The only concern is: if there is to strong a connection / correlation between the Dean campaign and this non profit service then the campaign is liable.__________________________________________
I suggest a memo of understanding with the Dean campaign that the campaign is our first beta tester. We should quickly add other campaigns as testers, especially congressional candidates. (We should especially support Ms. Gerry Mander, who's anxious to help Texas Democratic Congresspeople....;-)
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On Tuesday, July 22, 2003, at 12:54 PM, Joshua Koenig wrote:
Offering non-partisan "Digital Town Hall" hosting is the only way to go about it. If we offer the same class/quality of hosting service to all candidates of all parties, then it's all good.
Having started *many* businesses, I'd be careful of setting up as a for-profit (employees) ASP. Let's just develop the code and then let anyone, some of us and others operate a Blogspot or Red Hat kind of service. We need to focus tightly on code and not get distracted by hosting, which is a separate issue. The main reason to offer the code openly is to not distract ourselves with FEC concerns.
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We need a lawyer to look at this, but I see no substantial difference between what we would offer here and what blogspot does. We would also need any domain suffixes (e.g. *.fordean.net or *.fordean.com) to be handled through a third party.
I'm sure Professor Lessig, the Berkman people or EFF can connect us with the right legal resources.
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On Tuesday, July 22, 2003, at 03:36 PM, zachary rosen wrote:
The node concept is just fine. The only thing that is stalled is the so called "turnkey node hosting service" for the Dean campaign which looks to
be nixxed due to FEC rules.
If we offer the service to all comers at a nominal expense to donors who believe strongly in this project, we shouldn't have to worry about FEC rules. And it probably saves more trouble than the hassle of trying to turn hosting into a business.
Please tell me if I'm missing something here.
thanks.
