Hi Benjamin, You raise an interesting point.
Back when I was freelancing as an audio engineer I used to pay for this kind of cover myself and it costed around £130 a year for an individual. The work I do for my charity (Scottish based) is covered by the charity as are our disclosures (for working with vulnerable people in the UK a disclosure of any criminal convictions is required by law here). I think it's fair to assume volunteers can't really afford to pay individual liability cover for volunteer work and perhaps that they should not be asked to pay for it either since they are making valuable regular contributions. Perhaps projects (including GNOME) involved in OPW (or generally, for that matter) should be asked consider covering all their card carrying members with liability cover to protect their members as they carry out volunteer work? Magdalen On Mon, Nov 3, 2014 at 9:46 PM, Benjamin Berg <benja...@sipsolutions.net> wrote: > Hi, > > On Sa, 2014-09-27 at 11:45 -0400, Marina Zhurakhinskaya wrote: > > Yes. The legal liability is only for gross negligence, recklessness or > > intentional wrongdoing. This is covered on > > https://wiki.gnome.org/OutreachProgramForWomen#Contracts > > OK, I am very late to the thread, but I did read trough the contracts > and I do have some concerns. > > As I understand it, the whole point is to protect all parties involved > from lawsuits. However, the contract seems to be biased a lot toward > GNOME, and I am not sure it protects the mentors properly. It also seems > that there may be liabilities attached to being a mentor, and I do think > that the foundation should protect everyone involved (i.e. trough > insurance policy and if necessary using the contracts). > > Some notes about what I would expect and how I read the current > contracts: > * If someone starts a civil lawsuit against me, I do want my local > jurisdiction to apply. I have no way of properly defending > myself if a US court is responsible. I do understand that the > foundation does not want to be sued outside the country it is > based, but the same is true for everyone involved. > * Many mentors may not have their own insurance which protects > them in the case of negligence. I would hope that the foundation > ensures that everyone is protected (personally I do have an > insurance that should cover it). > * Does one even need a written contract for gross negligence? I > have little clue about laws (even less so about US laws), but I > would have thought it pretty much impossible to sue the > foundation directly. (I guess Bradley answered this by saying > that it is required as otherwise *both* GNOME and the mentor > might be liable.) > * Reading the contract I have the feeling that I would be fully > liable as a mentor. And I even explicitly state in the contract > that I have to answer in a timely manner. So right now the > contract does look to me like it is primarily designed to > protect the foundation (which is good), but to me it seems like > it may not properly protect the other parties involved. (i.e. > for mentors “Mentoring Activities” says I have to get work done; > then “Relationship of Parties” says that I am not an agent of > the foundation and in “Limitation of Liability” “GNOME, its > officers, directors, employees, or suppliers” are deemed not to > be liable. It does sound to me like this does not restrict the > liability of the mentor in any way. > > As an example corner case. A student does not finish the internship > successfully and claims it is the mentors fault (because they did not > answer in a timely manner, or similar). Can the student sue the mentor > or the foundation for damages (i.e. the stipend, or even a much larger > amount)? > > I am aware that the whole point of the contract is to ensure that the > risk of a civil lawsuit is minimized for everyone involved. However, > right now I would be very reluctant to sign this contract without some > further explanations. > > Benjamin > > _______________________________________________ > desktop-devel-list mailing list > desktop-devel-l...@gnome.org > https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list >
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