Groklaw
Encyclopedia
Groklaw is an award-winning website covering legal news of interest to the free
and open source software community. Started as a law
blog
on May 16, 2003 by paralegal
Pamela Jones
("PJ") at Radio UserLand
, it has covered issues such as the SCO-Linux lawsuits
, the EU anti-trust case against Microsoft, and the standardization of Office Open XML
.
Jones describes Groklaw as ..."a place where lawyers and geeks could explain things to each other and work together, so they'd understand each other's work better. When you have an idea you hope might work, and then to implement it, tweak it, and morph it, because other people show up and have ideas that are better than yours...and then have people you care about and admire tell you that what you are doing matters -- I can't think of a more satisfying feeling."
Groklaw's name derives from Robert A. Heinlein
's neologism "grok
", roughly meaning "to understand completely", which had previously entered geek
slang.
Other topics covered, which are perceived as being important to a larger audience than just the free and open source community include software patents, DMCA, and the legally problematic actions of the RIAA against alleged illegal file sharers.
A key thread usually created by Groklaw members, under each article, provides the opportunity for minor errors to be corrected. Additionally, almost every article attracts an "Off Topic" thread, where a diverse range of topics are discussed.
Pamela Jones and some volunteer helpers moderate Groklaw retrospectively to remove posts containing, for example, inappropriate language, ad hominem
attacks, and inflammatory subjects such as politics.
In January 2009, Groklaw entered a second phase of its existence, focusing on consolidation and cleanup of the legal history collected on the site.
In April 2010, Groklaw was selected by the Library of Congress for inclusion in its web archival project, in the category of Legal Blogs.
On April 9, 2011, Jones announced that Groklaw would stop publishing new articles on May 16, 2011, its 8th anniversary, as Groklaw had accomplished its original mission of revealing the truth behind the SCO lawsuits.
On May 16, 2011 Jones reaffirmed her desire to step down from writing daily articles for Groklaw and announced that Groklaw's new editor would be Mark Webbink
.
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 favor 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 SCO v. IBM
lawsuit, 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:
The blog soon became popular with the Free Software
and Open Source
communities as well as others, and attracted a community of volunteers and commenters of its own. Its popularity caused it to outgrow Radio Userland
, and on November 22, 2003, the standalone Groklaw website, hosted by ibiblio
and running Geeklog
software, was up and running.
litigation (note that Caldera Systems changed its company name to The SCO Group
during this time). Over time, other issues have been explored at Groklaw, including intellectual property and patent issues (for example, Microsoft
IP claims against Linux, and the drafting of the GPL version 3
). Groklaw is known for its contributors' ability to explain complex legal issues in simple terms and the research used in putting together articles. Additionally, members of the Groklaw community attend court hearings and interview movers and shakers in the software/IP world.
The site has become a community effort. While Groklaw's owner and primary contributor, Pamela Jones, understands law, she is not a programmer. Many of her readers are techies, however, and when technical issues arise, they are able to provide considerable and productive comments on the site. This has enabled Groklaw to solicit guest commentary on a variety of issues, such as:
Each of these issues appeared to have some application to the SCO v. IBM case, and most have been revisited many times. Additional topics have included later lawsuits by The SCO Group against Daimler Chrysler, Autozone
, and Novell
, the countersuit by Red Hat
, and their implications as well as Microsoft's attempt to fast track OOXML as an International Organization for Standardization
(ISO) standard.
, anti-FUD
perspective.
Jones and some volunteers retrospectively moderate the comments on Groklaw. While Groklaw articles meticulously follow SCO's litigation activities, they are accompanied by reader-submitted comments that are "overwhelmingly pro-Linux and anti-SCO."
During the first week of May 2005, Maureen O'Gara, a writer for Linux Business News, wrote an exposé claiming to unmask Pamela Jones. Two weeks before O'Gara's publication, McBride said that SCO was investigating Pamela Jones' identity. The article included alleged, but unverified, personal information about Jones, including a photo of Jones' supposed house and purported addresses and telephone numbers for Jones and her mother. After a flood of complaints to the publisher, lobbying of the site's advertisers, and claims of a denial-of-service attack launched against the Sys-Con domain, Linux Business News' publisher Sys-Con issued a public apology, and said they dropped O'Gara and her LinuxGram column. However, despite this assertion, O'Gara remained with Sys-Con; as of 2009, she is the Virtualization News Desk editor at Sys-Con Media, where she is described as "[o]ne of the most respected technology reporters in the business" and has her work published in multiple magazines owned by Sys-Con Media. G2 Computer Intelligence, a news publication company owned by O'Gara, appears in bankruptcy filings as a creditor of SCO Operations, a subsidiary of The SCO Group.
