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On Thu, Jan 5, 2017 at 8:34 PM, M. J. Everitt <m.j.everitt@×××.org> wrote: |
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> Out of interest, what proportion of the current 'staff'/developer list |
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> is actually US-resident? Would it better serve the distro, since most of |
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> the devs *I* know are domiciled in Europe, for instance .. to be |
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> elsewhere? Particularly if the US as a country is becoming more hostile |
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> to other countries?! |
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> |
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Certainly we have more outside the US than inside, and there is more |
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European concentration. |
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However, I'd stop and consider what the purpose of the Foundation is: |
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1. Pay bills (which I think could be done no matter where we're based). |
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2. Hold our trademarks and copyrights. |
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For the latter there is a HUGE advantage to being in the US, because |
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the US has a very long reach when it comes to enforcement. Whether |
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you consider that a good thing or a bad thing, it works in our favor |
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to have US copyrights and trademarks. Copyleft is only as good as |
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your copyright enforcement. In a perfect world perhaps there might |
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not be copyright (depending on your views), but copyleft turns this on |
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its head, and ironically makes stronger copyright laws work to make |
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copyleft even stronger. |
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So, if somebody abuses our Trademarks we can threaten to have them |
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excluded from virtually every social media site and search engine on |
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the planet, and of course the US works hard to export its IP laws to |
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the rest of the world. |
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Again, this isn't meant to suggest that US policy is a good thing |
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overall for everybody. I'm just saying that it works out in our favor |
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in this case. If we're going to bother to have trademarks then we |
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might as well retain the ability to enforce them. |
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All that said, there is no reason the bills couldn't be paid from |
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another organization. One of the benefits of a consolidated |
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leadership is that I think it would make it easier to have different |
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legal entities operated almost like sub-projects, or a relationship |
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with an umbrella organization like SPI. I'm not really advocating |
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making changes like that right now. |
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-- |
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Rich |
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