Re: Call for OPW project ideas
I highly doubt being an OPW mentor will increase the likelihood of my ending up in court. I think that is not in question here. The point is that if a big organisation who can afford to get sued is not willing to take a risk, why should an individual volunteer be *explicitly* asked to do that when there is seemingly no similar such demand made of the mentor organisation for which they are volunteering their free time? Magdalen p.s. the terms and conditions of your ISP will be on their website. ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Call for OPW project ideas
On So, 2014-11-09 at 23:09 -0500, Karen Sandler wrote: This is really mundane: I agreed to a more restrictive indemnification than this by simply reading CNN.com today. So has anybody who's ever used Skype, or Flash, or Facebook. (Seriously, check the ToS of Facebook or CNN, the two I bothered to check; they're very similar and include the provision about attorneys' fees.) Or the Internet, really; I'm surprised I didn't have to agree to indemnify my ISP, though maybe that was part of my contract and I just forgot. Anybody can sue anybody for anything, and I highly doubt being an OPW mentor will increase the likelihood of my ending up in court. We very much tried to limit the contracts as much as possible, to figure out how to set up the infrastructure to host the program without unduly burdening the intern and mentor contracts only have indemnities triggered for gross negligence, recklessness or intentional wrongdoing, as discussed in the previous thread (this is actually a pretty high bar). Not only do I think that this legal infrastructure is necessary in order for the Foundation to host the program, but some funders also require that it be in place. The indemnification is something that I personally still find irritating[1]. However as I understand now this seems to be pretty much standard procedure in the US and unfortunately necessary. And I do see that the one in these contracts is pretty limited. What I am mostly wondering about right now is the limitation of liability section. I kind of expected to see a provision to limit liabilities between the intern and mentor, but this appears not to be the case. There is no direct contract between these two parties, but I simply do not know whether liabilities could still apply (as a result of the contracts)[2]. That said, it probably is a lot easier for a US citizen to sign such a contract. I am German, and I have very little idea about what I would be getting myself into legally. Yup, the risks are *very* *low*, but I do already find a slightly increased possibility of being pulled into a lawsuit on US territory kind of scary. I do believe you when you are saying that the contracts were designed with a lot of care. It is just that I would be very reluctant to trust a contract that is designed for and falls under a jurisdiction that I know pretty much nothing about, and where it might be hard to defend myself legally. Benjamin [1] I have don't remember seeing an indemnification (or even much of a contract) when helping at events done by charitable organizations here in germany. My guess is that it is simply not really necessary, though it could also be that many organizations are not that careful. [2] And if there might be liabilities, what jurisdiction would apply in case either (or both) mentor and intern are not US citizens. I wouldn't be surprised if there is no clear answer to this though. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Call for OPW project ideas
On Mon, Nov 10, 2014 at 2:42 PM, Karen Sandler ka...@punkrocklawyer.com wrote: On 2014-11-10 05:45, Magdalen Berns wrote: On Mon, Nov 10, 2014 at 4:09 AM, Karen Sandler ka...@punkrocklawyer.com wrote: On 2014-11-09 20:23, Michael Catanzaro wrote: On Sun, 2014-11-09 at 18:48 +, Magdalen Berns wrote: The challenges the OPW organisers face is in figuring out how to encourage projects and mentors to sign up and yet also protect GNOME from a potential lawsuit in the event that things go horribly wrong as a result of something that may not be GNOME's fault. I don't see much of a challenge. The wording under question is: For only situations arising out of your gross negligence, recklessness or intentional wrongdoing, you shall indemnify, defend, and hold harmless GNOME, its officers, directors, and employees from any and all claims, demands, damages, costs and liabilities, including reasonable attorneys’ fees, made by any third party due to or arising out of your participation in the Program; your Mentoring Activities (including correspondence with the Participant or Participants, and modification of any Participant’s source code or written materials); or your violation of this Agreement. This is really mundane: I agreed to a more restrictive indemnification than this by simply reading CNN.com today. So has anybody who's ever used Skype, or Flash, or Facebook. (Seriously, check