SCO executives Darl McBride
and Blake Stowell
have also denigrated Jones and claimed that she works for IBM
. Jones has denied this allegation, as did IBM in a court filing. During an SCO conference call on April 13, 2005, McBride said, "The reality is the web site is full of misinformation, including the people who are actually running it" when talking about Groklaw, adding also "What I would say is that it is not what it is purported to be".
, a Unix ownership timeline project, in May, 2004. One notable result of the Groklaw/Grokline effort was obtaining and publishing the 1994 settlement in USL v. BSDi
, which for over a decade had been sealed by the parties. The document was obtained through a California freedom of information statute (the University of California
, 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
.
The Linux documentation project Grokdoc wiki was started in 2004, with the stated goal "to create a useful manual on basic tasks that new users will find simple and clear and easy to follow."
Groklaw has also extensively covered patent
problems with software and hardware, use of the DMCA
against free software ideals, Open standards, DRM
, GPLv3, and published The Daemon, the GNU & the Penguin, a series of articles by Peter Salus covering the history of Unix, Linux and the GNU project.
Free software
Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...
and open source software community. Started as a law
Law
Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...
blog
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
on May 16, 2003 by paralegal
Paralegal
Paralegal is used in most jurisdictions to describe a paraprofessional who assists qualified lawyers in their legal work. This is true in the United States and many other countries. However, in Ontario, Canada, paralegals are licensed by the Law Society of Upper Canada, giving paralegals an...
Pamela Jones
Pamela Jones
Pamela Jones, commonly known as PJ, is the creator and editor of Groklaw, an award-winning website that covers legal news of interest to the free and open-source software community...
("PJ") at Radio UserLand
Radio UserLand
Radio UserLand is a software package from UserLand Software, first released in 2000, which includes not only a client-side blogging tool but also an RSS aggregator, an outliner and a scripting language.-Features:...
, it has covered issues such as the SCO-Linux lawsuits
SCO-Linux controversies
The SCO-Linux controversies are a series of legal and public disputes between the software company SCO Group and various Linux vendors and users. The SCO Group alleges that its license agreements with IBM means that source code that IBM wrote and donated to be incorporated into Linux was added in...
, the EU anti-trust case against Microsoft, and the standardization of Office Open XML
Standardization of Office Open XML
The Office Open XML file formats were standardised between December 2006 and November 2008, first by the Ecma International consortium , and subsequently, after a contentious standardization process, by the ISO/IEC's Joint Technical Committee 1 .- Standardization within Ecma International :More...
.
Jones describes Groklaw as ..."a place where lawyers and geeks could explain things to each other and work together, so they'd understand each other's work better. When you have an idea you hope might work, and then to implement it, tweak it, and morph it, because other people show up and have ideas that are better than yours...and then have people you care about and admire tell you that what you are doing matters -- I can't think of a more satisfying feeling."
Groklaw's name derives from Robert A. Heinlein
Robert A. Heinlein
Robert Anson Heinlein was an American science fiction writer. Often called the "dean of science fiction writers", he was one of the most influential and controversial authors of the genre. He set a standard for science and engineering plausibility and helped to raise the genre's standards of...
's neologism "grok
Grok
To grok is to intimately and completely share the same reality or line of thinking with another physical or conceptual entity. Author Robert A. Heinlein coined the term in his best-selling 1961 book Stranger in a Strange Land. In Heinlein's view, grokking is the intermingling of intelligence that...
", roughly meaning "to understand completely", which had previously entered geek
Geek
The word geek is a slang term, with different meanings ranging from "a computer expert or enthusiast" to "a carnival performer who performs sensationally morbid or disgusting acts", with a general pejorative meaning of "a peculiar or otherwise dislikable person, esp[ecially] one who is perceived to...
slang.
Other topics covered, which are perceived as being important to a larger audience than just the free and open source community include software patents, DMCA, and the legally problematic actions of the RIAA against alleged illegal file sharers.
A key thread usually created by Groklaw members, under each article, provides the opportunity for minor errors to be corrected. Additionally, almost every article attracts an "Off Topic" thread, where a diverse range of topics are discussed.
Pamela Jones and some volunteer helpers moderate Groklaw retrospectively to remove posts containing, for example, inappropriate language, ad hominem
Ad hominem
An ad hominem , short for argumentum ad hominem, is an attempt to negate the truth of a claim by pointing out a negative characteristic or belief of the person supporting it...
attacks, and inflammatory subjects such as politics.
In January 2009, Groklaw entered a second phase of its existence, focusing on consolidation and cleanup of the legal history collected on the site.
