[OSGeo-Discuss] Re: Liability protection project - call forparticipants

[Landon Blake]

Some time ago I had registered the SurveyOS Project with the Software
Freedom Conservancy. (http://conservancy.softwarefreedom.org/overview/)
The services they offered my project included legal protection and
pursuit of license and trademark violations.

I think this is very similar to what Bruce Perens and Frank are speaking
of.

I have found that the staff at the Free Software Conservancy fails to
respond to most of my e-mails, which is very frustrating. It was really
an idea and an organization that I wanted to support and work with.

I think it would be great if the OSGeo could participate in a similar
organization.

Landon (A.K.A. The Sunburned Surveyor)

-----Original Message-----
From: discuss-bounces at lists.osgeo.org
[mailto:discuss-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Frank Warmerdam
Sent: Tuesday, May 15, 2007 9:56 AM
To: OSGeo Discussions
Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Re: Liability protection project - call
forparticipants

Allan Doyle wrote:
> 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. 

Allan,

Well, this is a concern at least.  I still think OSGeo *might* be
the appropriate organization to serve as a liability shield for
developers on OSGeo projects.  But as a director I am also quite
nervous about taking on liability for the organization, and I can't
help but think about what would happen to various OSGeo efforts if
the foundation was sucked under in a big legal battle.

The reason I suspect OSGeo may be the right organization is that it
already has established a reporting structure and rules around what
constitutes appropriate contribution to foundation projects.  By that
measure I think we are already "directing" in the sense that Bruce
mentions.

 > 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?

I do not believe there is anything special about geo.

For now I'm mainly watching with interest - especially I'm looking
forward
to seeing what some real lawyers at the Software Freedom Law Center have
to
say about the topic.  I doubt that we should be doing much in the
meantime
other than expressing interest to Bruce if we think this is an important
thing to do.

Best regards,
-- 
---------------------------------------+--------------------------------
------
I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam,
warmerdam at pobox.com
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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