the ToS of Facebook or CNN, the two I bothered to check; they're very similar and include the provision about attorneys' fees.) Or the Internet, really; I'm surprised I didn't have to agree to indemnify my ISP, though maybe that was part of my contract and I just forgot. Anybody can sue anybody for anything, and I highly doubt being an OPW mentor will increase the likelihood of my ending up in court. Thanks Michael. We very much tried to limit the contracts as much as possible, to figure out how to set up the infrastructure to host the program without unduly burdening the intern and mentor contracts only have indemnities triggered for gross negligence, recklessness or intentional wrongdoing, as discussed in the previous thread (this is actually a pretty high bar). Not only do I think that this legal infrastructure is necessary in order for the Foundation to host the program, but some funders also require that it be in place. Obviously. The thing about funders is that a lot of them are businesses who will used to imposing terms on individuals and figuring out how to remove any accountability from themselves. As a charitable organisation, of course GNOME is sensible to take steps to listen to the advice and recommendations of its funders about how OPW is run but that should not mean that we have to blindly use their design in a case where it is going to be detrimental to OPW's core mission. It's important to recognise what motivates people in something like this because ultimately, no amount of money that these funders have to offer is worth the trade off if OPW finds it is not able to find decent mentors and the interns do not end up staying on as contributors FLOSS because they have had a poor experience under this model. These women are not pieces of pasta you can throw at a wall to see which ones are sticky enough to stay on it. They are human beings who have already been identified as being likely to face discrimination in FLOSS. It is a mistake to apply a generic legal structure which let's face it, have absolutely no track record of solving the problems that OPW is trying to address (if anything the converse). I absolutely agree and love the pasta analogy :D Thanks. I' have been waiting for an excuse to air that one. Our legal structure was designed by us with deep consultation from a law firm that helped us pro bono (Justin Colannino who worked with me at SFLC was our primary contact and he brought in varied experience, like employment law, from partners in the firm). Our starting point was GSoC because it's the closest program to what we're doing but we veered from it considerably, both to impose less liability to our mentor and intern participants and also to reflect that our program is very different (and that we're a nonprofit). What we settled on is the lightest weight agreement I could come to with those lawyers that was functional for the Foundation. I get that. I do, but I wonder is where the mentor organisation fits in to all of this: What will compel a mentor organisation to get involved with OPW for the right reason and take their own role in OPW seriously while they are seemingly not deemed responsible for the mentors who they are signing up for OPW? Magdalen ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Call for OPW project ideas
On 2014-11-10 04:38, Magdalen Berns wrote: I highly doubt being an OPW mentor will increase the likelihood of my ending up in court. I think that is not in question here. The point is that if a big organisation who can afford to get sued is not willing to take a risk, why should an individual volunteer be EXPLICITLY asked to do that when there is seemingly no similar such demand made of the mentor organisation for which they are volunteering their free time? I'm sorry... I've been traveling a lot and am not caught up on emailing. I hope to find time to address more of these concerns on list but I'm completely swamped now. I do want to say that many of our participating orgs are not really orgs at all. Some have absolutely no corporate form. Getting them to sign is not possible. Also, of the orgs that do have corporate forms, some of those aren't big and can't afford to be sued either. We have evaluated getting the mentor orgs to sign but after discussing at length with our pro bono counsel when we had the legal infrastructure written up we decided it made a lot more sense to set it up as we have, as the mentors have the most control over their participation in the program, ie their ability not to behave with gross negligence, recklessness or intentional wrongdoing. We do meet with the mentor org admins before allowing an org to join the program discussing the expectations for participation. Mentorship and expectations around it are a big part of the discussion. karen ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Call for OPW project ideas
