Groklaw's Funeral

Message ID: 192160
Posted By: karl_w_lewis
Posted On: 2004-10-14 09:52:00
Subject: Groklaw's Funeral

Friends, Penguins, SCOX Bashers, lend me your ears.

I post today not to praise PJ, but to bury GrokLaw. Often, a web-site's failures swamp its goodness, and only its failures and 404 Not Found Errors live on. So let it be with Groklaw.

Indeed PJ's failure to adhere to FOSS Principles is a grievous error, and grievously should PJ answer for that.

There is no need for me to remind you how when all the Press served merely as a Xerox machine for the SCOundrels' Press Releases PJ stood alone. After all, how much courage did that take? Any one among us could have done it. That 'twas PJ is a mere accident, and now PJ fails to adhere to FOSS Principles. Not one among us need fear the icy probing stare of the Internet's attention, for it is not us, but PJ, who fails to adhere to FOSS Principles.

I bid you forget that PJ has bequeathed to us all a world where FUD might never work again. For we have that now, and PJ fails to adhere to FOSS Principles. Forget all of you that the SCOundrels and their Puppet Masters in Redmond would kill FOSS outright, 'tis PJ who fails to adhere to FOSS Principles.

Were I trying to arouse your shame, or your righteous indignation, I would remind you that PJ weathered the storms of attacks from the SCOundrels, and the threats of rape from the Trolls, for we all stood beside her, then. But now we know that PJ fails to adhere to FOSS Principles.

Were I but a mere jester here I might try to stir in you a sense of honor and decency, and remind you that once PJ was our greatest, maybe our only friend, who gave voice to hope, sweet Spring, in that Winter of FUD descended upon our world. What e'er her flaws, real or imagined she was there, making a beginning. If I knew but how, I might try to suggest that her expectation of common courtesy and trust might not be a betrayal of the FOSS Principles, but rather might be reasonable and her due. Were there but some way for me to do so I would contend that being human is no failure of PJ's.

No, my friends, 'tis far, far better for us to stand here and devour our own for the sake of FOSS Principles. For that, and that alone is what matters most to us. But you will have to tell me how, now, because I lack the heart, myself, to adhere so strongly to FOSS Principles.

Message ID: 192929
Posted By: karl_w_lewis
Posted On: 2004-10-15 10:47:00
Subject: Thoughts on Grokwars

*My* last word on this subject. I promise.

I offer no argument wrt PJ's deletion policies.

I offer no argument wrt her failure to *jump* at w4rmc47 offer to improve Groklaw's usability. (I won't talk about my disappointment over that.)

I will not bother complaining [again] about the lack of civility we've shown one another
here.

I just want to point out that there isn't much question in my mind that PJ is a human being. And when I acknowledge that, you should understand, please, that I mean that in the complete sense. She is not me, but she is probably more like me than she is different. (I suspect this to be true of all humans.) She may not know everything. She may not make the same decisions another would, under the smae circumstances. She may mis-understand some things, and she may know [many] things that I do not. Never-the-less, she's human.

One of the things that is true of every person I can now call to mind is they dislike being wrong, and they dislike being told they are wrong, (whether or not they actually are, at the moment in question, wrong). And *no one* likes to be discussed, disected, ridiculed, questioned, belittled, whatever, *in public*. And yet she's endured that, for a long time now.

Don't tell me it is her own fault. She didn't really sign up for that, no one does. Yes, it might be the expected result of her success, but I don't believe she foresaw what Groklaw would become. And, there is an easy solution to her problem with the public discussion. After a moment's reflection you can see it, too, I'm sure.

I think we are better off *with* Groklaw, what ever its flaws, than we will be without it.

I am amazed at the complete lack of sympathy shown here for PJ's human *feelings*. You think she's reacted badly to "constructive" criticsm? Really? That she has limited her response to only certain individuals she has, for whatever reason, become angry with, is a *fine* thing, in my view. (Unfortunate, even a mistake, perhaps, but it could have been worse, from my point of view; it could have been *me*.) I have been on the record for a long, long time as suggesting that pissing PJ off would be a bad idea.

The web-site is still up; I'd say she's shown remarkable restraint.

KWL

Repond as you please, I will read your replies, but as long as you don't ask me questions, (that I can't resist), I will not respond.

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