Gentoo Archives: gentoo-project

From: Rich Freeman <rich0@g.o>
To: gentoo-project <gentoo-project@l.g.o>
Subject: Re: [gentoo-project] pre-GLEP: Gentoo Developer status
Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2018 01:23:37
Message-Id: CAGfcS_nwFTQiztn40mV9LbkCT-wUfnCTXp5wiAq4BjnCsJEHfg@mail.gmail.com
In Reply to: Re: [gentoo-project] pre-GLEP: Gentoo Developer status by Raymond Jennings
1 On Fri, Apr 13, 2018 at 9:05 PM, Raymond Jennings <shentino@×××××.com> wrote:
2 >
3 > If there are any legal risks then maybe new developers should be
4 > agreeing to not sue the foundation.
5 >
6
7 Two issues with that:
8
9 1. Comrel doesn't exclusively deal with developers. That said,
10 unless our media is whitelisted there might not be much we can do
11 about non-devs unless they're cooperative.
12 1a. A possible way to mitigate this is to make step 1 of any Comrel
13 interaction with a non-dev to ask them if they're willing to agree to
14 not sue. If they aren't then they are automatically booted with no
15 further interaction. I'm not sure this really makes anybody happier
16 but it would be a way to reconcile this issue.
17 2. In the US at least you can't really agree to not sue somebody
18 unconditionally. You can sign something that says that you do, but it
19 isn't likely to be upheld by a court. You can give up your right to
20 sue in specific ways, but courts will generally only accept this to
21 the extent that the deal is seen as fair/etc.
22
23 Most organizations that require their members/employees/etc to sign
24 such agreements STILL keep such proceedings private for this reason.
25 That, and out of an interest in not turning every single HR issue into
26 a circus. Keep in mind that Comrel's goal in interacting with
27 somebody should be primarily to help them to get along with everybody,
28 not just to kick them out, and IMO keeping things private makes it
29 easier to re-integrate.
30
31 I'm not saying that asking Foundation members not to sue isn't a bad
32 idea, but I don't know that it would accomplish much. I doubt that it
33 would protect the Foundation against accusations of slander, or
34 against shareholder lawsuits, and those are probably the two biggest
35 areas of risk where suits from members are concerned.
36
37 --
38 Rich