Judge Alsup orders Oracle, Google to disclose paid advocates | Hacker News Reader

Judge Alsup orders Oracle, Google to disclose paid advocates

arstechnica.com

89 pointsben104025 comments

I've been getting this feeling lately every time Alsup steps up like this. At first I couldn't quite put my finger on it. it was more than just "finally some sanity for that patent stuff."

I figured it out today. When Alsup shows up, its like suddenly there's an adult in the room.

For what it's worth, PJ directly says[0] Groklaw has "no financial ties to anybody".

[0] http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120807180515808

I think he's going to be sorely disappointed - Google doesn't have to pay anyone, they're one of the easy categories tech blogs ride for easy traffic and this case has provided especially good fodder for them to convert into ad impressions.

Uh, Alsop has to issue order for both parties but the implicit target is Oracle and some would claim, Florian Mueller. http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/07/judge-hey-oracle-and-google...

Mueller outed himself 4 months ago so it seems a bit unlikely that he'd be the target of an order now. It does make a nice hook for the tech rags though.

Maybe the judge is looking for a confirmation from Oracle on the record, for some sort of legally reason?

(IMNAL, obviously)

I wonder if somewhere, out there, is a blog with the exact opposite comment: "Finally, Pamela Jones will be shown to be the pack of IBM lawyers she really is..." I assume that for every opinion one can have, there's someone out there who disagrees with it.

The OP's author actually just tweeted that he might be on the list because he was an intern at Google during the period in question...however, you're being too cynical yet not cynical enough...it's possible that journalists cover a hot company to draw traffic AND it's possible that said company can exert influence in a way that such coverage is more slanted than it might be otherwise.

I would love to find out if there's any paid influencing going on here at HN or reddit. I would not be surprised.

What sort of paid influencing do you think would happen on HN?

Just general defending of a company's positions. A good reputation among engineers is very valuable to these companies.

The biased comments here are too childish to smell professionalism and probably hurt the brands more than help. Florian posts are extremely professional and often fool many readers and even other professional bloggers. Compare that to the average HN/reddit trolls. [1] Huge clear difference, I doubt any of them are professionals.

[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=taligent

But your argument cuts both ways. If a poster doesn't seem professional, then they do seem "real" and showing you have real fans may seem useful to companies.

Apple in particular probably doesn't need that but a company like, say, Microsoft might feel they'd benefit having trollish fan-boys making their case (making them, indeed seem more Apple-like), since they also wouldn't have to answer for the arguments of these "obviously unprofessional" fans...

> "be of use on appeal or on any remand to make clear whether any treatise, article, commentary, or analysis on the issues posed by this case are possibly influenced by financial relationships to the parties or counsel."

I spent a few minutes googling around for "remand" but I still cannot understand what this means. Could anyone please translate this legalese and explain why exactly does Alsup wants them to disclose paid bloggers?

When an appellate court sends a case back down to a trial judge to reconsider a decision or retry the case.

Wonder if they mention the EFF, which has received at least $1 million from Google this year: http://epic.org/privacy/ftc/googlebuzz/EPIC_Google_Buzz_Sett...

It's been argued that such class action settlement, where the defendant essentially gets to pick which advocacy organizations they "settle" with, more or less amount to disguised funding of such organisations: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4316764

I wasn't alone when I called Florian Mueller an Oracle shill way back when.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4014814

Now things are getting really exciting.

Does it matter? Articles and commentary shouldn't influence the outcome of the case.

Patent Law isn't a matter of public opinion... or is it?

Law, in general, is a matter of public opinion.

And if the opinion of the majority doesn't work for your case, you can seek an appeal to the court of social justice for the opinion of the minority.

If they mention Groklaw...

Then I will go back and upmod everything you wrote two days ago. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4342363

What will you do if they don't?

I'd believe that Oracle has employed people to attack PJ's integrity, before I'd believe that PJ is in the employ of Google.

There's a problem with making these kinds of vague (and not so vague) accusations against PJ in a place like this. Many of us remember the SCO v. IBM case, and have been following Groklaw for years. SCO tried slinging the same kind of mud at PJ you're slinging now. None of it stuck, because it was obviously unfounded and obviously disingenuous.

I've noticed that the attacks are quite vague and consist of demanding some sort of proof that PJ is not engaged this or that (e.g. eating babies.) Also, there's some ridiculous notion that she hides behind a pseudonym because she uses her initials as her nom de plume. See: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4014768 , you might want to select the page text so you can decipher the downvoted comments.

"PJ" really is a pseudonym (and I think it's fair to call it that even if we now know who she is); per her own post (http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=20050414214437...) she'd originally intended to remain anonymous.

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