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
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Allan Doyle
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