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

[Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org>]

On Mon, Jan 16, 2017 at 1:43 PM, Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com> wrote:
> Rich Freeman wrote:
>> I don't claim that SPI does anything other than manage money or assets.
>>
>
> Based on your posts, you are.

Perhaps my posts were not correctly worded then.  I do not intend to
claim that SPI does anything other than hold money and assets, and
utilize them as we direct.

> 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.

There wouldn't be any Gentoo officers, since Gentoo would not be a
legal entity.

Now, Gentoo developers can certainly be sued, and so can you, and so
can everybody else on planet earth.

So, don't do anything illegal.  :)

The risks are pretty low though if all you're doing is donating code.
What possible cause of action could somebody have against you for
writing code?

>> 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.

Gentoo would have developers, and that is it.  However, legally a
Gentoo developer doesn't have any meaning.  We're just individuals who
donate our time to the project.  Sure, I can be sued as a Gentoo
developer.  However, that isn't "Gentoo" being sued, that is "Rich
Freeman" being sued.  Maybe Gentoo might help me out with my legal
bills, and maybe not, but Gentoo does not in general indemnify its
developers.  Since I'm an officer of the Foundation I would be
protected in that regard, for whatever such protection ends up being
worth.  Honestly, if somebody is concerned about getting sued they're
probably best off getting a personal insurance policy from a company
that issues such things and is in a position to make good on their
promises.

Nothing can be done to prevent anybody from suing anybody for anything
in the US.  You can't legally prevent lawsuits in the US.  All you can
do is make sure you're in a position to win them.

-- 
Rich