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On Fri, Jan 6, 2017 at 12:37 PM, William L. Thomson Jr. <wlt-ml@××××××.com> |
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wrote: |
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> On Friday, January 6, 2017 9:26:50 AM EST Alec Warner wrote: |
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> > |
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> > I don't wish to speculate on the legalities for each person, so to |
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> simplify |
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> > I equate "One cannot legally join the foundation" and "One does not want |
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> to |
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> > join a US based foundation." I think nominally I want to avoid the |
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> > hypothetical case. So either we have people who are unable to join a US |
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> > based foundation (either out of legal risk, or personal preference). How |
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> do |
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> > we support this use case? |
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> |
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> I do not think there is any difference between being a member or a |
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> developer. |
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> If you cannot legally be a member, you likely cannot legally be a |
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> developer. I |
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> can see US courts being more concerned with committers than members. |
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> Members |
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> can only can vote, maybe sue the foundation though any individual could as |
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> well. Committers can do far worse, malicious commit, etc. |
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> |
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Like I said, I wanted to avoid legal speculation. So lets assume a person |
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can legally be a member of the US foundation, but for undisclosed reasons |
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that person chooses not to do so. |
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Should that person still be able to be a developer? |
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Will gentoo still accept contributions from that person? |
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This is my reading of the point Andreas is trying to raise. I suspect it is |
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solvable as you mention, by letting developers opt-out of being legally a |
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part of the Foundation (as is the case today.) The concern of course is |
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that if too many developers opt out we end up with a similar problem that |
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we have today (not enough foundation members.) |
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The benefit of a merged structure is that only voting developers vote for |
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the merged board; so if one was to abstain from being a foundation member |
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they could also lose the benefit of voting for the board (so they can't |
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choose council members for example.) This is a loss of influence compared |
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to the current system but could provide some incentive for developers to |
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retain nominal involvement outside of being a simple committer. |
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-A |
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> A simple opt out of foundation membership should suffice in both cases. |
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> Auto |
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> add, but allow for exclusion. Maybe a form saying they know they are |
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> waiving |
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> their right to vote for choice. I am not sure the not legally able to be a |
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> member is really an issues as it would more pertain to developers and |
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> staff. |
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> |
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> -- |
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> William L. Thomson Jr. |
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> |
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