Hi Norbert,
I make it short, and please don't take these comments personally - they
are not meant insulting. :)
It is really tedious to discuss ifs and whens, and jump into various
legal texts. Law is something where you can argument and discuss for
hours, any lawyer knows that. :-) However, I *really* would like to
avoid that we open up another construction site by doing so. I guess not
everyone has got this news yet, but: We are now offically a Foundation,
and we have a *LOT* of administrative stuff to do. These are things that
have undoubtedly to be done, and I have put them into the wiki tasks page.
You may find good arguments for having those texts in English as their
binding version, no doubts about that. However, I see things different.
To me, it's not even a matter of law, but a matter of common sense
(sorry if that sounds harsh, not meant this way). If you are located in
a specific country, and your organization falls into the legislation of
this country, then the legal language of your statutes is the country's
main language.
If you reference other legal texts in those statutes, it is fairly
normal that those documents are in the very same language. I don't even
see a point to discuss here, but maybe my view is too narrowed. It would
have been no problem if these legal texts were not referenced in the
statutes, but they were. So they are subject to the same language.
If someone comes up with a legally approved check that those documents
can be in English without any disadvantages, why not. Right now, I have
only seen speculations and rumors, and they are not helpful. They cost a
lot of time, time that - again - I prefer if all the BoD would use for
working on the important tasks I put into the wiki.
You arguments might be good, but you are not the German authorities we
have to work with. And in doubt, their rules matter, since they oversee
our foundation. I don't know it 100%, although I have a strong gut
feeling, and neither you do know it 100%. In doubt, let's stick to that
what is more safe, unless someone shows me proof it's possible the other
way round.
After all, don't forget that what we do here is unique - to us, to the
world of free software, and to the authorities. We shouldn't create more
problems than needed in the beginning.
Florian
--
Florian Effenberger <flo...@documentfoundation.org>
Chairman of the Board at The Document Foundation
Tel: +49 8341 99660880 | Mobile: +49 151 14424108
Skype: floeff | Twitter/Identi.ca: @floeff
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