SCO Legally Assaults PJ of Groklaw 340
Litigious Bastards writes "SCO has just filed court papers saying that they were unable to subpoena PJ of Groklaw. While they apparently sent their crack team of process servers out looking for random people named Pamela Jones, it would appear that they were unable to locate the bright yellow envelope labeled 'Email PJ' on the Groklaw website to ask for directions to serve her in person. They're once again accusing her of working for IBM or Novell, and Groklaw is now hosting over 20 documents PJ claims were planted in the media in an effort to discredit her. As she says, 'And so the stupidest lawsuit in the history of the world just got stupider. And a whole lot meaner.'"
IANAL, but surely.... (Score:5, Insightful)
2. Is it a particularly good idea to email an address on a website which may or may not go to the correct person asking "Hey, where do you live, we want to serve legal documents on you"?
Re:SCO still exists? (Score:3, Insightful)
It's shed light on the ridiculousness of software patents, and brought clarity to copyright law. Additionally it's shown that there are companies who are willing to stand up for Free Software, even at great expense.
I think those who have funneled money into SCO all deserve a round of applause for helping to validate Free Software!
Re:Stupidest lawsuit in history? (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe you could find a suit based on a stupider premise, but I don't think anyone can beat SCO for the sheer scale of their stupidity.
Re:PJ spouting hyperbole (Score:5, Insightful)
True, but until they actually reach her with a subpoena, she's not under any legal requirement to do so. Hearing about a subpoena in the news (or via a motion she's retrieved from the internet) isn't nearly the same thing as actually being served. And if she's not actively dodging it (for example, if she's honestly taking a long-planned vacation somewhere and prefers to keep the destination private), then that's just SCO's tough luck.
I mean, really, why make it easy for SCO?
On a slightly different point, was it just me, or did this motion sound really whiny, even considering the history of this case?
You obviously haven't been following the case (Score:5, Insightful)
These people have demonstrated time and time again how nasty they are. They have zero respect for the truth and there is an excellent chance that some of them are going to jail when this is over.
PJ has nothing to do with the case other than hosting the website that destroyed the FUD value of SCO's criminally frivolous lawsuits. Any evidence she gives will have no bearing on the outcome of the cases. They are just after her to harass her. She's not being shrill and paranoid, she's being realistic.
Re:PJ spouting hyperbole (Score:2, Insightful)
Everybody knows by now that a message is meaningless and is to be ignored, or even disparaged if you can't identify the messenger. Just look at how ACs are treated here.
Re:Fairly transparent what their strategy will be (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course there is explicit legislation that is designed to stop this sort of behavior by "activist groups" and others who are clearly on a political campaign and have previously been exercising their 1st amendment rights prior to a lawsuit that attempts to shut them up: http://www.thefirstamendment.org/antislappresourc
While SCO here is screwed financially as it is, normally this is something that is dangerous as the group (like PJ from Groklaw) which is sued, as long as they are on the safe side of libel laws, can counter sue for incredible amounts of money. In the arena of public opinion, it is also a P.R. nightmare to lose a SLAPP suit, not to mention it may have serious negative consequences if you are involved with other legal matters.
Re:PJ spouting hyperbole (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:SCO still exists? (Score:3, Insightful)
It's certainly more desirable for Microsoft to interfere with both markets than to help either side win.
Re:PJ spouting hyperbole (Score:3, Insightful)
I mean, really, why make it easy for SCO?
She's not under an affirmative duty to seek being served, but as you say she's neither allowed to avoid it intentionally. I would argue that as an officer of the court, and one who (I hope) believes in the system, she should in this case seek service. It's not going to make anything easier for SCO, as she has nothing to hide. She can be clever in her deposition and publish it on the site for our amusement.
That's just my opinion, of course, but it seems reasonable and logical to me. There's no reason to lower oneself to the tactics of the other side.
Re:If stock price translates to authority... (Score:4, Insightful)
For example, in the company I work for, in the same period, our stock has gone from approximately 1000 (split-adjusted) to 19 right now -- and we're even making a profit now, and weren't back then. Irrational exuberance [wikipedia.org] indeed!
It's called the dot-com bubble, and lots of stocks did that.
