LinuxPlanet: The Voice of Groklaw

“LinuxPlanet: Right now, your Web site focuses
on SCO-related legal issues. How much interest (if any) do you have
in expanding your coverage beyond SCO? If you do think you might
expand your coverage, what kinds of areas might you address?
Why?

“Pamela Jones: There are many other stories I’d
like to cover, and originally, that was my intention, so after SCO,
I look forward to covering them. SCO became the focus because of
events and because I believed I could help, and it seemed important
to try. Groklaw keeps growing in popularity, and eventually I may
need to ask others to join me, lawyers particularly, who would like
to pick a case to follow and explain closely. Patents is a natural
subject to take on. I can’t personally do one more thing, though,
without cloning myself.

“As for the why: I have identified a market no one knew existed.
People are interested in understanding the law if a case affects
them personally, and they want to help. It’s not just the parties
who are affected by a lawsuit like SCO v. IBM. It’s every Linux
coder and user on the planet, and most of them have no way on their
own of knowing what is going on. Groklaw fills that need. I collect
research and show people how to find out what is happening in a
case. It’s paralegal skills and they work, thanks to the Internet,
so that now anyone in the world can follow along. I get email all
the time from people saying Groklaw helps them not to feel so
frustrated by the SCO case.

“It is also a way people can contribute to the outcome. A lot of
coders out there know where the bodies are buried but didn’t
realize until reading Groklaw that what they know could be used to
help win the case. It’s a new way of approaching a case. No one
person is as smart as everybody. In the case of Linux, the world is
literally full of experts. If anyone would like to help translate
Groklaw into any other languages in an ongoing way, please contact
me. That is the next thing I’d like to try…”

Complete
Story