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Rich Freeman wrote: |
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> On Mon, Jan 16, 2017 at 1:46 PM, Dale <rdalek1967@×××××.com> wrote: |
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>> |
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>> That's my thinking as well. If SPI can't be sued, then Gentoo or the top |
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>> people still in and running Gentoo would be sued. |
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> Of course SPI can be sued. If I want to sue SPI all I need to do is |
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> go down to a courtroom and file some papers and pay a filing fee. |
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> That's what suing somebody is. Now, if I don't have a reasonable |
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> grounds for the lawsuit it might be quickly dismissed. |
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> |
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> Nobody could sue "Gentoo" under the SPI model because "Gentoo" would |
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> not be a legal entity. They could certainly sue the "top people" in |
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> it, as they can today. |
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So nothing changes then. |
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>> Let's say a dev did something that caused a lawsuit, say violated a |
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>> copyright or something of that nature. Why would SPI defend that when SPI |
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>> has no control over what the dev did? |
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> If SPI was named in the lawsuit they would defend themselves. If they |
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> weren't named in the lawsuit they wouldn't do anything. If the Gentoo |
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> project (that is, a loose association of Gentoo developers who have no |
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> legal existence) told SPI to pay their legal bills using Gentoo's |
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> money, then they probably would do so. |
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If SPI is named, they could file to be removed from the lawsuit which |
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would then leave Gentoo on the hook. Again, what changes? |
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>> The legal council they have seems to be used to keep SPI legal not |
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>> the groups underneath them. |
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> Certainly, but that is all that is needed. |
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Not hardly. Just because SPI has its legal affairs in order does not |
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mean the Gentoo people do. That would be when the lawsuit hits Gentoo |
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not SPI. |
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>> If a distro, whether it is Debian, Gentoo or |
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>> someone else, violates someone else or breaks the law, they would have to |
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>> defend themselves. |
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> Certainly, though "Debian" is not a legal entity, so it has no need to |
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> defend itself from a lawsuit, because you can't sue "Debian." Some |
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> individuals associated with Debian could be sued, and they would have |
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> to defend themselves from the lawsuit. However, they could only be |
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> sued for things they're personally responsible for. |
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> |
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> If somebody wanted to sue "Debian" they would probably sue SPI, |
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> because that is who is holding all of Debian's money. Presumably SPI |
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> operates in such a manner as to make it hard to get it. |
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> |
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But SPI does not control Debian and what it does. It doesn't control |
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its devs either. If one or more devs violate the law with or without it |
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being common knowledge with other devs, SPI is not on the hook for |
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that. Debian would be. The money would come from SPI but it would be |
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Debian's donations paying it either with a court order or Debian telling |
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SPI to do it. SPI wouldn't be sued because they had no control or say |
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over what the devs did. |
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I'm looking forward to seeing what Alec finds out about this. From what |
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I've read on the SPI website, I don't think this is anything like you |
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think it is. I think William has already been down this path and based |
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on what I've read, I think William is right. |
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Dale |
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:-) :-) |
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