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

[Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com>]

Rich Freeman wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 16, 2017 at 1:46 PM, Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> That's my thinking as well.  If SPI can't be sued, then Gentoo or the top
>> people still in and running Gentoo would be sued.
> Of course SPI can be sued.  If I want to sue SPI all I need to do is
> go down to a courtroom and file some papers and pay a filing fee.
> That's what suing somebody is.  Now, if I don't have a reasonable
> grounds for the lawsuit it might be quickly dismissed.
>
> Nobody could sue "Gentoo" under the SPI model because "Gentoo" would
> not be a legal entity.  They could certainly sue the "top people" in
> it, as they can today.

So nothing changes then. 

>> Let's say a dev did something that caused a lawsuit, say violated a
>> copyright or something of that nature.  Why would SPI defend that when SPI
>> has no control over what the dev did?
> If SPI was named in the lawsuit they would defend themselves.  If they
> weren't named in the lawsuit they wouldn't do anything.  If the Gentoo
> project (that is, a loose association of Gentoo developers who have no
> legal existence) told SPI to pay their legal bills using Gentoo's
> money, then they probably would do so.

If SPI is named, they could file to be removed from the lawsuit which
would then leave Gentoo on the hook.  Again, what changes? 

>> The legal council they have seems to be used to keep SPI legal not
>> the groups underneath them.
> Certainly, but that is all that is needed.

Not hardly.  Just because SPI has its legal affairs in order does not
mean the Gentoo people do.  That would be when the lawsuit hits Gentoo
not SPI. 

>> If a distro, whether it is Debian, Gentoo or
>> someone else, violates someone else or breaks the law, they would have to
>> defend themselves.
> Certainly, though "Debian" is not a legal entity, so it has no need to
> defend itself from a lawsuit, because you can't sue "Debian."  Some
> individuals associated with Debian could be sued, and they would have
> to defend themselves from the lawsuit.  However, they could only be
> sued for things they're personally responsible for.
>
> If somebody wanted to sue "Debian" they would probably sue SPI,
> because that is who is holding all of Debian's money.  Presumably SPI
> operates in such a manner as to make it hard to get it.
>

But SPI does not control Debian and what it does.  It doesn't control
its devs either.  If one or more devs violate the law with or without it
being common knowledge with other devs, SPI is not on the hook for
that.  Debian would be.  The money would come from SPI but it would be
Debian's donations paying it either with a court order or Debian telling
SPI to do it.  SPI wouldn't be sued because they had no control or say
over what the devs did. 

I'm looking forward to seeing what Alec finds out about this.  From what
I've read on the SPI website, I don't think this is anything like you
think it is.  I think William has already been down this path and based
on what I've read, I think William is right. 

Dale

:-)  :-)