Re: [gentoo-project] Formally have Council oversee the Foundation 2.0

[Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com>]

Rich Freeman wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 16, 2017 at 1:13 PM, Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Rich Freeman wrote:
>>> On Mon, Jan 16, 2017 at 12:35 PM, William L. Thomson Jr.
>>> <wlt-ml@o-sinc.com> wrote:
>>>> On Monday, January 16, 2017 11:56:43 AM EST Rich Freeman wrote:
>>>>> And nobody really has a choice about whether they'll handle lawsuits.
>>>>> If you own property, then you better have a plan for handling
>>>>> lawsuits.  I suspect that SPI has thought this through a bit more than
>>>>> we have historically.
>>>> The SPI is not a legal management entity. You are confusing fiscal with legal.
>>>>
>>> Again, I think you're thinking I'm saying I'm not.
>>>
>>> I'm not saying that the Gentoo Foundation should retain the legal
>>> services of SPI.  I'm saying that they should turn over their property
>>> to SPI and cease to exist.  At that point we don't need legal
>>> services, because we legally don't exist.
>>
>> I have been looking at the SPI website, other than managing money and
>> controlling assets, SPI does not appear to do anything else management
>> wise.  Do you have a link to the SPI website that says it does what you
>> claim?
> I don't claim that SPI does anything other than manage money or assets.
>

Based on your posts, you are.  SPI may handle the assets, the financial
paperwork and such but that does not mean that if a Gentoo dev, officers
or anyone else on the behalf of or within Gentoo violates the law that
Gentoo can't be sued.  It would only mean that they would drop down one
level and sue that. 

So no links to support what you are saying???


>>>>> In any case, the point is that if Gentoo moves under SPI then there
>>>>> would be no "Gentoo" to sue.  "Gentoo" would be a trademark of SPI.
>>>>> Any copyrights on our works that are held centrally would belong to
>>>>> SPI.  Our money would be stored in SPI bank accounts.  So, if you want
>>>>> our stuff, you have to sue SPI.
>>>> Completely WRONG!
>>>>
>>>> "Project Independence
>>>> SPI does not own, govern or control the associated projects."
>>>> http://www.spi-inc.org/projects/relationship/
>>> They wouldn't own the project.  They would own our assets.  They
>>> wouldn't control anything.
>>>
>> They would own the assets but I have found nothing that says Gentoo
>> can't be sued still or that SPI would provide a defense for Gentoo.  The
>> only case I can think of, if the IRS comes after Gentoo and SPI is
>> handling the money and paperwork.  Then SPI would step in.
>>
> How would somebody sue "Gentoo" when Gentoo is just a trademark of
> SPI?  There would be no legal entity called Gentoo to sue.  That's the
> whole point.  If somebody wants to sue SPI then that becomes SPI's
> problem, though obviously as a project we would cooperate with them to
> minimize this risk.
>

So, you are saying that Gentoo would no longer have any officers,
trustees, board members, devs or anything else of that nature?  As long
as Gentoo has any of that, it can be sued.  I'm not a lawyer either but
browsing around on the SPI website, I see nothing that supports your
claim that Gentoo can't be sued. 

Dale

:-)  :-)