From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from lists.gentoo.org (pigeon.gentoo.org [208.92.234.80]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by finch.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 21980139085 for ; Wed, 11 Jan 2017 14:07:53 +0000 (UTC) Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 5B3C9234022; Wed, 11 Jan 2017 14:07:47 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mail-qk0-x241.google.com (mail-qk0-x241.google.com [IPv6:2607:f8b0:400d:c09::241]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 21DD1234015 for ; Wed, 11 Jan 2017 14:07:47 +0000 (UTC) Received: by mail-qk0-x241.google.com with SMTP id a20so28399889qkc.3 for ; Wed, 11 Jan 2017 06:07:47 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20161025; h=mime-version:sender:in-reply-to:references:from:date:message-id :subject:to; bh=3Sed7p+Wcu83F9BcX/UAOOY3mx1t/ftz/upF1CopgRU=; b=LumLJrJ8MBf0065qIJBigTEn50WwkBOyZtR9iUovF19F7481JZ4JDp7ljv64gA9mXd ThU5xoGpmjh9UgbtTuDe0vmERqL4//8iyAHIUCWwjgqLFJ5itjeCas2jIFxq/AxWRjGA 80LmFomn9ib2a52N/HDzNiCu3T2GNpWpftsOBnUfANXmVPwhJAgcXqm45Xr0oLAOJQj7 OGqZUPmxtp5T3jvdC8Hr9QJxuIKDLa9OcQRfZUpI2bW/f3uYhQH/qIlGyVJZmX88FKxw Y7gDbzQTJxolQSPEwrFfD7Ovf9cprvd/1q6j6EPePrVqvcorzO3ZoQrW+XDEl6mAgemV AVaA== X-Google-DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=1e100.net; s=20161025; h=x-gm-message-state:mime-version:sender:in-reply-to:references:from :date:message-id:subject:to; bh=3Sed7p+Wcu83F9BcX/UAOOY3mx1t/ftz/upF1CopgRU=; b=aNz1lSkobmVlUBC5Pr5pzSGMki3JYUjNLpwyYJdp9T1BAcSEhgqH++aO2V0AV0WQBg BQTavH+g4xSv0wEky6mPU3N7/uj7dV7ar3fpMO/DzFH2IsWSIFW8YV8qCNnJgou2AgQR mswoJnO/K0Q1dA3Onj8349C/14QlO9HuNJzEU0otVsUbboNy6H4icOqouEgnui42P4h6 w0QN/sWnJoKjpfeA3wLpgZ8MJlEeQLUrB59IBaxgnCuFXvgE4iBF7JUIge6e5ZLSLrCF kIbgdDx8syrqn2DDwPFOdEjw+2yua/6RaH6RErOzSdMN+EH2l/CsCxXn0i4/RpUcYCmg v6Vw== X-Gm-Message-State: AIkVDXJbVxEeqS8ITu0soEjmrCoCGmoXp47tDT2pXX0agIxBwwoyoHWUP/g51veEqdR+FiCwuVC+OQp+neRDaQ== X-Received: by 10.55.25.153 with SMTP id 25mr8689250qkz.132.1484143666117; Wed, 11 Jan 2017 06:07:46 -0800 (PST) Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Project discussion list X-BeenThere: gentoo-project@lists.gentoo.org Reply-To: gentoo-project@lists.gentoo.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Sender: freemanrich@gmail.com Received: by 10.140.16.132 with HTTP; Wed, 11 Jan 2017 06:07:45 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: <87r349iy3d.fsf@kestrel.kyomu.43-1.org> References: <35d4687b-4cbd-cf79-254c-c7476c06bb3a@gentoo.org> <22645.58328.521107.564927@a1i15.kph.uni-mainz.de> <1d601c44-e136-382d-54f4-27d3437dfcc5@gentoo.org> <87r349iy3d.fsf@kestrel.kyomu.43-1.org> From: Rich Freeman Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2017 09:07:45 -0500 X-Google-Sender-Auth: A-sdC83x6-ezLe-7yny1qQVpDyM Message-ID: Subject: Re: [gentoo-project] Merging Trustees and Council / Developers and Foundation - 1.0 reply To: gentoo-project@lists.gentoo.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 X-Archives-Salt: bbb99c09-2a56-4200-9ec2-fd7a95a349f7 X-Archives-Hash: 45c26f364d710a76f9b905f5ac96b9fa On Wed, Jan 11, 2017 at 7:24 AM, Matthias Maier wrote: > > On Wed, Jan 11, 2017, at 04:59 CST, Matthew Thode wrote: > >> I think I'm leaning towards >> the 'board' being what is currently trustees + hr(comrel) + pr + infra. >> Under that would go what is currently being done by council. > > I am a bit astonished by the sudden proposal to centralize more power > under the Gentoo Foundation, A US based non-profit. As was laid out by > ulm and dilfridge, there are a number of severe legal uncertainties for > non-US citizens participating in such a construct and frankly speaking I > do not see the need for it. On the contrary. > > - It is my firm believe that it is *vital* for an open source project > that essentially consists of volunteers from around the world to be > organized as a community and not as a legal entity under some > jurisdiction. > I do think that having some kind of legal presence in the US is a necessary evil [1]. However, I think we need to decide as a community whether: 1. We're mainly a bunch of people working on a linux distro that happens to need some kind of legal side to it to pay the bills of running servers and holding IP so that somebody doesn't try to take them away from us. or 2. We're mainly a non-profit Foundation that happens to produce a linux distro. Don't get me wrong, there are lots of things a legal organization could do besides the bare minimums, as William has pointed out. However, we've struggled to just keep the lights on legally and some argue that we aren't even doing that. Having an umbrella organization is a way to keep the focus on #1, while still having most of the benefits of #2. IMO it would also let people who are interested in that side of things focus more on higher-value stuff like organizing conferences and PR and such, and less on whether our 990s have been filed and balancing the books. Also, when a legal question does come up instead of endless armchair lawyering on the lists we could just have the umbrella org refer to their staff counsel, and most of the time the legal issues would be already taken care of in boilerplate policies they provide. Rich ----------------- 1 - On why having some kind of legal presence is a necessary evil: Necessary: a. The US tends to enforce IP law extra-territorially. That means that if somebody ELSE managed to get control over the trademarks/copyrights in the US, they could probably use it fairly effectively against us even if we had no US physical presence. The fact that we're not doing a whole lot with the IP doesn't mean that somebody else couldn't. b. The flip side of this is that holding IP in the US also allows us to have a bit of a hammer if somebody is misrepresenting themselves as us and damaging our reputation. It is a useful option to have even if most of us would prefer that we seldom use it. Evil: a. Having any kind of legal existence involves overhead, and the sorts of effort that most Gentoo volunteers are ill-equipped to do, or may not desire to do. While an umbrella org involves a lot less overhead it still will involve some. b. Having any kind of legal existence, especially in the US, subjects us to legal controls that limit our freedom of action. We had somebody who wanted to be a dev from Iran years ago and this created all kinds of headaches. Everybody wanted to find some kind of way to make them a dev but nobody could really find a way to make it low-risk. Whether that was because we were incompetent or because it simply was impossible the fact is that if we didn't have a legal existence with assets we wouldn't have even had to deliberate the matter. Fortunately embargoes are trending down at the moment, and crypto is no longer the issue it used to be, but problems like this will always exist. -- Rich