If SJVN says he met a person who claimed to be 'PJ', I'm sure he did have one or more such encounters. That still doesn't mean Groklaw struck the right balance between privacy and public activism.
No serious person would want an avatar named 'PJ' to run for Congress or for President, given that people seeking to be elected for such an office must present themselves to their voters and provide a considerably higher degree of transparency than most other people.
'PJ' didn't provide much serious analysis -- just a combination of pseudolegal rants and conspiracy theories. Someone who makes claims about other people and their backing but neither states a past or current employer nor presented 'herself' at a conference or with a picture (which would at least make it somewhat possible that someone recognizes the person and can say something about the professional background) is just not reasonable.
I think there's nothing wrong with people making anonymous posts on websites that allow that. I also think it's fine to use pseudonyms in some other online contexts. But I draw the line where someone plays a highly political role and applies double standards by presenting themself as a kind of 'transparency watchdog' while not even disclosing a minimum amount of information about themself.
Meeting with one or a very few people -- so far you're the only who claims to have met a person who claimed to be 'PJ' -- is no substitute for allowing anyone to find out about that person's identity.
Realistically, the only explanation is that 'PJ', whether a person or a group, has something to hide.
Eight years ago, SCO, a long-time x86 Unix company, which had recently been bought out by Caldera, a leading Linux business of the day, shocked the IT world by suing IBM for stealing Unix code placing it in Linux. A Linux company suing Linux’s leading enterprise partner!? While SCO/Caldera did have reason to be annoyed at IBM for how they had handled Project Monterrey, an effort to bring IBM’s AIX Unix to the x86 processor, SCO’s Linux lawsuit made no sense–except as an attack by anti-Linux enemies using SCO as a puppet. I, and others, said the lawsuit was nonsense, but at the time .many people still assumed that where there was smoke, there must be fire. Enter Pamela Jones, a Linux-loving paralegal who hated what SCO was trying to do, and so she started to methodically poke holes in SCO’s claims in a legal analysis blog she called Groklaw.
For the next eight long years, Pamela “PJ” Jones used her legal research skills, and the help of numerous others, day by day and claim by claim, to show just how baseless SCO’s claims against IBM, and later Novell, were. She also helped show how Microsoft financed SCO’s seemingly endless lawsuits.
During those years, she was frequently attacked by people who claimed she was an agent for IBM. Her privacy was attacked by so-called journalists. Others claimed, and still claim to this day, that there is no PJ. That’s utter nonsense.
Pamela Jones does exist. I’ve met her several times and she’s a friend. She’s also a very private person in her personal life and frankly she doesn’t trust SCO, or its friends, as far as she could throw them. Since she’s been stalked by them, I can’t say that I blame her.
But, that’s all beside the point. While even now the enemies of Linux, open-source software, and the First Amendment try to make this a story about how mysterious Pamela Jones is, the real story is that, thanks in no small part to her efforts, SCO’s copyright claims against Linux were rendered moot, and SCO’s very claim to own Unix ended up being dismissed.
