Hi Eric, I'm very glad to see that you and others in the darcs community have been reviewing the agreement closely. Please see my responses below.
Eric Kow wrote: >> Paragraph 7 - Outstanding Liabilities > 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. Because the Conservancy doesn't have the resources to conduct an audit of the darcs code base to determine whether or not there are any liabilities with respect to the copyrights, we ask member projects to take on responsibility for this prior to joining. It sounds like you may not have any special concerns, but would you like to have a phone call to discuss this in detail and to see if maybe there is some way we can help? >> Paragraph 8 - Termination >> 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)? If no successor is initially found and the 60 days lapses, there is an additional automatic 60 day period to find another (in Section 8b). If still no successor is found (or established) darcs and the Conservancy can agree on additional periods. In other words, once you decide to terminate your relationship with the Conservancy, you have four months to find a successor or form your own, with the option of discussing additional periods with the Conservancy. Since no member project has yet to decide to leave the Conservancy, I can't tell you how this has worked out in the past. Do you have any particular worries about this? Karen _______________________________________________ darcs-users mailing list [email protected] http://lists.osuosl.org/mailman/listinfo/darcs-users
