Ilaw: Wikipedia Assignment

Place your wiki page and thoughts here.

Ben Snitkoff: Personal Jurisdiction in Internet Cases

I chose to edit the Personal Jurisdiction in Internet Cases page, as it was covered in our third class.

March 16, 2008

I just finished editing the Personal Jurisdiction in Internet Cases page. First thing I'll say is that editing a wikipedia page wholesale like that is a lot harder then it looks. The markup is very different then anything I was used to, so I made quite a few errors in the markup, and probably one or two in text too. It's kind of like writing a short memo in word, but without the benefit of being able to see the formatting before you're done. Not pleasant.

March 31, 2008

David, from our class, edited my article, but only to correct a possessive and make "defendant" vs. "Defendant" changes. I therefore conclude that my legal analysis is beyond reproach. Or, at least up to the standards of wikipedia.

John Long: GNU GPL

I chose to edit the GNU GPL page after our discussion in class today.

March 20, 2008

12:00 AM. I was able to edit the page more easily than I thought, save for the markup. With extensive coverage already present, it was easy to pick out what I needed to get a quick first edit completed. I continue to believe that the GPL is one of the most restrictive licenses ever conceived. I also believe that it will eventually be found unconstitutional in the United States, despite prevailing recently in US courts. Wikipedia will not allow me to post my unpublished, baseless (and at the moment unprovable) criticism of the GNU GPL. I fault Wikipedia for that shortcoming.

March 20, 2008

6:49 PM. Nice. Somebody has already read the link I posted and added to my original entry.

April 5, 2008

I cited a source where the parties could not implement Sun's ZFS filesystem as a kernel module. It is not clear that either party (Sun or Linus) is at fault per se, but the license incompatibilities may require one of the licenses to change. Sun, meanwhile, patented the open source ZFS, which has chilled efforts to reverse engineer the code...(other examples of GPL subversion include trademark battles - I will look for that article in a later update)

April 30, 2008

Summary of Changes

March 20: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=GNU_General_Public_License&diff=199561799&oldid=199559902

April 5: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=GNU_General_Public_License&diff=203605447&oldid=203602444

Personal Identification on wikipedia

User: L0ngjc47 (when i remember to log in)

IP: 24.60.105.80 (when i forget to log in)

May 1, 2008=

It is also interesting to see the Microsoft criticism grow against the GPL - they harbor a lot of disdain for a boiler plate license that they have no interest in using. Companies that have shifted toward Open Source, like Apple and Sun Microsystems, also retain a strong interest in controlling their hardware. It is not clear how MS will fare in the future now that we've entered another cycle apparently favoring integrated manufacturing...

Jason Langley: reverse engineering

I chose to mess with the reverse engineering page, specifically the legality section

March 30, 2008

20:21 PM. Added quote from Sega case. This section needs a bunch more work though, probably splitting it and specifically addressing copyrights and patents would be good.

John Nwosu: Economic and Financial Crimes Commission of Nigeria

I chose to update this article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_and_Financial_Crimes_Commission There are some errors on the article and I think I will make it my duty to continually update it. I chose this article because it is something that I have personal interest in and also you have sort of mentioned, though in passing, about a lot of internet fraud activities emanating from Nigeria.