Shoot the breeze, anything goes.
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Steven W
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Joined: 2013-08-10 22:40

2013-08-21 02:40 »

I don't know whether or not any of you have followed this site at all, but I can tell you that I learned a hell of lot there. PJ, as most following the site know her, started the site in May of 2003 to "learn how to blog". The site later became mostly about following the SCO v. IBM case, where SCO (formerly Caldera) was claiming that massive amounts of their precious intellectual property had been improperly contributed to Linux via IBM. I heard about the case in the news and was curious whether or not there was anything to SCO's claims. After a bit of Googling I found Groklaw. PJ would actually show documents filed with the court (motions, et cetra) contribute her take on things from a paralegal's perspective and the "geeks" would comment with their perspectives on the so-called "evidence". I quickly learned that SCO's claims were often misinformed, exaggerated, and sometimes worse. I, myself, pointed out several instances where Caldera had either contributed or set on committees that contributed some of what SCO was claiming IBM improperly contributed to Linux. FYI, Caldera was a huge Linux contributor/distributor.

During all of this PJ, IMO, became a target of a several "journalists". One of the most despicable "news articles" I have ever seen in my entire life came from a "women" named Maureen O'Gara. In this "article" she describes what she believes is PJ's apartment, her religious views, and a discussion (asking where her daughter is) with a women that Maureen believes is PJ's mother. I won't go into further detail regarding the piece of shit, but will say that later, after SCO declared bankruptcy (haha!), it was discovered that Maureen was listed as a creditor:

http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php ... 3224436712

and was asked by SCO's PR guy to "send a jab PJ's way":

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?stor ... 2150121798

PJ claims to have gotten death threats and I can tell you that certain articles brought the trolls out in spades.

Well, today PJ is calling it quits:

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?stor ... 8120421175

She sites concerns over using email in the USA given what we know about surveillance. While I personally think this is a bit of an over-reaction, I nonetheless salute PJ for what she has accomplished. And while the original claims to Linux are mostly dead, there are several matters that continue in SCO v IBM today. I hope that information can be found and shared regarding what remains of the case.

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Joined: 2013-02-25 18:36

2013-08-21 10:13 »

I followed that SCO thing a short while on the news and I think I remember Microsoft had a foot somewhere in there too backing SCO or something. What a shock that they would do that hey? :D

Personally, I too feel that she is a little overreactive here but perhaps being a "public" person took a toll on her. To each his own I suppose.

Not that I agree with a big brother kind of society but generally speaking, following up on her last article, I do not see the Internet as a "private" place AT ALL. Not even emails. I see the Internet as a public highway (them tubes! :lol:) so for me it's really like being outside of my home on the street. The Internet itself from the start was built in a way to NOT have privacy. For everything to be "open". After all, it was a military project! :)

I don't even encrypt my emails *lol* but as I mentioned earlier, that doesn't mean I agree with a big brother society. The growth and evolution of the Internet and its effects on society is very interesting to watch, however. I often wonder if we truly had privacy even in the old days before the Internet and the industrial revolution. For example, in a small village, everyone knows everything about everyone. The Internet just made the world a little smaller, just like a small village.

That all being said, it makes my name very ironic. Clue: It's latin. :mrgreen:

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