Hi, These contracts are very standard in the US. Some examples form local nonprofits in Chicago: 1. Habitat for Humanity https://www.windycityhabitat.org/uploads/files/WCHFH_Release_Waiver.pdf 2. Pumping Station:One https://wiki.pumpingstationone.org/images/Liability-waiver.pdf 3. Friends of the Chicago River https://s3.amazonaws.com/chicagoriver/rich/rich_files/rich_files/807/original/focr-20minor-20waiver-202014.pdf Cheers, Meg On Mon, Nov 10, 2014 at 6:53 PM, Jan Claeys li...@janc.be wrote: Benjamin Berg schreef op ma 10-11-2014 om 16:30 [+0100]: [1] I have don't remember seeing an indemnification (or even much of a contract) when helping at events done by charitable organizations here in germany. My guess is that it is simply not really necessary, though it could also be that many organizations are not that careful. I don't know German law, but in Belgium/Flanders the law says that: * Any non-profit that works with volunteers, is required to provide its volunteers with documentation (this can be oral, but most non-profits do it on paper, and some will require you to sign for receiving it, because that's easier to prove) that explains their rights plights, including insurance, education offers[1], code of conduct, etc. (this is not (usually) a contract though) * Any non-profit that is a legal entity (or is part of a larger non-profit that is a legal entity) that works with volunteers, is legally liable for the actions of their volunteers while doing what they are supposed to do as a volunteer (unless they can prove gross misconduct or the like, of course), * Any non-profit that is a legal entity (or is part of a larger non-profit that is a legal entity) that works with volunteers, is legally required to have an insurance covering damage, including civil liability, caused by or to their volunteers (to some degree; insurances that cover more than legally required are possible) In addition: currently the minimal required insurance for non-profits is paid for by the Nationale Loterij (national lottery) on request, so volunteers are often insured for free (to some degree). When I was on the board of a non-profit, that insurance requirement the offer by the Nationale Loterij didn't exist yet, but IIRC we paid a couple 100 euro / year for the insurance that we had back then (even before it was a requirement, most non-profits had insurances like that, because it solves most likely disputes with volunteers easily for what is a rather modest amount). I wouldn't be surprised if Germany has some similar laws and/or arrangements that make individual agreements unnecessary in most cases, while also spreading responsibility quite fairly (and avoiding most stupid lawsuits because of the insurance). [1] education in this case could mean that OPW mentor volunteers have access to educational material guiding their work, and maybe having support from a person/organisation with experience in it (this person could also be a volunteer, of course). -- Jan Claeys ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Call for OPW project ideas
Hello Magdalen, On Sa, 2014-11-08 at 14:43 +, Magdalen Berns wrote: 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? I do agree that having this sort of coverage for foundation members and/or people signing a contract for e.g. OPW would be nice. This would actually be a good incentive to become a foundation member and/or sign the OPW contract in the first place.[1] Benjamin [1] Just accidentally breaking something while manning a GNOME booth at a conference can easily cost a couple of hundred/thousand dollars. A liability coverage would protect the volunteer in this case if they do not have an insurance of their own. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Call for OPW project ideas
I do not think Jan is thinking coherently on this (and likewise I absolutely empathise with your concerns Benjamin) Civil law is not black and white and it is totally by landmark cases of which there are none to refer to in this case that we know of. Ultimately, none of us know if the wording on that contract would mean anything unless a mentor or an intern takes GNOME to court over some row or another, then we'd find out. Obviously, I cannot speak for the OPW organisers but as I understand it they are literally just seeking to cover GNOME in the unlikely scenario that a student sues them because of a mentor's poor conduct. If I am right in that then it is entirely reasonable for the OPW organisers to seek to do that. Vetting mentors on a project of OPW's scale and size is simply not something GNOME has the resources for. They are being asked to put a lot of faith into projects to put forward mentors who the projects believe know how to behave themselves, but projects (and people) can and do get things wrong. Especially when it comes to projects with lots of men who and very few women. The chance of a project picking the wrong person to be an OPW mentor actually seems to be pretty high in FLOSS. Not only do we have a huge imbalance