Luis Villa's Home Page: Law Students

Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Law Students Blogs

OR PHONE (866) 635-1838 for Bankruptcy Help, (866) 635-6190 for Divorce,
(866) 635-2689 for Personal Injury or (866) 635-9402 for Criminal Defense

Find a Local Lawyer

Bankruptcy (866) 635-1838
Divorce (866) 635-6190
Personal Injury (866) 635-2689
Criminal Defense (866) 635-9402

Law Students

Luis Villa's Home Page

Ramblings on law school in New York, free software, and the spaces in between.
By Luis Villa

Post Frequency: 1.5/day

Last Entry: February 26, 2020 at 00:21:04

LWN interview on Stormy and other subjects

Posted on May 12, 2009
This weekend Linux Weekly News interviewed me on a variety of topics, but primarily on Stormy and GNOME’s finances. It has now been posted. It is behind the LWN paywall for now, but will be available more generally in the future. (I urge everyone to subscribe to LWN; it is an excellent publication...

easy openoffice self-collaboration?

Posted on May 09, 2009
I’ve got an openoffice document that I need to edit on more than one machine (probably on Linux and XP; long story about why I have to use multiple machines/multiple OSs but hopefully it isn’t a long-term thing.) I can’t use abi/abicollab or google docs because this is a very, very large document (100-150 pages, mostly [...

on getting subpoena?d for participating in Zotero

Posted on May 09, 2009
So, apparently Thomson Reuters is subpoenaing everyone who has ever committed to Zotero as part of their ongoing lawsuit. I have not looked closely at the lawsuit itself (relevant looking extracts here; James Grimmelman comments here); my sense is that given the current primacy of contract over common sense they probably have at least some legally [...

seething animosity can be great fun, but?

Posted on May 07, 2009
Dearest Toshok: “I wonder if this seething animosity toward the wannabe pundits/open source zealots would be enough to sustain me until I passed the bar?” No, no it would not. Trust me. :) –Luis (always happy to do pro bono IAAL smackdowns)

To access this complete feed in the blog feed reader login or register for free.

you know law journals may have ruined your mind forever if?

Posted on May 04, 2009
A paper you’re editing has a not-very-useful citation for ‘the internet is faster than snail mail’. Do you: (1) say ‘really? we need to have a citation for that at all?’ and delete the cite, because, really, ‘the internet is faster than snail mail’ needs citation only slightly more than ‘humans breath air’...

The Plan, for now

Posted on May 03, 2009
Lots and lots of friends gave me good feedback on my ‘free time’ post of a couple months ago, so I thought it would make sense to say something now that I actually have some semblance of a plan :) Specifically, among other options, Orrick oferred me a stipend to work on legal issues at [...

gourmet!

Posted on May 01, 2009
New GNOME Journal is out, and with it is a nice article on gourmet. Gourmet is a pretty awesome little piece of software and deserves more users and more love. Go check it out, and cook something yummy for yourself. :)

me on gizmodo on the realDVD case

Posted on April 30, 2009
Gizmodo says in a post today: Testing the waters with a low-stakes product isn’t a bad idea in itself, but RealDVD is the wrong low-stakes product for the job. Real claims that Facet copies DVDs to an internal HDD, but offers absolutely no means by which these files could be shared?they’re DRMed, disconnected from the outside [...

thoughtlessness in open source

Posted on April 30, 2009
I think professionalism is usually bullshit, and I like it when people have a thick skin. Making people uncomfortable can even be useful if it helps shock people into looking at problems in a new way. I’ve been fairly consistently against behavior codes in open source projects, and I know I’ve on occasion even been [...

a rumbling about X QA

Posted on April 22, 2009
As I rebooted this morning as a result of RH bug 4733471 two serious questions popped into my head: do any of the major core X contributors2 employ a full-time X QA person? As far as I know the answer is ‘no’ but I’d love to be wrong...

all the cool kids are writing about the google book search settlement

Posted on April 19, 2009
Samuelson Picker Grimmelman Perhaps some day before the case settles I’ll actually be able to read them all. In the meantime linking here so that I can find them all later.

the world needs more lawyers like this

Posted on April 09, 2009
The world needs more lawyers like this: I often explain to businesses that the main reward for a great, original product is a succesful business based on that product, and that intellectual property notwithstanding, the best way to protect most great ideas is by consistently excellent execution, high quality, responsive customer service, continued innovation and overall [...

in case you thought data in the cloud was safe

Posted on April 06, 2009
Some anecdotes on data loss in the cloud: online backup provider loses data, sues systems provider Nokia’s Ovi service loses user contacts and images ma.gnolia lost all user data A more complex case, where the provider did (mostly?) the right thing: Yahoo closing its locker service after 10 years These are not necessarily straightforward; each failure has disparate causes (too much [...

upcoming GNOME board elections

Posted on April 02, 2009
As some have noticed, my upcoming ‘free time’ suggests that I might be able to run for the board again, when I said during my last candidacy statement that I’d be running for one term and one term only. While I’ll still be available to help the Foundation out on some legal tasks, I will [...

failures of the legal academy

Posted on April 01, 2009
Because of this blog, I get an email every other month or so asking about law school- should I go? where should I go? etc. My responses are usually, frankly, fairly negative- I’ve had a fairly decent experience, but I think that is in large part for fairly unusual and idiosyncratic reasons...

the unanticipated positive consequences of technology, Andrew Sullivan edition

Posted on March 31, 2009
Andrew Sullivan, yesterday: GPS and Google Earth make travel exponentially more interesting, even if that serendipitous wandering around I love so much becomes rarer and rarer. Me, quoted as ‘a reader’ in Sullivan today: I actually find that I do more serendipitous wandering now, since I now know that whenever I get tired, bored, or just really, really [...