In April 2010, Groklaw was selected by the Library of Congress for inclusion in its web archival project, in the category of Legal Blogs.
On April 9, 2011, Jones announced that Groklaw would stop publishing new articles on May 16, 2011, its 8th anniversary, as Groklaw had accomplished its original mission of revealing the truth behind the SCO lawsuits.
On May 16, 2011 Jones reaffirmed her desire to step down from writing daily articles for Groklaw and announced that Groklaw's new editor would be Mark Webbink
Mark Webbink
Mark Webbink is lawyer and a visiting professor of law at New York Law School . At NYLS Webbink serves as the Executive Director of the Center for Patent Innovations, the home of the Peer-to-Patent program....
.
Origins
According to a 2003 interview with Pamela Jones, the blog was started to cover legal news and to explain it to the tech community.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.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...
, et al., Plaintiffs, vs. Grokster, Ltd., et al., Defendants, by Judge Steven Wilson in favor of the defendants. The article also covered the previous Napster
Napster
Napster is an online music store and a Best Buy company. It was originally founded as a pioneering peer-to-peer file sharing Internet service that emphasized sharing audio files that were typically digitally encoded music as MP3 format files...
decision, and why it was different causing the Napster
Napster
Napster is an online music store and a Best Buy company. It was originally founded as a pioneering peer-to-peer file sharing Internet service that emphasized sharing audio files that were typically digitally encoded music as MP3 format files...
system to be shut down. The article included a quote from Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...
, and references to David Boies
David Boies
David Boies is an American lawyer and chairman of the law firm Boies, Schiller & Flexner. He has been involved in various high-profile cases in the United States.-Early life and education:...
, who was Napster
Napster
Napster is an online music store and a Best Buy company. It was originally founded as a pioneering peer-to-peer file sharing Internet service that emphasized sharing audio files that were typically digitally encoded music as MP3 format files...
's attorney.
The second post on May 17, 2003 also covered legal issues - it addressed the then new SCO v. IBM
SCO v. IBM
SCO v. IBM is a civil lawsuit in the United States District Court of Utah. The SCO Group asserted that there are legal uncertainties regarding the use of the Linux operating system due to alleged violations of IBM's Unix licenses in the development of Linux code at IBM.-Summary:On March 6, 2003,...
lawsuit, 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
Bruce Perens
Bruce Perens is a computer programmer and advocate in the open source community. He created the Open Source Definition and published the first formal announcement and manifesto of open source. He co-founded the Open Source Initiative with Eric S...
, Richard Stallman
Richard Stallman
Richard Matthew Stallman , often shortened to rms,"'Richard Stallman' is just my mundane name; you can call me 'rms'"|last= Stallman|first= Richard|date= N.D.|work=Richard Stallman's homepage...
, Steve Ballmer
Steve Ballmer
Steven Anthony "Steve" Ballmer is an American business magnate. He is the chief executive officer of Microsoft, having held that post since January 2000. , his personal wealth is estimated at US$13.9 billion, ranking number 19 on the Forbes 400.-Early life:Ballmer was born in Detroit, Michigan to...
, and Linus Torvalds
Linus Torvalds
Linus Benedict Torvalds is a Finnish software engineer and hacker, best known for having initiated the development of the open source Linux kernel. He later became the chief architect of the Linux kernel, and now acts as the project's coordinator...
. The article ended with this paragraph:
- David BoiesDavid BoiesDavid Boies is an American lawyer and chairman of the law firm Boies, Schiller & Flexner. He has been involved in various high-profile cases in the United States.-Early life and education:...
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 popular with the Free Software
Free software
Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...
and Open Source
Open source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
communities as well as others, and attracted a community of volunteers and commenters of its own. Its popularity caused it to outgrow Radio Userland
Radio UserLand
Radio UserLand is a software package from UserLand Software, first released in 2000, which includes not only a client-side blogging tool but also an RSS aggregator, an outliner and a scripting language.-Features:...
, and on November 22, 2003, the standalone Groklaw website, hosted by ibiblio
Ibiblio
ibiblio is a "collection of collections," and hosts a diverse range of publicly available information and open source software, including software, music, literature, art, history, science, politics, and cultural studies. As an "Internet librarianship," ibiblio is a digital library and archive...
and running Geeklog
Geeklog
Geeklog is "Open-Source software that works as a Weblog, CMS or Web Portal." It is written in PHP and supports MySQL, PostgreSQL, or Microsoft SQL Server as a database backend.-History:...
software, was up and running.