in the male/female ratio, we [FLOSS] have developed itself around a meritocratic culture which has a tendency to ignore the consequences of what happens when one exceptional coder/contributor is a completely toxic human being in all other respects. The challenges the OPW organisers face is in figuring out how to encourage projects and mentors to sign up and yet also protect GNOME from a potential lawsuit in the event that things go horribly wrong as a result of something that may not be GNOME's fault. This contract seems to be sort of like a disclaimer yet there is a concerning subtext in the documents because the role of the mentor organisations involved do not seem to be being addressed. As we are aware, OPW's goal is to support communities from projects who are keen on actively taking concious steps to actively invite women to participate and then encourage those women to continue on and progress as contributors. That goal seems to have been motivated by the reality which is supported by concrete figures ( ~1-2% of the community are made up of women) i.e. that there is glaring gender inequality in FLOSS. With that core mission in mind, it is my view, the mentor/intern missing project contract loses sight of OPW's aims on a fairly fundamental level because it fails to concede that the mentor organisation has a role to play in helping women starting out overcome the barriers they are statistically likely face. In my view emphasising a project's responsibility for the conduct of its mentors rather than placing individual responsibility on mentors like this would serve to avoid the following potential barriers to progress: - As already been suggested by Benjamin: The mentor contract might potentially put mentors off of participating. I would go further and say it could put off the sensible ones, actually. From the mentors perspective that contract essentially seems to infer that if things go wrong that it is not just GNOME who takes no responsibility for that. Unlike Jan, I can absolutely concede that if a mentor did sign this document that this mentor would not have a leg to stand on in a civil court whether or not they were defending themselves against their project or the intern or whether they were suing GNOME. To my mind, it follows that anyone signing that mentor contract is not likely to be risk-averse, at best. - Perhaps a less obvious consideration but possibly even more important is that the absence of a project contract means projects are not given an opportunity to pause for thought when they are selecting their members to put forward for mentor roles. As things are, what's to stop a project going for the money and just putting any old numpty in for the role, to the probable detriment of the intern and the aim of their project to go ahead score diversity points, for themselves on paper?. Neither the mentor nor intern documents send out any kind of message to the projects themselves about their responsibility in OPW, as far as I can tell. Maybe there is another document we have not seen between projects and GNOME, in that case it would be good for mentors and interns to know about that. We all live in a world where the vast majority of people just don't tend to go around filing lawsuits unless they have exhausted all other options especially not people who have yet to establish themselves in their chosen field. So the thing to recognise is that the law serves not simply to deal with problems once they have arisen, but to prevent issues from arising in the first place. I have to wonder what issues are these documents practically likely to prevent from happening? Forgetting GNOME for a minute to look
Re: Call for OPW project ideas
On Sun, 2014-11-09 at 18:48 +, Magdalen Berns wrote: The challenges the OPW organisers face is in figuring out how to encourage projects and mentors to sign up and yet also protect GNOME from a potential lawsuit in the event that things go horribly wrong as a result of something that may not be GNOME's fault. I don't see much of a challenge. The wording under question is: For only situations arising out of your gross negligence, recklessness or intentional wrongdoing, you shall indemnify, defend, and hold harmless GNOME, its officers, directors, and employees from any and all claims, demands, damages, costs and liabilities, including reasonable attorneys’ fees, made by any third party due to or arising out of your participation in the Program; your Mentoring Activities (including correspondence with the Participant or Participants, and modification of any Participant’s source code or written materials); or your violation of this Agreement. This is really mundane: I agreed to a more restrictive indemnification than this by simply reading CNN.com today. So has anybody who's ever used Skype, or Flash, or Facebook. (Seriously, check the ToS of Facebook or CNN, the two I bothered to check; they're very similar and include the provision about attorneys' fees.) Or the Internet, really; I'm surprised I didn't have to agree to indemnify my ISP, though maybe that was part of my contract and I just forgot. Anybody can sue anybody for anything, and I highly doubt being an OPW mentor will increase the likelihood of my ending up in court. See also: https://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-list/2014-September/msg00120.html I'll be getting back to my code now. Michael signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Call for OPW project ideas
