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| Authored by: PJ on Tuesday, January 15 2013 @ 01:05 PM EST |
Educator is the point. You complain about two
things even while recognizing that is the main point
of it all.
So I will make it clearer for you:
1. I started Groklaw precisely because I saw that
geeks needed to understand the law. I didn't do it
originally to educate lawyers about tech. But when
they started to show up, I did that too. It's now
both, and if you think lawyers don't read Groklaw,
you are much mistaken. Lawyers are more cautious
about commenting, as you are no doubt aware, and
they usually don't write without compensation, but
a lot of lawyers read Groklaw. And quite a number
are members, but they are quiet members.
Also, be aware that Mark Webbink, who runs Groklaw
with me, is a lawyer.
So complaints about mistakes about the law in comments
are kind of off point. Correct them if you know
better.
That's what is happening here.
However, Groklaw is also an advocate. We particularly
started with the goal of being a voice for FOSS geeks,
because they didn't have one. In the SCO wars against
Linux, there was this huge litigation waterfall going
on over code that many here wrote. And yet they
had no voice in the courtroom. That didn't seem fair,
so we started to speak. I learn from the coders
and from their comments and I try to put it out there
in a way that they approve, so people know how they
feel about the code they themselves wrote. Some wrote
Unix; others Linux. Android runs on the Linux kernel,
and we believe Microsoft is still trying to kill all
things Linux, and that that is the why of the
smartphone wars. So we will continue to express our
outrage and do our best to let the world know
what is really going on, from our viewpoint.
2. Your emphasis is on how the law is currently. If
that were one's only possible viewpoing then what
Apple and Microsoft is doing might look like two
companies just protecting their IP as the law allows.
But if you view it as an attempt to destroy a
competitor, using patents as the weapon, and if you
view it as ganging up on Android, then antitrust
becomes the question, and then what they are doing
isn't so legitimate.
It's how one views it. You have a more traditional
view. And it's welcome to be expressed. But understand
that to me, since I do understand quite a lot of the
law, I see both viewpoints. Go ahead and express
yourself, but understand that our point of view
isn't just clueless. It's based on input from
lawyers too, by the way. There are certainly some
who agree that the smartphone patent wars are toxic
and that software patents are destroying innovation
in tech.
That being so, the answer can't be, "But the law
lets you do that currently." You need to think
about a bigger answer to persuade here.
And here's why: FOSS is taking over the world. And
rightly so. And laws are for proprietary software.
FRAND for example is not compatible with the GPL,
the most popular license in the FOSS community.
That is a big issue, and one that the law will have
to address at some point. Recently, Europe changed
its regulations on standards to accommodate that
reality, but the US is still going on as if
nothing has happened. Microsoft has told the
community for years that it has to be more
pragmatic and get rid of the GPL. But that is not
going to happen. But something has to happen to
take into consideration that Microsoft no longer
rules the world, and neither does Apple. They
are fighting for closed systems. And patents are
perfect for that, but it's an ugly choice, and
they can't prevail without doing ugly things.
Meanwhile people are showing that if they have
free choice, unlike on desktops in the past, they
choose freedom. Now the law needs to support their
choice, not let the old guard block it. There's
plenty of money to be made, as Samsung has demonstrated
and Red Hat too, much to the amazement of Wall Street,
so it's a question of being in a transition period.
So do not assume that we will conclude that learning
how the law works presently is the only way it can
ever work. We would like to see some changes for the
better. Still, it's valuable to know how it works
currently, so go for it.
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