Main focus
The main focus of Jones's writing became the Caldera Systems v. IBMIBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
litigation (note that Caldera Systems changed its company name to The SCO Group
SCO Group
TSG Group, Inc. is a software company formerly called The SCO Group, Caldera Systems, and Caldera International. After acquiring the Santa Cruz Operation's Server Software and Services divisions, as well as UnixWare and OpenServer technologies, the company changed its focus to UNIX...
during this time). Over time, other issues have been explored at Groklaw, including intellectual property and patent issues (for example, Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
IP claims against Linux, and the drafting of the GPL version 3
GNU General Public License
The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....
). Groklaw is known for its contributors' ability to explain complex legal issues in simple terms and the research used in putting together articles. Additionally, members of the Groklaw community attend court hearings and interview movers and shakers in the software/IP world.
The site has become a community effort. While Groklaw's owner and primary contributor, Pamela Jones, understands law, she is not a programmer. Many of her readers are techies, however, and when technical issues arise, they are able to provide considerable and productive comments on the site. This has enabled Groklaw to solicit guest commentary on a variety of issues, such as:
- 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 SCO v. IBM case, and most have been revisited many times. Additional topics have included later lawsuits by The SCO Group against Daimler Chrysler, Autozone
AutoZone
AutoZone is a retailer and distributor of aftermarket automotive parts and accessories. based in Memphis, Tennessee.-History:Originally a division of Memphis-based wholesale grocer Malone & Hyde, the company went under the name Auto Shack...
, and Novell
Novell
Novell, Inc. is a multinational software and services company. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Attachmate Group. It specializes in network operating systems, such as Novell NetWare; systems management solutions, such as Novell ZENworks; and collaboration solutions, such as Novell Groupwise...
, the countersuit by Red Hat
Red Hat
Red Hat, Inc. is an S&P 500 company in the free and open source software sector, and a major Linux distribution vendor. Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina with satellite offices worldwide....
, and their implications as well as Microsoft's attempt to fast track OOXML as an International Organization for Standardization
International Organization for Standardization
The International Organization for Standardization , widely known as ISO, is an international standard-setting body composed of representatives from various national standards organizations. Founded on February 23, 1947, the organization promulgates worldwide proprietary, industrial and commercial...
(ISO) standard.
Awards
Groklaw has been cited by the attorneys for several firms in law journal articles. It has also won awards:- 2010 - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) 2010 Pioneer Awards
- 2009 - Top 200 Tech Blogs: The Datamation 2009 List "The famed Groklaw is still going strong, far past the SCO case that first brought the blog to prominence."
- 2008 - The Award for Projects of Social Benefit - The Free Software Foundation (FSF)
- 2007 - Knowledge Masters Award for Innovation - Knowledge Trust and the Louis Round Wilson Academy
- 2007 - Best FUD Fighter - Google-O'Reilly Open Source Awards
- 2005 - Best News Site - ConsortiumInfo*.org - Pamela Jones/Groklaw: Best Community Site or Blog (Non-Profit)
- 2005 - Best Blogger of the Year - Dana Blankenhorn, Corante
- 2004 - Best Website of 2004 - The Inquirer
- 2004 - Best Independent Tech Blog - TechWeb Network: Readers Choice Award
- 2004 - Best Nontechnical or Community Website - Linux Journal: Editors' Choice Award
- 2003 - Best News Site - OSDir.com: Editor's Choice Winner
Editorial stance
Groklaw is the personal creation of one person, Pamela Jones, and Groklaw publishes articles (both news and opinion) from a self-described pro-FOSSAlternative terms for free software
Alternative terms for free software have been a controversial issue among free software users from the late 1990s onwards. Coined in 1983 by Richard Stallman, "free software" is used to describe software which can be used, modified, and redistributed with little or no restriction...
, anti-FUD
Fear, uncertainty and doubt
Fear, uncertainty and doubt, frequently abbreviated as FUD, is a tactic used in sales, marketing, public relations, politics and propaganda....
perspective.
Jones and some volunteers retrospectively moderate the comments on Groklaw. While Groklaw articles meticulously follow SCO's litigation activities, they are accompanied by reader-submitted comments that are "overwhelmingly pro-Linux and anti-SCO."