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 ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Call for OPW project ideas
Hi. [dropping d-d-l] On Mon, Nov 03, 2014 at 10:46:13PM +0100, Benjamin Berg wrote: 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. Right. I share those concerns and the feeling that there are enough laws covering gross negligence, recklessness or intentional wrongdoing and that we better not try to outsmart those. I am also missing some form of incentive to sign the contract. Why would I want to sign a document full of American legalese? Cheers, Tobi ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Call for OPW project ideas
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 signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Call for OPW project ideas
[only foundation-list] On Sat, 2014-09-27 at 13:13 -0400, Marina Zhurakhinskaya wrote: - Original Message - From: Germán Poo-Caamaño g...@gnome.org On Sat, 2014-09-27 at 11:45 -0400, Marina Zhurakhinskaya wrote: - Original Message - From: Germán Poo-Caamaño g...@gnome.org To: Marina Zhurakhinskaya mari...@redhat.com Cc: GNOME Foundation foundation-list@gnome.org, desktop-devel-list desktop-devel-l...@gnome.org Sent: Saturday, September 27, 2014 11:23:34 AM Subject: Re: Call for OPW project ideas On Fri, 2014-09-26 at 23:48 -0400, Marina Zhurakhinskaya wrote: Dear Foundation, The application process for the new round of Outreach Program for Women internships has recently started, and we are looking for people willing to mentor GNOME projects in this round. Because we only usually have a few participants in OPW, this round we would only like to offer projects that are most strategic for GNOME. These include, but are not limited to, projects in the area of privacy [1], developer experience, GTK+ [2], core experience, core applications [3], and web infrastructure. We would also like people to think ahead of time how they will be able to provide excellent mentorship to the interns before, during, and after the internship, and whether there is a larger project team the intern will be able to receive support from. Matthias Clasen, Allan Day, and Sriram Ramkrishna have kindly agreed to be a part of a cross-team triage committee for proposed project ideas. Please add ideas you are willing to mentor to the wiki page for the round [4] by early next week. Hi Marina, Will the mentors still be required to sign a document that makes them legally liable? Hi Germán, Yes. The legal liability is only for gross negligence, recklessness or intentional wrongdoing. This is covered on https://wiki.gnome.org/OutreachProgramForWomen#Contracts This is not unique to OPW. GSoC has similar terms mentors have to agree to, which are much more broad - http://www.google-melange.com/gsoc/document/show/gsoc_program/google/gsoc2014/org_admin_agreement . The difference is that the GSoC agreement is between the organization and Google, no mentor becomes legally liable (though, IANAL). By having agreements directly with mentors, we recognize that free software organizations that participate might only have a limited control over the mentors who participate. Is there other venues to address a possible issue? For example, requiring the organization to look for an alternate mentor in case of problem. Making legally liable a volunteer who is giving time and work for free is asymmetrical, where the volunteer has nothing to win, but a lot to lose. -- Germán Poo-Caamaño http://calcifer.org/ ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
OPW mentor agreement (was Re: Call for OPW project ideas)
Germán Poo-Caamaño asked: Will the mentors still be required to sign a document that makes them legally liable? On Sat, 2014-09-27 at 11:45 -0400, Marina Zhurakhinskaya replied: Yes. The legal liability is only for gross negligence, recklessness or intentional wrongdoing. This is covered on https://wiki.gnome.org/OutreachProgramForWomen#Contracts This is not unique to OPW. GSoC has similar terms mentors have to agree to, which are much more broad - http://www.google-melange.com/gsoc/document/show/gsoc_program/google/gsoc2014/org_admin_agreement Germán further noted: The difference is that the GSoC agreement is between the organization and Google, no mentor becomes legally liable That might not protect you as much as you think. For example, I agreed to Conservancy's GSoC agreement on behalf of Conservancy