to commit their foul deeds. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: designerfx on Thursday, January 08 2009 @ 05:06 PM EST

PJ, I think it's great that you want to preserve everything. I can think of

plenty of places that would help such as



However, a blog is all about new things coming in all the time - I'm sure you've

noticed your readership go way down without newspick updates and other things.

Additionally, you have essentially created a community from all this. It's not

like life won't go on without Groklaw, but honestly I am disappointed with just

giving it up. Groklaw was about covering the Grokster situation which has

nothing to do with SCO. We've evolved into the reality that there is more to the

situation than you originally start out with, and that has created what you have

right now.



So why give up now? There's been a lot that happened, but why not just hand it

off carefully and act as an overseer and teacher/mentor? I for one would love to

get advice on what you skim transcripts for to determine they are significant,

for example.



Heck, do some just plain old fun legal basics lessons. The public at large could

use that.



However, related things of significance are still going on that could use your

attention as it is clear that the whole thing isn't just about SCO. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, January 08 2009 @ 05:12 PM EST

It's up on epiq already. Skim read; no outside funding, otherwise

incomprehensible legalish for me :-) [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: BitOBear on Thursday, January 08 2009 @ 07:02 PM EST

Did I miss the resolution of IBM vs SCO? Wasn't that the original purpose of

this site?



In terms of the ongoing value of this site, the work as a watchdog and clearing

house for DRM related legal matters and technology vs law issues seems like a

valid purpose going forward.



Eh, not to be trying to elect PJ against her will, but a good histrionic-free

site in the fight/exploration of so-called intellectual property issues has real

value and I am not aware of another site that is rationally partisan and

intellectually centric on the issues. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: FreeChief on Thursday, January 08 2009 @ 08:33 PM EST

Because I live in Massachusetts, I was interested in the Open Document project. If it had not been for Groklaw, I never would have never even known about it—the local newspapers said little or nothing. I have friends who don't know the story, and so I set about making a web page to explain it to them. I got some links from Groklaw, and some from Wikipedia and started to put them together to make a narrative. I soon discovered that most of the links that point to MA Commonwealth web pages are broken. Should this go into the m meory H01e? According to wikepedia In early 2005, Eric Kriss, Secretary of Administration and Finance in Massachusetts, was the first government official in the United States to publicly connect open formats to a public policy purpose: "It is an overriding imperative of the American democratic system that we cannot have our public documents locked up in some kind of proprietary format, perhaps unreadable in the future, or subject to a proprietary system license that restricts access." Administration and Finance[44] Unfortunately, the reference [44] on that page is a broken link, as are most the other links to Open Formats in the www.mass.gov web pages. Another important broken link is to the MA Enterprise Technical Reference Model (ETRM version 3.0) (www.mass.gov Page Not Found) You can still get later versions of the MA ETRM, after it had been updated (to remove the controversial parts?) Does anybody have copies of these documents? — Programmer in Chief [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, January 10 2009 @ 04:36 PM EST

It appears all PJ's articles and comments are now posted by

"Anonymous". Why? What happened to the PJ's account?



Just curious what the reason for that might be.



[ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: bigbert on Saturday, January 10 2009 @ 09:55 PM EST

The war has only just started. SCO was battle #1, OOXML #2 etc. Microsoft will

get more and more devious and nasty, without question.



I personally believe Groklaw should be the place where ALL the legal shenanigans

of Microsoft can be aired, as has happened with SCO. For example: when I get

asked what I have against Microsoft, I just politely point them to the Microsoft

litigation page on Groklaw, making the point that Microsoft is not the world's

most ethical company.



If the same can be done with all the documents we (the community) have / can get

on Microsoft's practices, it would help quite a bit.



The only way we can fight unethical behavior is by having ALL the information

available and present it in an honest way.