Media controversy
Jones is widely respected by journalists and people inside the Linux community. Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols wrote, "Jones has made her reputation as a top legal IT reporter from her work detailing the defects with SCO's case against IBM and Linux. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that her work has contributed enormously to everyone's coverage of SCO's cases."During the first week of May 2005, Maureen O'Gara, a writer for Linux Business News, wrote an exposé claiming to unmask Pamela Jones. Two weeks before O'Gara's publication, McBride said that SCO was investigating Pamela Jones' identity. The article included alleged, but unverified, personal information about Jones, including a photo of Jones' supposed house and purported addresses and telephone numbers for Jones and her mother. After a flood of complaints to the publisher, lobbying of the site's advertisers, and claims of a denial-of-service attack launched against the Sys-Con domain, Linux Business News
SCO executives Darl McBride
Darl McBride
Darl Charles McBride is the former CEO of The SCO Group. He became the CEO of Caldera International on June 28, 2002.On March 7, 2003, during McBride's tenure as CEO of the company, The SCO Group initiated litigation against IBM, alleging breach of contract and copyright infringement claims...
and Blake Stowell
Blake Stowell
Blake Stowell was the director of corporate communications for The SCO Group, and as such, played a significant role in the SCO-Linux controversies. He is currently PR Director for Omniture Inc...
have also denigrated Jones and claimed that she works for IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
. Jones has denied this allegation, as did IBM in a court filing. During an SCO conference call on April 13, 2005, McBride said, "The reality is the web site is full of misinformation, including the people who are actually running it" when talking about Groklaw, adding also "What I would say is that it is not what it is purported to be".
Additional projects
Anticipating further legal threats against GNU, Linux, and the free software community, Pamela Jones launched GroklineGrokline
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...
, a Unix ownership timeline project, in May, 2004. One notable result of the Groklaw/Grokline effort was obtaining and publishing the 1994 settlement in USL v. BSDi
USL v. BSDi
USL v. BSDi was a lawsuit brought in the United States in 1992 by Unix System Laboratories against Berkeley Software Design, Inc and the Regents of the University of California over intellectual property related to UNIX...
, which for over a decade had been sealed by the parties. The document was obtained through a California freedom of information statute (the University of California
University of California
The University of California is a public university system in the U.S. state of California. Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the University of California is a part of the state's three-tier public higher education system, which also includes the California State 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
Unix
Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
intellectual property
Intellectual property
Intellectual property is a term referring to a number of distinct types of creations of the mind for which a set of exclusive rights are recognized—and the corresponding fields of law...
.
The Linux documentation project Grokdoc wiki was started in 2004, with the stated goal "to create a useful manual on basic tasks that new users will find simple and clear and easy to follow."
Groklaw has also extensively covered patent
Patent
A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....
problems with software and hardware, use of the DMCA
Digital Millennium Copyright Act
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act is a United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization . It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to circumvent measures that control access to...
against free software ideals, Open standards, DRM
Digital rights management
Digital rights management is a class of access control technologies that are used by hardware manufacturers, publishers, copyright holders and individuals with the intent to limit the use of digital content and devices after sale. DRM is any technology that inhibits uses of digital content that...
, GPLv3, and published The Daemon, the GNU & the Penguin, a series of articles by Peter Salus covering the history of Unix, Linux and the GNU project.
See also
- SCO-Linux controversiesSCO-Linux controversiesThe SCO-Linux controversies are a series of legal and public disputes between the software company SCO Group and various Linux vendors and users. The SCO Group alleges that its license agreements with IBM means that source code that IBM wrote and donated to be incorporated into Linux was added in...
- Weblog
- Darl McBrideDarl McBrideDarl Charles McBride is the former CEO of The SCO Group. He became the CEO of Caldera International on June 28, 2002.On March 7, 2003, during McBride's tenure as CEO of the company, The SCO Group initiated litigation against IBM, alleging breach of contract and copyright infringement claims...
- Ralph Yarro IIIRalph Yarro IIIRalph J. Yarro III is chairman of the board and the largest shareholder in The SCO Group, Inc. Previously, he was CEO of The Canopy Group, Inc....
- Canopy GroupCanopy GroupThe Canopy Group is an investment firm founded by Ray Noorda, headquartered in Lindon, Utah. It serves as the parent company of various technology companies. One of its most well-known members was the SCO Group...
- Software patents and free softwareSoftware patents and free softwareOpposition to software patents is widespread in the free software community. In response, various mechanisms have been tried to defuse the perceived problem.-Positions from the community:...
External links
- Groklaw
- Groklaw's Defunct Radio UserLand Page
- Grokline
- Grokdoc
- Michael J. Jordan (July 31, 2003). Interview with Pamela Jones Linux Online.
- Richard Hillesley (November 26, 2007). Q&A: Pamela Jones IT Pro.
- Brenda Sandburg (September 9, 2005). Lawyers Flock to Mystery Web Site's Coverage of SCO v. IBM Suit Law.Com
- Groklaw (2003) Open letter to SCO from Members of The Open Source/Free Software Community at Groklaw
- An accompanying research document for the Open Letter
- 2007: Google-O'Reilly Open Source Awards