mentors. Now, I'm an officer of Conservancy, and as such, if Conservancy is deemed liable, officers/directors can be on the hook. Conservancy of course has DO insurance, but IIRC Conservancy's policy doesn't protect me *anyway* if I engage in gross negligence, fraud, etc. So, ultimately, a promise of Conservancy not to engage in gross negligence is a promise for me not to do so anyway. It'll come right back to me in a lawsuit if I've actually engaged in gross negligence. Conservancy won't help me out of the situation (remember, in this hypothetical scenario, I'm guilty, so why would Conservancy help?). The DO insurance policy that Conservancy has will be useless to me, too. Thus, what difference does it make if I agree not to commit gross negligence? I'm not going to do it anyway! [0] Germán further added: For 100% volunteers, it is just taking a risk for free. As opposed to all the times you take that risk and *pay* the entity you take that risk for? I suppose most people don't realize this in our just click agree culture, but many of those ToS/TaC one agrees to on a regular basis -- be it for renting a car or hotel room, using Facebook, or a hundred other things -- cause you to agree you're liable for your own gross negligence and reckless behavior. Not only that, but most gross negligence and reckless behavior that results in real harm is likely criminally prosecutable anyway, and/or would be actionable in civil court by the intern against the mentor directly. So, *not* signing doesn't protect you from much, anyway. BTW, if a mentor didn't sign this, all it would mean is that *both* GF and the mentor could be sued for the mentor's bad actions, and the GF has no easy defense to get off the hook. But, is it really better for mentor (regardless of whether the accusations are false) to have GF stuck as a litigant with you? (It's not like they'd be required to pay for *your* defense in that case.) I played out some of those scenarios in my head just now, and I don't see how any outcome is better. In fact, I can think of scenarios where one is falsely accused and it's much better *for the accused* that GF isn't named in the suit. IANAL and TINLA, of course. [0] And, no, failing to answer your intern's email in a timely fashion (yes, we've all done it) is *not* gross negligence. If, somehow, you end up standing with your intern right on the edge of a giant cliff, and you encourage your intern to get closer than is allowed by the park service because the view is totally better, and your intern falls, you're probably in trouble. But, I don't think visits to the Grand Canyon are part of OPW, though, nor do I think we'll encourage our interns to jump the guard rail if we do plan such a trip. -- -- bkuhn ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Call for OPW project ideas
On 2014-09-29 13:13, Germán Poo-Caamaño wrote: [only foundation-list] On Sat, 2014-09-27 at 13:13 -0400, Marina Zhurakhinskaya wrote: - Original Message - From: Germán Poo-Caamaño g...@gnome.org On Sat, 2014-09-27 at 11:45 -0400, Marina Zhurakhinskaya wrote: - Original Message - From: Germán Poo-Caamaño g...@gnome.org To: Marina Zhurakhinskaya mari...@redhat.com Cc: GNOME Foundation foundation-list@gnome.org, desktop-devel-list desktop-devel-l...@gnome.org Sent: Saturday, September 27, 2014 11:23:34 AM Subject: Re: Call for OPW project ideas On Fri, 2014-09-26 at 23:48 -0400, Marina Zhurakhinskaya wrote: Dear Foundation, The application process for the new round of Outreach Program for Women internships has recently started, and we are looking for people willing to mentor GNOME projects in this round. Because we only usually have a few participants in OPW, this round we would only like to offer projects that are most strategic for GNOME. These include, but are not limited to, projects in the area of privacy [1], developer experience, GTK+ [2], core experience, core applications [3], and web infrastructure. We would also like people to think ahead of time how they will be able to provide excellent mentorship to the interns before, during, and after the internship, and whether there is a larger project team the intern will be able to receive support from. Matthias Clasen, Allan Day, and Sriram Ramkrishna have kindly agreed to be a part of a cross-team triage committee for proposed project ideas. Please add ideas you are willing to mentor to the wiki page for the round [4] by early next week. Hi Marina, Will the mentors still be required to sign a document that makes them legally liable? Hi Germán, Yes. The legal liability is only for gross negligence, recklessness or intentional wrongdoing. This is covered on https://wiki.gnome.org/OutreachProgramForWomen#Contracts This is not unique to OPW. GSoC has similar terms mentors have to agree to, which are much more broad - http://www.google-melange.com/gsoc/document/show/gsoc_program/google/gsoc2014/org_admin_agreement . The difference is that the GSoC agreement