Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Re: Liability protection project - call for participants
Thanks for bringing this to our attention, it's a topic that has renewed relevance. From the sound of it, OSGeo itself has too many eggs in its basket to risk having them broken by providing a shield. But that ought not stop geo-foss developers from either joining up with Bruce's idea or from setting up a geo-clone of that idea. Ideally, the legal issues would only have to be worked out once, and everyone who wanted could join the shield. There's nothing inherently different about geo in this case, is there? Allan On May 14, 2007, at 23:32, Frank Warmerdam wrote: Folks, Bruce Perens is a luminary in the open source world, and known as a founder of the Debian project, and author of the Free Software Definition - a foundational document for the concept of OSI approved open source licenses. Bruce Perens wrote: A long time ago we planned for SPI to protect Debian developers from liability connected with their development of Free Software. That never came to fruition. With the sword-rattling going on by various patent holders, it's a goal even more worth carrying out today. Some of us have homes, and other property that we would rather not place at risk of any lawsuit connected with our Free Software activities. The way to do that is to act as a volunteer on the behalf of a non- profit corporation, with the corporation assuming your liability. It is possible to insure you against those risks, but it's much more expensive - potentially 1.5 to 2.5 percent of your net worth per year per member. It's better to put the risk in the lap of an entity that doesn't own anything. We can potentially do it at zero cost to the member that way. There is a downside. If you work on behalf of such an entity, you would have to agree to act at their direction, which means acting responsbily on their behalf, by not doing stupid stuff that obviously increases the corporation's risk of being sued. This doesn't really have to do with practical software, but with what some consider freedom-of-speech issues like obscentity or hate speech. For that reason, this would be strictly opt-in. It would not be directly associated with SPI or Debian, because we could never get all of the DDs to agree about this, and because SPI owns property that we do not want to expose to liability. Copyrights of software produced would be assigned to a non-profit like FSF or SPI* I am asking for current free software authors in the United States who would be interested in being protected from liability, and would join me in a request to the Software Freedom Law Center to assist us by creating such an entity. If you would like to do that, please reply to me at [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Further discussion will be carried out separately from SPI and Debian lists. Thanks Bruce * There should also be limits on how much software a single non- profit has in its risk pool, this is a good question for SFLC. At the time it was founded, OSGeo also had a goal to provide legal resources, and perhaps assume legal liability for developers of OSGeo project. This is not a role that OSGeo has worked to address since founding, and it is unclear how much liability it would be willing to assume. I've asked Bruce for more information on his efforts, either with an eye towards OSGeo fulfilling this role of legal liability shield for developers, or possibly with the idea of addressing this via some separate entity such as the one he envisages establishing. I'm interested in others thoughts on the importance of the role of legal liability shield. Such thoughts would be well expressed here on OSGeo discuss. Bruce is also interested in other open source software developers expressing interest in his effort to help justify forming a corporation. You can contact him as noted above. Best regards, -- --- +-- I set the clouds in motion - turn up | Frank Warmerdam, [EMAIL PROTECTED] light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam and watch the world go round - Rush| President OSGeo, http:// osgeo.org ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- Allan Doyle +1.781.433.2695 [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Re: Liability protection project - call for participants
Yes. Thanks, Frank. I love the idea of Eben Moglen defending my software. Sean Allan Doyle wrote: Thanks for bringing this to our attention, it's a topic that has renewed relevance. From the sound of it, OSGeo itself has too many eggs in its basket to risk having them broken by providing a shield. But that ought not stop geo-foss developers from either joining up with Bruce's idea or from setting up a geo-clone of that idea. Ideally, the legal issues would only have to be worked out once, and everyone who wanted could join the shield. There's nothing inherently different about geo in this case, is there? Allan On May 14, 2007, at 23:32, Frank Warmerdam wrote: Folks, Bruce Perens is a luminary in the open source world, and known as a founder of the Debian project, and author of the Free Software Definition - a foundational document for the concept of OSI approved open source licenses. Bruce Perens wrote: A long time ago we planned for SPI to protect Debian developers from liability connected with their development of Free Software. That never came to fruition. With the sword-rattling going on by various patent holders, it's a goal even more worth carrying out today. Some of us have homes, and other property that we would rather not place at risk of any lawsuit connected with our Free Software activities. The way to do that is to act as a volunteer on the behalf of a non-profit corporation, with the corporation assuming your liability. It is possible to insure you against those risks, but it's much more expensive - potentially 1.5 to 2.5 percent of your net worth per year per member. It's better to put the risk in the lap of an entity that doesn't own anything. We can potentially do it at zero cost to the member that way. There is a downside. If you work on behalf of such