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On Sat, Jul 13, 2019 at 3:59 PM Roy Bamford <neddyseagoon@g.o> wrote: |
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> |
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> This problem will not go away if we join an umbrella. |
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> |
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> Gentoo will still have to manage its own assets, defend its own |
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> trademarks and so on. |
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> |
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Certainly those assets will still exist, but they would be owned and |
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managed by the umbrella legally. If the distro wanted to tell |
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somebody to stop using our trademark we would somehow have to bring it |
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to the attention of the umbrella and ask them to do it, since legally |
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it would be THEIR trademark, not "ours" (since legally there is no |
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"ours/us"). |
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|
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I think the question you asked is still useful in the way that you |
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asked it, as it doesn't hurt to discuss how we might see the distro |
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interacting with the umbrella. Presumably somebody will be in the |
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position of interacting with the umbrella to tell them what to do on |
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our behalf, so we can talk about how we might see that working. |
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|
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I'm not sure if anybody has already talked to the various umbrellas |
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about how this typically works, but I'm not sure you could really have |
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any kind of contract with them. A contract requires two parties, and |
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even if the Foundation signs off as one of them if it dissolves it no |
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longer even exists to bring up a dispute. I imagine they probably |
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would probably document a "donation" of all the Foundation's assets to |
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the umbrella, and then anything going forward from there would just |
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operate under the umbrella's own bylaws and documented procedures. |
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The relationship between all of us and the umbrella legally would be |
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the same as the relationship between any random Gentoo team like the |
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amd64 arch team and the existing Foundation. That is, between a |
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non-legal-entity composed of random individuals with varying legal |
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relationships with the Foundation (they may or may not be members), |
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and a legal corporation that ultimately gets its own say as to whether |
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they go along with it. |
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I don't think legally you can really force any of these umbrellas to |
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do anything except to the degree that we get to put people on their |
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board or voting membership. You have to do your due diligence |
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beforehand and then trust them to continue operating the way you want |
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them to. It is no different when you sign code over to the FSF or |
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license it GPL v3+ - you have no guarantee that GPL v4 won't give |
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EvilCorp the right to do whatever they want with your code/etc, but |
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you have to just trust that the FSF is unlikely to ever do this. |
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(Arguably the FSFe FLA approach works better in that regard, and I |
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completely advocate it being used within Gentoo, but that is a |
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separate topic and IMO can be implemented whether the Foundation |
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remains or we use an umbrella.) |
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|
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That said, for any random Gentoo Foundation member the situation isn't |
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all that different. None of us has any more power legally over what |
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the Foundation does with our code/donations/whatever than the one vote |
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we get to cast annually for the Trustees, and some hypothetical powers |
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to override them that are unlikely to ever actually be used. To the |
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extent that we get to become members of the umbrella we would have the |
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same limited influence there. |
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This is already a long-ish post, but maybe I should point out that |
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there are other options available to us. For example, the Gentoo |
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Foundation could turn over all its MONEY to the umbrella org, but not |
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its copyrights or trademarks. It would still have to file taxes, but |
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if we have no financial transactions except maybe a trademark renewal |
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every ten years then that burden will be greatly reduced. Then if we |
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had to do some kind of legal action we could ask the umbrella to be |
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our representatives assuming they were willing. That is just a |
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thought, and the candidates can consider that as they outline their |
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own ideas... |
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-- |
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Rich |