is between the organization and Google, no mentor becomes legally liable (though, IANAL). By having agreements directly with mentors, we recognize that free software organizations that participate might only have a limited control over the mentors who participate. Is there other venues to address a possible issue? For example, requiring the organization to look for an alternate mentor in case of problem. That is a mechanism we certainly would use, but it doesn't protect the Foundation in the extreme cases that the agreement is written for. Making legally liable a volunteer who is giving time and work for free is asymmetrical, where the volunteer has nothing to win, but a lot to lose. On the other hand, mentors have a tremendous amount of control over the internship. What situations are you worried about? When I read gross negligence, recklessness or intentional wrongdoing I think of situations like: * a mentor stalks and harasses an intern * an intern tells a mentor that she feels like she is in danger of imminent harm due to behavior by other contributors and the mentor doesn't tell anyone or do anything. * a mentor physically attacks an intern at a conference Also I should note that we originally thought to put the legal infrastructure in place because a donor asked for it as part of their diligence related to reviewing the program. karen ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Call for OPW project ideas
On Fri, 2014-09-26 at 23:48 -0400, Marina Zhurakhinskaya wrote: Dear Foundation, The application process for the new round of Outreach Program for Women internships has recently started, and we are looking for people willing to mentor GNOME projects in this round. Because we only usually have a few participants in OPW, this round we would only like to offer projects that are most strategic for GNOME. These include, but are not limited to, projects in the area of privacy [1], developer experience, GTK+ [2], core experience, core applications [3], and web infrastructure. We would also like people to think ahead of time how they will be able to provide excellent mentorship to the interns before, during, and after the internship, and whether there is a larger project team the intern will be able to receive support from. Matthias Clasen, Allan Day, and Sriram Ramkrishna have kindly agreed to be a part of a cross-team triage committee for proposed project ideas. Please add ideas you are willing to mentor to the wiki page for the round [4] by early next week. Hi Marina, Will the mentors still be required to sign a document that makes them legally liable? -- Germán Poo-Caamaño http://calcifer.org/ ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Call for OPW project ideas
- Original Message - From: Germán Poo-Caamaño g...@gnome.org To: Marina Zhurakhinskaya mari...@redhat.com Cc: GNOME Foundation foundation-list@gnome.org, desktop-devel-list desktop-devel-l...@gnome.org Sent: Saturday, September 27, 2014 11:23:34 AM Subject: Re: Call for OPW project ideas On Fri, 2014-09-26 at 23:48 -0400, Marina Zhurakhinskaya wrote: Dear Foundation, The application process for the new round of Outreach Program for Women internships has recently started, and we are looking for people willing to mentor GNOME projects in this round. Because we only usually have a few participants in OPW, this round we would only like to offer projects that are most strategic for GNOME. These include, but are not limited to, projects in the area of privacy [1], developer experience, GTK+ [2], core experience, core applications [3], and web infrastructure. We would also like people to think ahead of time how they will be able to provide excellent mentorship to the interns before, during, and after the internship, and whether there is a larger project team the intern will be able to receive support from. Matthias Clasen, Allan Day, and Sriram Ramkrishna have kindly agreed to be a part of a cross-team triage committee for proposed project ideas. Please add ideas you are willing to mentor to the wiki page for the round [4] by early next week. Hi Marina, Will the mentors still be required to sign a document that makes them legally liable? Hi Germán, Yes. The legal liability is only for gross negligence, recklessness or intentional wrongdoing. This is covered on https://wiki.gnome.org/OutreachProgramForWomen#Contracts This is not unique to OPW. GSoC has similar terms mentors have to agree to, which are much more broad - http://www.google-melange.com/gsoc/document/show/gsoc_program/google/gsoc2014/org_admin_agreement . Thanks, Marina -- Germán Poo-Caamaño http://calcifer.org/ ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Call for OPW project ideas
