[OSGeo-Board] Legal contact

[Frank Warmerdam]

Tyler Mitchell wrote:
> Hi all,
> I had a good talk with Porter Merriman a few days ago and one issue came 
> up regarding contacting her, and others, that have been provided to us 
> through Autodesk.  As OSGeo moves forward, especially when we retain our 
> own particular contact in the future, it will be paramount to have a 
> gatekeeper for communicating to our legal rep.  It takes substantial 
> time and money to get advice and if (hypothetically speaking) everyone 
> on this list contacted counsel independently, we would wear out our 
> welcome or cost OSGeo substantially.  Also, I know we all have our own 
> particular legal questions that might be of interest to us or our 
> projects, but may not be seen as priorities for the organisation (i.e. 
> blessed by the board).  It can be a fine line, but doesn't necessarily 
> have to be if we nail down a process.
> 
> I don't mind helping funnel requests but I don't know how/why/when I'd 
> assess what are valid requests or not.  I'd like to put this back to the 
> board to provide guidance on.  Perhaps the board itself can agree to 
> discuss any legal-related questions first and then agree, together, to 
> send the question for more advice.  If you want me to help guard the 
> gate, then I would redirect anything not already discussed by the board, 
> back to the board for consideration.  But if it's been discussed then I 
> could help pass on to Porter and others as appropriate.

Tyler,

I do think this is a significant issue.  Legal advice is expensive, and
even when pro-bono it is easy to exhaust the time available (as I think
we did with Rich!).

Reviewing the legal requests likely to be made on our behalf, I anticipate:
  o Stuff about licenses and license mixing.
  o Stuff about what is legal to contribute (code wise).
  o Stuff about trademarks, etc.
  o Stuff about 501(c) status, tax filing, and correct legal financial
    operation.
  o Stuff about foundation rules and regulations, good governance,...

I'd like to suggest:
  1) That all responses from our legal advisor(s) be archived in an orderly
     ways so we can consult past responses before asking.  We had some fairly
     detailed advice from Rich and Jennifer on trademark issues but I found
     we (as a board) kept asking some of the same questions because we didn't
     keep track of previous advice.  I think this is likely to apply doubly
     for license/copyright questions.
  2) That we have one or two gateway people to handle requests and archiving
     responses.  I think this is mainly Tyler, but *possibly* we might have
     another person handling all the copyright/code submission/license type
     questions - perhaps the chair of the incubator, or a designated "software
     legality czar".

It is important (I think) for us to ask questions when we need to, but to
build up a community of knowledge on legal issues to avoid asking the
same questions over and over.

I've definitely got concerns about connecting developers on software projects
directly up to legal staff to ask questions without any real regard for the
real or in-kind resources being consumed, as is currently the case with the
GeoTools questions for Porter.

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