?engineering a better town hall?

Posted on March 31, 2009
Gene Koo has a more nuanced/less whiny piece along the same lines as my ‘deliberative nirvana’ rant from Saturday.

BarCamp for PMs

Posted on March 30, 2009
I had no idea there was such a thing, but a friend in Durham is helping organize ProductCampRTP- a sort of barcamp for product management and product marketing. Seems like an interesting idea and possibly worth going to. If you know a PM in the triangle, give them a poke and let them know about [...

deliberative nirvana and software design myopia, Mar. 2009 edition

Posted on March 28, 2009
Ages ago, I tried to write a senior thesis about the potentials and pitfalls of bringing deliberative democracy to the internet. The thesis failed, badly. There were a lot of reasons for that failure1 but in the end the biggest reason was that I let the perfect be the enemy of the good...

lwn event calendar

Posted on March 27, 2009
I had no idea there was an LWN events calendar, but there is, and it is pretty sweet. And yes, I just submitted GNOME.asia 2009- which I really hope to go to.

realism comes to ATL

Posted on February 12, 2009
Via madisonian.net, I found this line at The Faculty Lounge: Once upon a time, a big firm had to be coy about layoffs -�it didn’t want to gain a reputation as an unstable workplace.� But in a startling real-world example of social norm shifts, the stigma around layoffs appears to be crumbling...

sudoku!

Posted on February 10, 2009
I’m not sure when this happened, exactly, but GNOME sudoku got a heck of a lot better at one point. It was always functional, but the new(?) start screen, color highlighting of rows, and multiple printing are all quite nice. And the post-win colors are only minorly seizure-inducing...

Stimulus Watch

Posted on February 02, 2009
Last year my journal published a paper by Jerry Brito, arguing for greater government transparency through web-based data sharing, mashing, etc. Jerry is putting some of that in practice with his Stimulus Watch project, which uses a data set from the US Conference of Mayors to allow individuals to review and discuss various ’shovel ready’ [...

bad/good, paper-writing edition

Posted on February 01, 2009
bad: I’m hating writing this paper, tentatively titled “Access Remedies after Open Standards: Can An ?Open? Technology Be Successfully Regulated?” good: I got to write the following very satisfying footnote: “Indeed, their work is valuable primarily for the thorough and exemplary historical research presented in it; the conclusions drawn about software development processes reflect a remarkable [...

?grandpa, where were you when Obama was sworn in??

Posted on January 22, 2009
“Grandpa, where were you when Obama was sworn in?” I was fulfilling my civic duty, listening to a closing summation by a defense attorney. We could hear the screams of joy from the street through the courtroom windows on the 15th floor. If I had to miss the moment, I’m glad this was why; it [...

open(ish?) design

Posted on January 22, 2009
I talked recently about the need for the development of sustainable design best practices that work in a “bazaar” context. Looks like buglabs and IDEO are possibly making a stab in that direction. I look forward to following the project and seeing what comes of it.

how I spent my last weekend in florida

Posted on January 14, 2009
Why yes, that is a swamp buggy. Besides driving it, I spent some quality time with family, some time getting bitten by mosquitoes, and some time in canoes. Good weekend all around. Probably not coincidence that this was the first time I’ve flown into New York since I moved here and not been excited about getting [...

crowdsourcing evidence collection

Posted on January 13, 2009
Charlie Nesson asks is there any evidence that any members of congress knew at the time they passed the 1999 Digital Theft Deterrence Act that the recording industry was intending to use the statute as a basis for suing its music fans is there any evidence that riaa and company were intending to so use the statute [...

jury duty through end of January

Posted on January 12, 2009
For those who haven’t heard, I’ve been seated on a criminal jury, in a fairly complex case that may last through the last week of January. On the down side, this is wreaking havoc on the beginning of my semester, but on the plus side I’m fulfilling a civic duty that I do strongly believe [...

Law Firm 2.0

Posted on January 07, 2009
Not sure how I had missed this previously, but VC guy and ex-lawyer Jason Mendelson has a great series of posts on ‘Law Firm 2.0′- issues like compensation, retention, and cost structures, and how all of those are badly broken from the perspective of a client...

Previous | Next

Related Law Bulletins

Home is where the trailer is: Trailer on lot sufficient to destroy grandfathered lot status
The Appeals Court, in an unpublished decision, has determined that...

Real Estate Agents, Lenders, Appraisers & Home Inspectors: ARE BUYERS WASTING TOO MUCH OF YOUR TIME?
PREQUALIFY, PREQUALIFY, PREQUALIFY. It cannot be said enough times...

Going Home: Remembering Long Branch eminent domain activist Anna DeFaria
While she waited for the next round in the eminent domain fi...

Pennsylvania Nursing Home Director Admits Criminal Neglect of Patient
Donna Cameron, of Ashton Pennsylvania, who was the former Director...

Nursing Home Abuse: Organizations Defend Seniors
Boston, MA: Nursing home abuse is, unfortunately, not an uncommon ...