Re: [gentoo-project] Questions for Gentoo Council nominees: Council demands on maintainers & council legal liability

[Kristian Fiskerstrand <k_f@gentoo.org>]

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On 7/4/19 4:14 AM, Robin H. Johnson wrote:
> I realize that there is only a short period left in the election, but
> I've been busy with IRL issues, and mgorny's trustee manifesto [1] ascribed
> something to the Council members that concerned me; there's one
> additional good question for the Council that I'll close with.
> 
> 1. Points 1a&1c of mgorny's manifesto imply that the council can
>    unilaterally prevent support of any given package in Gentoo, and
>    basically remove the package from the distribution.
> 
>    This is despite any developers that may wish to support the package.
> 
>    What's your opinion of the council using this offensively against
>    packages? As a hypothetical, say systemd-ng comes about, with an even
>    worse opinionated choices than those presently in systemd. Should the
>    council be able to force support for openrc & systemd stop?

Its definitely within the purview of the council to do it, but in most
cases Gentoo is about flexibility so you don't want to. There are
scenarios where you would have to consider it, though, e.g large impacts
on others work (project out of scope), security issues , etc
> 
> 2. As an additional point, can you try to give your version of a simple
>    statement on the legal liabilities that the Council as a whole, and
>    the Council members as individuals, have for their actions?
> 

Council is no legal entity, so there is no as a whole, the individual
legal liability is somewhat limited as there is no fiduciary duty etc
arising due to this; which means no negligence claims etc.. So basically
you're left with whatever else you can be sued for as an individual, but
you're in a more profiled position so it is possibly more likely that
you will face it by some angry internet people...


-- 
Kristian Fiskerstrand
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