What is your position on registering Debian as an organization?to support any kind of incorporation. At least on the trademark side,
I'm curious as to (1) what you think of the idea in general, and (2)
insofar you think this is a good idea, to what extent you'd consider
pursuing it during your term(s).
From what I have seen, Debian's governance is presently insufficient
What is your position on registering Debian as an organization?
I'm curious as to (1) what you think of the idea in general, and (2)
insofar you think this is a good idea, to what extent you'd consider
pursuing it during your term(s).
Jonathan has already addressed this in his platform, acknowledging Brian Gupta's 2020 campaign focus on this, so this is mostly a question for
Hideki and Felix:
What is your position on registering Debian as an organization?
I'm sorry no one has gotten back to you so far. I do not know which
ideas Jonathan Carter and Brian Gupta (copied as a courtesy) have been pursuing.
My own thinking on this point is also evolving, as detailed below. I
copied Christan Kastner to make sure he sees this expanded answer.
Currently, the Project has no legal standing of its^^^
own, meaning that within any legal context, there is no Project. You
can't donate to Debian, you donate to some other organization (SPI). The
DPL can represent the Project only formally, as formally, it doesn't
A common pattern to address this within the open source world is to
create a non-profit legal entity, e.g. the FSF Foundation or the GNOME Foundation.
Currently, the Project has no legal standing of its
own, meaning that within any legal context, there is no Project.
You can't donate to Debian, you donate to some other organization (SPI). The DPL can represent the Project only formally, as formally, it doesn't
exist yet. The Project can't own hardware directly, or hold copyrights directly. It's all down to individuals.
A common pattern to address this within the open source world is to
create a non-profit legal entity, e.g. the FSF Foundation or the GNOME Foundation.
On Mon, Mar 21, 2022 at 09:41:49AM +0100, Christian Kastner wrote:
Currently, the Project has no legal standing of its
own, meaning that within any legal context, there is no Project.
Indeed, it is a great feature of Debian that it is not bound to any particular juridiction, it only exists through consensus of its members.
You can't donate to Debian, you donate to some other organization (SPI). The >> DPL can represent the Project only formally, as formally, it doesn't
exist yet. The Project can't own hardware directly, or hold copyrights
directly. It's all down to individuals.
A common pattern to address this within the open source world is to
create a non-profit legal entity, e.g. the FSF Foundation or the GNOME
Foundation.
But a legal entity would be registered to some country (the US in the
above two cases) and would be bound to its juridiction.
What if the DPL is from some country under US sanction list like Cuba
used to ? What if we need the non-us archive back ?
(same, replacing US by the country of your choice) ?
If there was a single Debian foundation, Debian members would be split between those that are in the juridiction of the foundation and those
that are not and the former would be inevitably advantaged.
On Mon, Mar 21, 2022 at 09:41:49AM +0100, Christian Kastner wrote:
A common pattern to address this within the open source world is to
create a non-profit legal entity, e.g. the FSF Foundation or the GNOME
Foundation.
or SPI?
If there was a single Debian foundation, Debian members would be split between those that are in the juridiction of the foundation and those
that are not and the former would be inevitably advantaged.
Would moving such an entity in the face of adverse legal conditions, if
and when they arise, be a difficult operation? (I have absolutely no
idea myself)
"Richard" == Richard Laager <rlaager@debian.org> writes:
Sysop: | Keyop |
---|---|
Location: | Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, UK |
Users: | 300 |
Nodes: | 16 (2 / 14) |
Uptime: | 42:20:47 |
Calls: | 6,708 |
Calls today: | 1 |
Files: | 12,243 |
Messages: | 5,353,932 |