an entity, you would have to agree to act at their direction, which means acting responsbily on their behalf, by not doing stupid stuff that obviously increases the corporation's risk of being sued. This doesn't really have to do with practical software, but with what some consider freedom-of-speech issues like obscentity or hate speech. For that reason, this would be strictly opt-in. It would not be directly associated with SPI or Debian, because we could never get all of the DDs to agree about this, and because SPI owns property that we do not want to expose to liability. Copyrights of software produced would be assigned to a non-profit like FSF or SPI* I am asking for current free software authors in the United States who would be interested in being protected from liability, and would join me in a request to the Software Freedom Law Center to assist us by creating such an entity. If you would like to do that, please reply to me at [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Further discussion will be carried out separately from SPI and Debian lists. Thanks Bruce * There should also be limits on how much software a single non-profit has in its risk pool, this is a good question for SFLC. At the time it was founded, OSGeo also had a goal to provide legal resources, and perhaps assume legal liability for developers of OSGeo project. This is not a role that OSGeo has worked to address since founding, and it is unclear how much liability it would be willing to assume. I've asked Bruce for more information on his efforts, either with an eye towards OSGeo fulfilling this role of legal liability shield for developers, or possibly with the idea of addressing this via some separate entity such as the one he envisages establishing. I'm interested in others thoughts on the importance of the role of legal liability shield. Such thoughts would be well expressed here on OSGeo discuss. Bruce is also interested in other open source software developers expressing interest in his effort to help justify forming a corporation. You can contact him as noted above. Best regards, -+-- I set the clouds in motion - turn up | Frank Warmerdam, [EMAIL PROTECTED] light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam and watch the world go round - Rush| President OSGeo, http://osgeo.org ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss --Allan Doyle +1.781.433.2695 [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss -- Sean Gillies http://zcologia.com/news ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[OSGeo-Discuss] Re: Liability protection project - call for participants
Folks, Bruce Perens is a luminary in the open source world, and known as a founder of the Debian project, and author of the Free Software Definition - a foundational document for the concept of OSI approved open source licenses. Bruce Perens wrote: A long time ago we planned for SPI to protect Debian developers from liability connected with their development of Free Software. That never came to fruition. With the sword-rattling going on by various patent holders, it's a goal even more worth carrying out today. Some of us have homes, and other property that we would rather not place at risk of any lawsuit connected with our Free Software activities. The way to do that is to act as a volunteer on the behalf of a non-profit corporation, with the corporation assuming your liability. It is possible to insure you against those risks, but it's much more expensive - potentially 1.5 to 2.5 percent of your net worth per year per member. It's better to put the risk in the lap of an entity that doesn't own anything. We can potentially do it at zero cost to the member that way. There is a downside. If you work on behalf of such an entity, you would have to agree to act at their direction, which means acting responsbily on their behalf, by not doing stupid stuff that obviously increases the corporation's risk of being sued. This doesn't really have to do with practical software, but with what some consider freedom-of-speech issues like obscentity or hate speech. For that reason, this would be strictly opt-in. It would not be directly associated with SPI or Debian, because we could never get all of the DDs to agree about this, and because SPI owns property that we do not want to expose to liability. Copyrights of software produced would be assigned to a non-profit like FSF or SPI* I am asking for current free software authors in the United States who would be interested in being protected from liability, and would join me in a request to the Software Freedom Law Center to assist us by creating such an entity. If you would like to do that, please reply to me at [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Further discussion will be carried out separately from SPI and Debian lists. Thanks Bruce * There should also be limits on how much software a single non-profit has in its risk pool, this is a good question for SFLC. At the time it was founded, OSGeo also had a goal to provide legal resources, and perhaps assume legal liability for developers of OSGeo project. This is not a role that OSGeo has worked to address since founding, and it is unclear how much liability it would be willing to assume. I've asked Bruce for more information on his efforts, either with an eye towards OSGeo fulfilling this role of legal liability shield for developers, or possibly with the idea of addressing this via some separate entity such as the one he envisages establishing. I'm interested in others thoughts on the importance of the role of legal liability shield. Such thoughts would be well expressed here on OSGeo discuss. Bruce is also interested in other open source software developers expressing interest in his effort to help justify forming a corporation. You can contact him as noted above. Best regards, -- ---+-- I set the clouds in motion - turn up | Frank Warmerdam, [EMAIL PROTECTED] light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam and watch the world go round - Rush| President OSGeo, http://osgeo.org ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
