A big thanks to PJ [LWN.net]

A big thanks to PJ

Posted Apr 12, 2011 23:53 UTC (Tue) by kmself (subscriber, #11565)
Parent article: Groklaw shutting down in May

As the guy who semi-organized one of the early sites devoted to the Caldera-IBM lawsuit (TWikiWeThey's SCO wiki, since lost to server/disk and organizational scramblings), PJ did an amazing job of rallying and focusing attention on the SCO case, abstracting out legal information, crowdsourcing plain-text transcripts of recordings and image-based PDFs of legal documents, etc. I discovered how much time and effort were required just to assemble some phone transcripts, arguments, timelines, and a song.

As memory serves, Groklaw was mentioned by IBM and other anti-SCO parties as a resource for finding legal documents and arguments regarding the case. For those of us in the community, as well as the press, it was the first stop for more information.

On a tech/community note, I find it interesting that the blog approach worked somewhat better than the wiki method, at least in the early 2000s. Groklaw quickly gained more traction than we did.

My feeling is that Groklaw's bigger mission, serving as a clearinghouse for legal and business issues based around Free Software and the threats to it is valid, and it would be a Good Thing for it to continue, with or without PJ. If not, it's not the first time a mantel has been passed from one set of shoulders to another. Some of the criticisms of Groklaw (especially of Bruce Byfield's Eulogy) are accurate, and, well, blogs do have a tendency to become echo chambers. But on balance Groklaw was and is an excellent resource.

As I've noted above, I had the opportunity to correspond with whomever answers email and phone calls as Pam Jones, and I can state that she's female, personable, charming, caring, and very intelligent.

I wish her success and fulfillment in what she does from here.

Thanks tons, PJ.

- Karsten M. Self

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A big thanks to PJ

Posted Apr 13, 2011 22:53 UTC (Wed) by vblum (guest, #1151) [Link]

yes indeed. (subject)

"On a tech/community note, I find it interesting that the blog approach worked somewhat better than the wiki method, at least in the early 2000s."

I am not sure how much grueling detailed work was done on the Wiki (perhaps a lot), ... but what GL really proved, if nothing else, is that hard work matters. GL succeeded because PJ was willing - and able - to put an amazing amount of work into tracking down the details.

She also has an interesting habit of judging uncomfortable issues largely correctly, if harshly - at least those issues that could later be verified, well beyond SCO. One more thing that matters, and perhaps much more easily done on a blog than a wiki.

A big thanks to PJ

Posted Apr 15, 2011 6:10 UTC (Fri) by kmself (subscriber, #11565) [Link]

I think early on we were all just treating this as something of interest that we felt needed to be addressed, clarified, and fact-checked.

For the Wiki, my own goals were more to create a record of the issue (one of the better pages was a timeline of events). Wikipedia does this well today, particularly with large, long news events (look to the Boxing day and recent earthquake/tsunami): stories with many facets, in which facts emerge over time, etc. I find the Wiki treatment far superior to mainstream news outlets.

Blogs are more transactional, and I suspect more immediately rewarding of participation. Wikipedia itself took a number of years to really gather mass, but once it did it was unstoppable.

My sense was that there were far more people contributing to Groklaw. I believe we had a few score users, of whom a dozen or so were highly active. Among the amusing developments was when an account appeared under the name of Rob Enderle. I followed up on that as I was concerned someone might be spoofing him, but from all appearances it was legit.

No sour grapes either way, just one of my own observations. I'm interested in what tech works and what doesn't, as well as under what circumstances.