Hi Karen and Bradley, There have been a couple of questions about this agreement from the #darcs IRC channel and on the mailing list. I thought I would compile some of the thoughts so far and forward them to you.
> Paragraph 7 - Outstanding Liabilities > > In this section, darcs confirms that it has told the Conservancy about > any liabilities that might be outstanding prior to joining the > Conservancy. This gives the Conservancy some assurance that its due > diligence process has been complete and that the Conservancy's board > received all of the information it needed to properly evaluate the project. > Liabilities include, for example, financial obligations, such as any debts > or outstanding bills, or any legal claims that could be outstanding against > darcs. A couple of people in our community (Christian and Gwern) are concerned about this parapgraph, because (as is the case for other FOSS programs) we can't be completely sure we aren't violating anybody's intellectual property. For what it's worth we have no financial obligiations, debts or outstanding bills (of which I am aware), nor do we have any special reason to think that we might be violating anybody's IP. > Paragraph 8 - Termination > > Projects can leave the Conservancy at will. This section sets out the > mechanisms for termination to make sure that when a project leaves the > Conservancy it does so without jeopardizing the tax exempt status of the > Conservancy (and, consequently, the status of all of the other projects in > the Conservancy). > > There is a 60 day notice requirement so that a new tax exempt > non-profit can be found for darcs to join. If there isn't another > fiscal sponsor or other tax exempt non-profit to take over darcs, > darcs can incorporate as a separate entity and apply for tax exemption > recognition. If there is no separate entity -- for example if a project > loses momentum and has been abandoned by its developers -- the Conservancy > must be left with the assets for use by the Conservancy for other > FOSS-related charitable work. Christian also feels that complying with this in practice would be impossible. As we understand it, our options are to (a) find a Succesor to the SFC (b) create our own non-profit or (c) transfer our assets/liabilities to the SFC. Could you give us a better idea on how this works in practice (I don't forsee us leaving the Conservancy, but it's useful to know anyway)? Many thanks, -- Eric Kow <http://www.nltg.brighton.ac.uk/home/Eric.Kow> PGP Key ID: 08AC04F9
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