Re:PJ spouting hyperbole (Score:5, Insightful)
Lawyers and cops play special roles in our society. Those roles require they have powers which, if abused, could make our lives living hells. And bad as a rogue cop can be, short of killing you there's nothing he can do to you that's worse than what a rogue lawyer can do. Maybe they don't put a bullet in your head, but they can take the roof from over your head, the food off of your table, and medicine out of your medicine cabinet. For some people, people who have a responsibility to provide for others, a bullet in the head would be preferable.
So we rightly expect that cops and lawyers display a high degree of responsibility when it comes to the integrity of the system. To be a decent cop, I suppose you just need common sense, but a lawyer's ethics are much trickier because he's supposed to be a vigorous advocate for his client. The problem with abusive SLAPP lawsuits and even the use of empty legal threats is that they divide society into two classes: people with the resources to defend themselves and people who do not.
Does anybody have a duty to respect and cooperate with a system which unjustly oppresses them? Should we give power to people who will use it to wrong us for their clients' benefits? If we do, we'll end up with a two track system of justice in which one class of people can use the legal system to compel any behavior they wish from the other.
SLAPP suits and baseless legal extortion undermine the legitimacy of the system. The system should come down hard on lawyers who practice this kind of law. Not only should they be disbarred, they should be sent to jail to do hard time. We'd strip a cop of his badge and send him to jail if he was shaking down shopkeepers. I'd rather pay protection money to a cop than let a bad lawyer get his hooks into me.
Let me be clear that I don't hate lawyers. I admire the profession, and technical skills of it practitioners. But they have a higher duty of public ethics than a day laborer or cab driver, and when they breech that duty the damage they cause is unthinkable.
This by the way is why we should be concerned about the dismissal of David Iglesias. It is true that Mr. Iglesias served at the pleasure of the President; but the President has no more right to single out his political enemies for prosecution than he has to single out his friends to receive federal contracts. Mr. Iglesias, and indeed the President, have a duty to support and defend the Constitution, and the integrity of the legal system. As bad as the potential for abuse is for an ordinary lawyer, a prosecutor has the power to drop an unbearable burden of suspicion on anybody he choses. That power should only be exercised in the public interest.
Re:Truth, Justice, and the American way (Score:5, Insightful)
In the SCO case, PJ has in her own inimitable way, contributed to this case going the right way: She brings the actinic glare of illumination onto a process that SCO, and others, have tried to accomplish.
PJ started her blog several months before the SCO case became public knowledge, in order to connect geeks with legal concepts. She believed then and still believes that we (the technologists) should be aware of the rules of the game in order avoid being steamrolled by it.
I've been reading the blog since early 2003, and PJ sounds like a gentle spoken (she insists on decorum) but very very intelligent paralegal. The truth justice and the American way language is backed up by consistent and finely honed research and argument. Plus one additional ingredient, a very angry hornet's nest: 10,000+ pissed off developers, some of whom have been around from the inception of UNIX and derived technologies. PJ, more than anything else, has brought us together to face the threat from SCO and folks like them, and for that alone her contribution is inestimable.
Re:why would she work for IBM... she works for me (Score:3, Insightful)
On the internet, no one knows you are a dog, so I make no assumptions about any presence unless I have first hand confirmation. So, does Pamela Jones exist, and if she does is she largely funded by IBM, and if she isn't does IBM have a presence in her life? I don't see any evidence to draw any conclusions. However, if it is true that PJ is some form IBM proxy, does that make any difference. Is Groklaw some sort of corporate entity governed by rules of disclosure? I am sure that SCO lawyers and accountants will support the right of an organization to not disclose any information that is not required or otherwise beneficial to the organization. If Groklaw is the IBM arm of the cold ware, so what? It makes as much difference as if SCO is the MS arm, which is none.
Of course, it could just be that we are all afraid of SCO, and do our best to hide from them.
Re:OSDL funding (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless IBM specifically instructs OSDL to forward the donation to Groklaw, they are not 'clearly' donating money through a third party. OSDL independently chooses to use the money in that way, OSDL makes that choice. Big difference.
Why should she? (Score:5, Insightful)
So why should she help them at all in their quest to slime her?
Re:2 people connected to the scox-scam killed alre (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:PJ spouting hyperbole (Score:4, Insightful)
Eloquently put.
Let me put the first reason this way. There is no law that says it is your responsibility to seek such service
I agree, and I stated as much in my post.
