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On Fri, Nov 29, 2013, Roy Bamford wrote: |
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> On 2013.11.22 09:38, Ulrich Mueller wrote: |
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> > > On Thu, 21 Nov 2013, Roy Bamford wrote: |
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> > |
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> > > ... or maybe a sub committee of the Gentoo Foundation Inc? |
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> > > because of the non technical and legal implications of the work. |
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> > > Trustees get involved with licence corner cases anyway, so a team |
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> > > of advisors would be a good fit. |
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> > |
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> > I'd rather avoid the term "advisors", because we're no lawyers and |
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> > therefore cannot give any legal advice. |
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> |
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> Accepted. Licenses already uses the trustees when legal advice is |
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> required. |
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|
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> > It it clear that in some cases the licenses team will escalate issues |
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> > to the trustees and not to the council. |
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|
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I'm not sure why anything would ever need to go to Council, which is the |
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technical committee. If something is a license violation, I can see the |
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legal committee wanting it implemented, but that does not require Council |
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approval, nor should it: it should just go via QA, who are answerable to |
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Council in terms of how they implement (ie how it works technically.) |
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|
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The substantive point (of license compliance and legal consequents) can |
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never be appealed to Council, since it is completely outside their |
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purview. For Council to rule on any such issues would be ultra vires, in |
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UK terms. |
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|
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Please do not mistake this with any sort of turf war: the Trustees are |
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here to serve the developer community, and work with Council rather than |
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compete in any sense of the word. That does not mean that Council are |
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on the line for any of the Trustees' responsibilities: that's the whole |
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point of the Foundation setup; to keep developers happy, by keeping the |
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non-development work out of their hair. |
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|
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> Nevertheless, I see a project |
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> > (TLP or sub-project) as a good enough fit. So no need to invent new |
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> > structures for us. The main goal of having a project page is to |
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> > increase our visibility and to have a convenient starting point for |
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> > organising our information in the wiki. |
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> |
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> The Foundation bylaws already allow for committees, none have been |
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> created yet but it would not be inventing a new structure. |
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> |
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> None of this has anything to do with Licenses having a project page |
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> or not. |
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|
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You're absolutely right that such a project would have to come under |
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the purview of Trustees, via a committee if that is the statutory |
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method. It would make little difference to the day-to-day operation, |
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but there is clearly no mandate for Council to oversee it, and the |
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Trustees are the ones who both have jurisdiction, and would be on |
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the line for any legal problems Gentoo might ever face. |
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|
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I don't think most developers are interested in the details, just the |
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results: it's not a technical issue at all. Although it does require |
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knowledge of software, legal nous is much more important. Of course |
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there are many similarities, but that doesn't mean it's a technical |
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issue in the software development sense, by any means. |
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|
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-- |
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#friendly-coders -- We're friendly, but we're not /that/ friendly ;-) |