- Original Message - From: Germán Poo-Caamaño g...@gnome.org To: Marina Zhurakhinskaya mari...@redhat.com Cc: GNOME Foundation foundation-list@gnome.org, desktop-devel-list desktop-devel-l...@gnome.org Sent: Saturday, September 27, 2014 12:44:13 PM Subject: Re: Call for OPW project ideas On Sat, 2014-09-27 at 11:45 -0400, Marina Zhurakhinskaya wrote: - Original Message - From: Germán Poo-Caamaño g...@gnome.org To: Marina Zhurakhinskaya mari...@redhat.com Cc: GNOME Foundation foundation-list@gnome.org, desktop-devel-list desktop-devel-l...@gnome.org Sent: Saturday, September 27, 2014 11:23:34 AM Subject: Re: Call for OPW project ideas On Fri, 2014-09-26 at 23:48 -0400, Marina Zhurakhinskaya wrote: Dear Foundation, The application process for the new round of Outreach Program for Women internships has recently started, and we are looking for people willing to mentor GNOME projects in this round. Because we only usually have a few participants in OPW, this round we would only like to offer projects that are most strategic for GNOME. These include, but are not limited to, projects in the area of privacy [1], developer experience, GTK+ [2], core experience, core applications [3], and web infrastructure. We would also like people to think ahead of time how they will be able to provide excellent mentorship to the interns before, during, and after the internship, and whether there is a larger project team the intern will be able to receive support from. Matthias Clasen, Allan Day, and Sriram Ramkrishna have kindly agreed to be a part of a cross-team triage committee for proposed project ideas. Please add ideas you are willing to mentor to the wiki page for the round [4] by early next week. Hi Marina, Will the mentors still be required to sign a document that makes them legally liable? Hi Germán, Yes. The legal liability is only for gross negligence, recklessness or intentional wrongdoing. This is covered on https://wiki.gnome.org/OutreachProgramForWomen#Contracts This is not unique to OPW. GSoC has similar terms mentors have to agree to, which are much more broad - http://www.google-melange.com/gsoc/document/show/gsoc_program/google/gsoc2014/org_admin_agreement . The difference is that the GSoC agreement is between the organization and Google, no mentor becomes legally liable (though, IANAL). By having agreements directly with mentors, we recognize that free software organizations that participate might only have a limited control over the mentors who participate. In that sense, it would preferable to leave the OPW mentorship to people who work for companies that support their involvement in FOSS, so they would have a legal support from their companies. For 100% volunteers, it is just taking a risk for free. There is always a risk of a misunderstanding becoming a big pain, even if proven right in court. -- Germán Poo-Caamaño http://calcifer.org/ ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Call for OPW project ideas
Dear Foundation, The application process for the new round of Outreach Program for Women internships has recently started, and we are looking for people willing to mentor GNOME projects in this round. Because we only usually have a few participants in OPW, this round we would only like to offer projects that are most strategic for GNOME. These include, but are not limited to, projects in the area of privacy [1], developer experience, GTK+ [2], core experience, core applications [3], and web infrastructure. We would also like people to think ahead of time how they will be able to provide excellent mentorship to the interns before, during, and after the internship, and whether there is a larger project team the intern will be able to receive support from. Matthias Clasen, Allan Day, and Sriram Ramkrishna have kindly agreed to be a part of a cross-team triage committee for proposed project ideas. Please add ideas you are willing to mentor to the wiki page for the round [4] by early next week. You are also welcome to help us spread the word about OPW by using the available sample e-mail, social network updates, and the flyer [5]. We are especially interested in getting more college women from the Southern Hemisphere, who will have a school summer break during most of the internship time, to apply. If you have connections in the Southern Hemisphere, please spread the word there. One question people might have is whether we would limit GSoC to most strategic ideas too. Google encourages the participating organizations to act as umbrella organizations and GNOME acting as one is one of the reasons we get so many slots for GSoC. So, in my opinion, we should continue making all projects under the GNOME umbrella available for GSoC. We already have a triage team for GSoC that ensures that the proposed projects are agreed-upon and feasible. Thanks, Marina [1] https://wiki.gnome.org/Foundation/PrivacyCampaign2013 [2] https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/GTK+ [3] https://wiki.gnome.org/Design/Apps/ [4] https://wiki.gnome.org/GnomeWomen/OutreachProgram/2014/DecemberMarch [5] https://wiki.gnome.org/OutreachProgramForWomen/2014/DecemberMarch/SpreadTheWord ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
