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My personal opinion here is that *anything* to do with legal issues, such |
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as legal liability, no matter how theoretical, is something the trustees |
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should be involved in. |
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|
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Per my own dev quiz, the foundation's job is to worry about legal issues |
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(lawsuits, copyrights, etc) and financial issues (donations, server |
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hardware) so that the codemonkey developers don't have to. |
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|
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That is why I CCed the trustees when the logo stuff on third party sites |
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came up. I don't think there's any conspiracy to keep the trustees in the |
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dark, but I *do* perceive a lack of communication. |
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|
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Plus, america is *notorious* for being a sue-happy litigious society. Even |
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a completely baseless lawsuit against the foundation would probably cost |
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money to defend against. I'll have my side rant about the american legal |
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system later, but for the present topic at hand, I would very much like the |
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trustees to at least be monitoring the situation. |
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|
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On Sun, Nov 13, 2016 at 2:24 PM, Luca Barbato <lu_zero@g.o> wrote: |
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|
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> On 13/11/2016 20:26, Alec Warner wrote: |
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> > On Sun, Nov 13, 2016 at 4:33 AM, Luca Barbato <lu_zero@g.o> |
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> > wrote: |
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> > |
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> >> On 13/10/2016 01:30, Robin H. Johnson wrote: |
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> >>> TL;DR: move comrel, infra, PR to Foundation. Have strict(er) |
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> >>> application of policies to them in line with their powers. |
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> >> |
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> > |
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> >> The foundation was made only to collect and redistribute money. In |
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> >> order to do that it was made sort of copyright collector as well |
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> >> (but that was actively blocked by the fact the EU law prevents |
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> >> that). |
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> >> |
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> > |
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> > What I think is actually true is that there are some risks the |
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> > current board sees, and they (we?, I am on the board after all) see |
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> > one way to reduce the risk is by this joining. I think we should also |
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> > be open to evaluating the risks and seeking other avenues to mitigate |
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> > them. |
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> > |
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> > I think, speaking in general terms, one risk is the following. |
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> > |
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> > 1) When a community member feels harmed by the community, they can |
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> > file a suit. They can sue individuals, or they can sue the |
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> > Foundation. They cannot sue "Comrel" for example, because Comrel is |
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> > not an entity. They can sue the individuals that compose comrel, or |
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> > they can sue the Foundation. |
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> |
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> One step back, if somebody with the Gentoo hat on (or off) does |
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> something horrible or creepy or in any way against our social contract |
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> or the code of conduct, we, as Gentoo, provide a point to complain so |
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> that the name of Gentoo is not tarnished by such actions. |
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> |
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> That point of complaint is currently Comrel. |
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> Comrel has to evaluate the situation at the best of the team's |
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> possibilities and in that specific case ask infra and the groups |
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> managing the communication channels to prevent that person to keep doing |
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> what's doing. |
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> That's not the primary activity of the team, but we had to manage that |
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> as well. |
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> |
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> If somebody feels wronged by Comrel proceedings there is the Council to |
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> appeal. |
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> |
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> After the Council the person feeling wronged can try to sue the person |
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> he thinks that wronged him assuming there is any legal leg to stand. |
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> |
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> The foundation is nowhere there as long: |
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> - the issue isn't about copyright, assuming the copyright had been |
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> misrelinquished to the foundation. |
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> - the issue is not mismanagement of money. |
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> - the issue is not cause by hardware owned by the foundation. |
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> |
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> The foundation does not hire anybody in Gentoo, the foundation has no |
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> liability for what people does as long it does not involves the 3 points |
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> above. |
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> |
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> > 2) If they sue the Foundation, we are worried that a 100% hands-off |
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> > solution is going to be an effective defense. In the current scheme, |
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> > the Foundation has no real control over the operation of Comrel. I |
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> > think there is a lack of confidence that this defense is sufficient |
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> > to dismiss a suit though. |
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> |
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> They cannot sue the foundation, the foundation does not have any link to |
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> the people, beside maybe providing hardware to few developers that |
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> needed it. |
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> |
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> > So we discard that defense. What other defenses can we offer? |
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> > |
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> > 1) We can move Comrel under the Foundation. That way we have |
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> > influence over their activities. We can create policies that provide |
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> > better legal defenses (like the Code of Conduct for instance) but |
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> > also many of the transparency policies you see on other threads. |
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> |
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> You do not have the problem until you start hiring people. |
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> |
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> > I think speaking more generally, you could replace "Comrel" with any |
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> > Gentoo project. At the end of the day the Foundation holds all the |
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> > assets and pays all the bills. How do we mitigate the Foundation's |
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> > liability for the actions of volunteers in the project? |
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> |
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> The foundation is not liable for any volunteers actions, bar the 3 cases |
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> I mentioned. |
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> |
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> lu |
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> |
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> |