Re: [gentoo-project] Social Contract clean-up

[Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org>]

On Wed, Mar 28, 2018 at 12:44 PM, Daniel Robbins <drobbins@funtoo.org> wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 28, 2018 at 10:41 AM, Rich Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org> wrote:
>>
>> On Wed, Mar 28, 2018 at 11:38 AM, Daniel Robbins <drobbins@funtoo.org>
>> wrote:
>> >
>> > Sure, the Trustees have no authority over these volunteers -- as long as
>> > they are not operating under the Gentoo name, Gentoo infrastructure,
>> > Gentoo
>> > repos, not using the Gentoo logo, Gentoo domains, etc. They are totally
>> > free
>> > to leave the project which is run by the Trustees, and then the trustees
>> > have no authority over them. But as long as they are on a project called
>> > "Gentoo Linux", the trustees have the authority to remove assholes from
>> > the
>> > project if they so desire.
>> >
>>
>> I'm sorry, was this supposed to represent the pro-openness side of the
>> debate?
>
>
> I have no agenda here other than to enlighten those who don't really
> understand the concept of Trustees. I am not part of any debate regarding
> mailing lists, etc.
>

Honestly, I think this is largely moot in practice because when it
comes to passing actual resolutions I haven't really seen either the
Council or Trustees going into open conflict, and I think this is
unlikely.  Sure, there is the strong opinion here or there, but most
involved are fairly reasonable when they put their voting hats on.

In any case, it is a situation I'd love to see resolved in the
long-term precisely because of the possibility of the sorts of
conflict you are bringing up here.  A court would almost certainly see
it the way you're arguing, but with an all-volunteer effort dealing
with FOSS there are a lot of practical limits on what a court can do.
In the US at least justice costs money.  And a court isn't really
going to do much more than bless trademark takedowns of websites
should those even be sought, since the most important assets the
Foundation owns (copyrights) are already open to a large degree with
our FOSS licensing.

IMO we really should embrace this as much as possible and take
advantage of this, by trying to minimize the stuff we do in-house
under the "Gentoo" umbrella and thus minimize our expenses and the
legal compliance issues that go along with them.

-- 
Rich