Hi Gonçalo, Thanks for sharing. I share most of your concerns, reading your explanation - and they seem reasonable. I find it particularly odd that such major changes are forced upon the chapter in this situation. If these changes are necessary, it would be better to discuss them in a global context, and renew all chapters agreements - not by doing it whenever convenient. This way the chapters get on unequal footing, and confusion is bound to arise who has which permissions.
I'm less concerned about the reporting etc, but mostly concerned about the conditions that reduce the effectiveness of the chapter. The tagline is, if indeed meaning what you think it does, wholly impractical and something I remember fighting several years back in the time of Mike Godwin as legal counsel (yeah, quite a while back). It's a returning theme: it would be more convenient for the WMF to have chapters put all these restrictions on themselves, but it makes the work of the chapters less effective. My big question here is always: how can we best leverage the work of volunteers. How can we make sure that we use the efforts and resources that chapters collect - and I'm mostly talking about relationships, goodwill and volunteer time - to their fullest extent for our joint mission. The bureaucracy of trademarks and agreements that we create should be there to serve that mission. I don't have immediate answers for you because I'm no legal expert and don't have the time or background to read up on everything this touches on. I realize that I'm rushing to conclusions probably on limited information. But this should imho be the compass, and I hope that the WMF can use the same. Even if that means it is inconvenient. Best, Lodewijk On Sun, Jan 27, 2019 at 5:18 PM Pine W <wiki.p...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi Gonçalo, > > I have limited familiarity with the situation with Wikimedia Portugal, but > I am glad that there seems to be some movement on a path forward here. > > I have had similar questions about WMF trademarks in the past. My quick > read of the trademark provisions that you included in your email is that > they may need clarification but I don't think of them as being "red flags" > that should stop progress. > > I don't know what WMF's legal research has revealed regarding WMPT's > situation. My guess is that WMF is being understandably cautious about WMPT > until WMF has greater certainty about WMPT's governance. You could ask WMF > to explain why it made the proposal that it did. > > I understand the concern about annual governance reviews. I would support > WMF providing sufficient (not lavish, but sufficient) grant funding for > WMPT to hire a contractor to perform the governance reviews that WMF wants. > > Overall, I think that your concerns and questions are good and should be > discussed between WMPT, WMF Legal, and Affcom. I understand why you would > make these questions public and request input from the wider community. > Personally, I do not see "red flags" in the language that you quoted, and I > am glad to see that there seems to be some positive steps happening with > regards to the situation between WMPT, WMF, and Affcom. WMPT might consider > asking WMF for more favorable terms for the chapter agreement after a > period of time, perhaps six months to a few years, if WMPT seems to be > progressing in a good direction over that longer period of time. In the > time between now and January 31, I think that you are asking good questions > but I would not consider these issues to be "red flags" in the short term. > > Best wishes, > > Pine > ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine ) > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