The second reason is the Constitutional right to privacy
The US Supreme Court has recognized something of a "right to privacy" in several cases, but of course the Constitution doesn't grant a general "right to privacy" in as explicit terms as I would like. That "right" protects you from unreasonable search and seizure in their "in their persons, houses, papers, and effects" (4th Amendment [cornell.edu]). It originally applied only to the federal government. By the 14th amendment it's been interpreted to extend to the state governments as well. In the instant case, no government is seeking PJ. At present, it's a private (i.e. non-governmental) entity, and no [federal] Constitutional right exists to privacy from a private entity.
Re:PJ spouting hyperbole (Score:5, Insightful)
Aww, that's cute! Completely naive, but darling.
Seriously, have you ever been sued? Even when you are 100% sure that you are in the right, you still have to pay $250 an hour to your lawyer to fend off all the bullshit they care to throw. With SCO, that may be a near-infinite supply. And if you miss something in preparation or they find something that they can distort into an apparent problem? Then you could be well and truly fucked. Even if it all turns out perfectly, it's months or years of stress, just because there's so much on the line and so much out of your control.
Make no mistake: if somebody suggests you have "nothing to hide", that's the time to clam up completely.
Re:IANAL, but surely.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Stupidest lawsuit in history? (Score:3, Insightful)
This whole thing could be an elaborate Microsoft scheme to discredit Linux:
1) Enrich Darl enough so that he won't care when his personal/corporate image is sullied (even further).
2) Have SCO file idiotic lawsuits to try to bury IBM in shit.
3) Have SCO maintain these lawsuits even when lack of evidence is exposed, basically displaying psychotic determination.
4) Regardless of the outcome of the trial, dump enough money into SCO to keep it on life support so it can send the occasional threatening letters to anyone known to be using Linux.
This could just be Microsoft throwing SCO under the bus in an attempt to spread FUD and make Linux-using companies afraid of getting sued, thus driving up their TCO, at which point MS can say "Yeah, our licensing is expensive, but do you really want to risk getting sued by SCO? They're bankrupt, they're desperate, even if you disprove their charges you'd never recover your legal expenses from them...."
Re:PJ spouting hyperbole (Score:3, Insightful)
However, in this case we are talking about SCO. They have a long, documented history of not telling the truth. So claims by SCO of having attempted to serve her, even letters to the court claiming that they attempted to serve her, don't mean a thing.
Most likely SCO is not trying to serve her at all.
Second most likely, if they are trying to serve her, they are doing it with their usual incompetence and won't manage to find her.
Third most likely, if they actually manage to find her and serve some papers on her, they will have messed up the papers.
In that case, PJ will probably find herself a lawyer, go through the papers very carefully, find where SCO has messed up, and send them a letter at the last possible time telling them with which legal requirements their paper does not conform. That is, unless the subpoena is so messed up that an answer is not necessary.
Stupid? It's brilliant! (Score:2, Insightful)
Microsoft needed a quick and easy way to scare businesses away from Linux. But, oh no, their normal smear campaigns haven't been working. What to do?
Step 1: Find an old UNIX company that isn't adapting well to computing where big-iron and *NIX workstations aren't the hot technology on the block. [yahoo.com]
Step 2: Get an investment company to pour cash into the company at your bidding. [businessweek.com]
Step 3: Create a lawsuit guaranteed to last for at least four or five good years. Sue everyone who touches Linux, including high-publicity companies that use it, companies that contribute code, and so forth. Drag it out as long as physically possible.
When all is said and done, SCO's offices will have a For Rent sign on the door, the board of directors will be either rich or indicted. And Microsoft? Microsoft walks away with clean hands, without directly paying SCO.
Really, it is a beautiful strategy -- best case, enough uncertainty is created that companies buy Windows licenses for their servers. Worst case, Microsoft gives Baystar a wink and a nod, as well as an investment that will more than offset the SCO fiasco. Everyone wins but SCO.
Re:PJ spouting hyperbole (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Sort of... (Score:3, Insightful)
They have publicly said they have enough cash to last them until this fall. Not exactly a forecast that inspires confidence. Combine that with a reverse split and watch any remaining tatters of credibility they have in any form swirl down the crapper. If even one of those pending summary judgement motions goes against them, that will probably be all it takes to cause what few investors are left to cut and run.
No, I stand by my evaluation. I don't expect them to last more than three months in their current form.
Re:PJ spouting hyperbole (Score:3, Insightful)
Besides, Groklaw is HER Blog, she can say whatever she wants on it, and you can choose not to read it as well. Most blogs that I know of have someone in charge.