Hi Ask, Am 31.08.2013 um 01:47 schrieb Ask Bjørn Hansen <[email protected]>:
> Hi everyone, > > Thank you for all the feedback. I've read all of it but I've a lot of things > going on this week so I'll give a summary reply here to the things that stood > out from the thread: > > - The goal of adding some legalese is the longevity and stability of the > project. Even if what we do is generally "free" and "under the radar", we're > increasingly providing a core service to the internet community. Who's "we" in a legal sense? Right now, I can see lots of parties tied to this. I don't have legal training, but had to deal with contracts a lot in the past years, so my understanding of the current situation is that there is an implied contract between whichever legal entity is responsible for the pool.ntp.org name service (Develooper?) and each individual person registering one or more servers, and an implied contract between the DNS operators and the users of the name service, and an implied contract between server operators and NTP users. Which of these contracts do these TOS apply to? Maybe adding language to the TOS to clarify that would help. Oh, and the term "NTP Pool" is used, but never defined. Is it the same as the Services? I fully support creating a legal framework that protects you and everybody involved in providing the web site and the name service, but I'm not certain you're in a position to affect much more (legally). In essence, you're the gateway to the actual NTP service, not the provider of the NTP service yourself. > - The main "target" of the terms of service is the context of a > device/appliance vendor using the NTP Pool. I think that's a worthwhile target for TOS or a similar construct, but you probably should state that specifically. I would think that you can stipulate the conditions under which server operators and pool.ntp.org DNS clients are allowed to access that service. If you're aiming specific terms at vendors distributing systems with the pool preconfigured, I think the term "end user" is very misleading. And I don't see how you could force a vendor to do anything, based on the current language, especially if they're configuring the normal pool in their devices, not a vendor pool. > - A primary goal is to explain (again) that the service is provided by > volunteers and with no warranties. *We* all know that and a moderately > thoughtful reader will understand that from the website, wikipedia etc but I > don't think there can be too many ways to explain that to everybody else. > > - Secondarily it's to have another place than use.html to explain some stupid > things not to do. I'm spending a good deal of time working with vendors to > not make them do dumb things -- checking time too often or checking time at > midnight, etc. If you have a router that uses time for access control limits > with a configuration in 5 minute increments, does it matter if the device > time is a few seconds off? I think this comes back to getting an enforceable contract between vendors and the DNS service provider. If the language in the TOS does that, more power to you. > - Which jurisdiction would be more reasonable than California? I agree it > sucks that it can't be "internet community law", but at the point someone is > suing the project it's not going to be on a mailing list. The servers are > here, I am here and the Network Time Foundation is here (the NTF might be a > future home for the project). > > There hasn't been a lawsuit and I don't see any reasonable basis for one, but > every now and then I get an angry email from someone who configured their > time zones wrong and missed a meeting and they're upset with me now because > "time.windows.com gave them the wrong time". If I understand it all > correctly: If someone is nutty enough to file something like that in court > (in say Texas) I can't tell the court to take it up on the mailing list, but > I can tell them to move it to California. > > - I think all the server operators fall in under "agents" or something in the > terminology, but I'll have to check with the lawyer. So the TOS would include protections for the NTP server operators? I'd like to see some language to make clear what obligations and liabilities come with registering a server in the system. Good luck, Stefan -- Stefan Bethke <[email protected]> Fon +49 151 14070811 _______________________________________________ pool mailing list [email protected] http://lists.ntp.org/listinfo/pool
