On Fri, Jan 6, 2017 at 12:37 PM, Raymond Jennings <shentino@gmail.com> wrote:
> Do what international companies do.
>
> Foreign subsidiaries or partnerships!
>
> I mean, if it becomes necessary can't there just be foundations incorporated
> under foreign laws, but still share the Gentoo mission?
>
> If someone cannot legally interact with the US foundation, but maybe they
> could with a foundation incorporated in their country?
>
> And then the various foundations just keep each other informed and stuff?

It depends on how this is legally structured, but I'm not convinced
that this actually does anything than make everybody subject to
everybody else's laws.

Certainly if the foreign organizations are subsidiaries of the US
organization they would be effectively subject to US law in addition
to their local laws.

If the NSA wants access to Google UK's servers they don't send a
letter to Google UK, they send a letter to the US corporation.  If
France wants something removed from Google they don't send a letter to
the US Google, they send a letter to Google France.  Either way if
Google doesn't comply they end up losing a lot of money.

You can draw up all the fancy org structures on paper that you want
to, but in the end if you exist in a country the country will expect
you to comply.  Even if you don't exist in a country they can take
steps to make anything you do in that country difficult.  No matter
how you intend it to work, governments are going to tend to look at
commits to a Gentoo repo as being works done on behalf of the legal
entity in that particular country.

When international companies for subsidiaries it isn't for the purpose
of avoiding compliance with laws that their parent company is subject
to.  Sometimes there can be creative ways to avoid taxes (not an issue
for us), but for the most part it is about facilitating operations
within particular countries, like hiring employees, or owning
property, or importing/exporting, or obtaining regulatory
approvals/etc.

Really the only way to avoid US law is to have no legal presence or
property in the US.  It should also be noted that the few areas where
US law might make it difficult for somebody to contribute probably
also are concerns in a lot of countries.

--
Rich