---

--------------------------

Surfo, ergo sum. [ Reply to This | # ]



Amen! - Authored by: mcinsand on Friday, January 16 2009 @ 12:21 PM EST

Authored by: clemenstimpler on Sunday, January 11 2009 @ 09:52 PM EST

I have been laterally involved with issues concerning digital preservation. Please do not underestimate the complexities involved. A very concise introduction from the point of view of an expert can be found here. In my perspective, it is prudent to tackle basic institutional and financial questions first before addressing technical requirements, though I am certainly aware that this may go against the grain of the community. To put it simply: The community must first decide on a timescale, before adressing the question who should preserve the content, who is supposed to pay for it, and, finally, whether and how it should be reworked before being archived. How long do we want to keep things around? 10 years, 20 years, 100 years? There is a very intriguing quote on the site referred to above: "We don't have to plan to keep everything for ever." I have not seen any consideration of this question yet. Any time span bears a price tag, btw.



Only then does it make sense to find an answer to the question which institution is supposed to be answerable for the preservation of the content on the projected timesecale. And here, the second problem looms. Another quote: "Digital cultural objects are neither intrinsically valuable nor durable. Any value arises from current perceptions and uses. There is nothing we can do about this."



Therefore, the second step in a digital preservation strategy must be to find an institution willing to see the usefulness of Groklaw content and willing to commit itself to preserve this content . Any further policies (and this even starts at the restoration of dead links) will depend on the general guidelines of this institution rather than the prefences of the community. Or, to put matters differently: Any decision on policies of how to rework the content of the site in order to "make it worth of preservation" may prejudice the choice of institutions guaranteeing its long-time accessibility. I am under the strong impression that Groklaw is about to make the third step before the first (as we say in German). I should be sorry for that.



And there is a last caveat for all of us: Take care of your spelling, it will be read by generations to come! ;) [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: LuYu on Monday, January 12 2009 @ 01:38 AM EST

I apologise for waiting so long to post, but I was busy, and I needed a few days

to get my thoughts straight.



Let me start by saying that I am very grateful to PJ for creating this wonderful

resource. It was really nice to have a knight in shining armour come galloping

along to counter the wicked lies being spewed to the press by the McBrides and

their ilk. The world is a better place for having PJ, and Freedom is more

tangible in a world with Groklaw.



As such, I am obviously grieved at the passing of an era. SCO's evil brought

a good thing into existence, and now, without something so vile to compare it

to, it will seem less brilliant. Not only that, but PJ's wit needs a solid

target, and few would be able to deny that her words had aroused at least a

chuckle.



So, the question stands: What now?



Personally, I would like to see Groklaw continue in one or both of the following

directions:



a) Groklaw continues to help protect us from the Emperor, who of course, put

Darl Vader to his task. Forecasts may be bleak for the Beast at Redmond, but it

still has teeth and thousands of angry heads and, like any wounded animal, is

quite ready to do its share of damage before it expires. Big Brother Bill is no

longer running the show, but his incompetent brethren are still around to

advance the cause of tyranny and flout the rule of law for years to come. It

would be nice to have Groklaw around to expose and document this rancid entity's

relentless assault on the Constitution and laws similarly guaranteeing Freedom

around the world.





b) Groklaw expands its defence against "intellectual property" to all

fronts of the battle, primarily exposing and debunking the FUD spewed by the

*AAs. Groklaw has already helped Ray Beckerman with an important case. Why not

use this legally competent community to tunnel into the rank foundation of

falsehoods laid so liberally by the the lawyers of the content industry? These

people have been quietly stealing more and more from society in excess of a

century. They hate the First Amendment, education, and Fair Use. They are

amoral criminals that would better serve society behind bars than behind the

wheel of a Mercedes. Who but the Groklaw community has the voice and the

expertise to protect us from the forked tongues of the *AAs?



There is obviously much that remains to be done, and I hope my comment is not so

late that it goes unnoticed. Thank you, again, PJ, for making this world a

better place to live in.



---



"Proprietary software is an antisocial practice."

-- Richard M. Stallman [ Reply to This | # ]



Preservation - Authored by: allin on Monday, January 12 2009 @ 08:11 PM EST

Authored by: Bill The Cat on Monday, January 12 2009 @ 11:59 PM EST

This saga and fiaSCO needs to be written into a book -- much like

"Takedown" was. The story, when properly laid out would make for

fantastic reading down the road by techie and non-techie alike. I can't

remember the title of the novel about the little guy taking on the big guy

newspaper but that too was fantastic reading. Kind of like David v. Goliath in

the business world of law and corruption.



---

Bill The Cat [ Reply to This | # ]

