SPI Workshop/Brainstorming Session at Debconf

Greetings,

Two of my goals in running for a position on the Software in the
Public Interest board of directors where to (1) help make SPI more
accountable and response to the needs of its members and its community
and to (2) help push for a more active SPI.

I'd like the help of all SPI members in doing both.

In the opening session in Debconf in Oslo, I will be facilitating a
two hour workshop on SPI. Since Debconf will likely be the largest
face to meeting of SPI contributing members this year, it is a unique
opportunity to brainstorm and talk about SPI's future and goals. Of
course, I realize that most SPI members (and for that matter, most of
the board) will not be present. As a result, I'd like to begin the
process leading up the workshop on the lists now, report from the
workshop, and then carry on the discussion on the lists afterward if
people feel the need.

I'm sending this message to call for proposals and discussion about
SPI (and its future) to integrate into the workshop at Debconf. What
has SPI done well? What has SPI failed to do? What do want to see SPI
do in the future? How can SPI become more visible? Is this visibility
a good thing and/or necessary? Please feel free to include proposals,
concrete or vague.

Here are some thoughts that I can offer to begin this discussion (this
is not necessarily my position but it does represent the feelings of
some):

SPI's includes the broad goal of promoting free software. As a
result, SPI's relationship to its member projects is not as close,
and perhaps as meaningful, as the relationship of the GNOME and
Apache foundations to their member projects perhaps. In response, SPI
could could move implicitly toward this model or explicitly by
renaming to "The Debian Foundation."

Or this connected idea:

SPI can provide either offer more support and connection with its
member project, or support to more member projects but it's unlikely
to do both well. SPI must decide how it wants to focus.

Feel free to respond directly to these "proposals" or to take the
conversation in another direction. Please follow-up on spi-general.

Thank you for time and your thoughts.

Regards,
Mako

--
Benj. Mako Hill
mako(at)debian(dot)org
http://mako.yukidoke.org/

On Fri, Jul 11, 2003 at 04:28:15AM +0200, Benj. Mako Hill wrote:
> SPI's includes the broad goal of promoting free software. As a
> result, SPI's relationship to its member projects is not as close,
> and perhaps as meaningful, as the relationship of the GNOME and
> Apache foundations to their member projects perhaps. In response, SPI
> could could move implicitly toward this model or explicitly by
> renaming to "The Debian Foundation."

Non sequitur...?

--
2. That which causes joy or happiness.

On Fri, Jul 11, 2003 at 01:17:49PM +0200, Josip Rodin wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 11, 2003 at 04:28:15AM +0200, Benj. Mako Hill wrote:
> > SPI's includes the broad goal of promoting free software. As a
> > result, SPI's relationship to its member projects is not as close,
> > and perhaps as meaningful, as the relationship of the GNOME and
> > Apache foundations to their member projects perhaps. In response, SPI
> > could could move implicitly toward this model or explicitly by
> > renaming to "The Debian Foundation."
>
> Non sequitur...?

Sorry. I wrote this part very quickly because I meant to get this out
a long time ago and was rushing toward the end. There were a couple
logical leaps in there that I apologize for.

The idea is that the GNOME Foundation and the Apache Foundations
appear to have closer relationships to their projects than SPI does to
Debian and that this is something that Debian should emulate.[1]

Moving toward this relationship could take a number of different
forms. Acting different is one. One act (symbolic perhaps there *is*
something to a name) would be to make this refocusing explicit in
SPI's name. I realize that this puts other projects, like OFTC, in a
strange place.

If I'm doing a poor job of presenting this its because it's not a
proposal that I really buy into but had heard mentioned by others. If
there are people that feel strongly about this or would like to
present this as an idea or proposal, I welcome

Regards,
Mako

[1] In his State of the Nation talk today at LinuxTag, Martin
Michlmayr mentioned a researcher who was doing research into the
relationship of free software non-profits and free software
projects. I am looking forward to checking this out.

--
Benj. Mako Hill
mako(at)debian(dot)org
http://mako.yukidoke.org/

(lets drop the debconf(at)lists(dot)spi-inc(dot)org cc, it doesn't exist)

Previously Benj. Mako Hill wrote:
> The idea is that the GNOME Foundation and the Apache Foundations
> appear to have closer relationships to their projects than SPI does to
> Debian and that this is something that Debian should emulate.[1]

But SPI caters to more than just Debian. Consider the Fresco project, or
the services we provide for OFTC.

Wichert.

--
Wichert Akkerman <wichert(at)wiggy(dot)net> It is simple to make things.
http://www.wiggy.net/ It is hard to make things simple.

On Fri, Jul 11, 2003 at 02:41:44PM +0200, Wichert Akkerman wrote:
> Previously Benj. Mako Hill wrote:
> > The idea is that the GNOME Foundation and the Apache Foundations
> > appear to have closer relationships to their projects than SPI does to
> > Debian and that this is something that Debian should emulate.[1]
>
> But SPI caters to more than just Debian. Consider the Fresco project, or
> the services we provide for OFTC.

I agree. I also find it problematic. I was presenting this an example
and as something that I'd heard discussed before.

Personally, I lean toward a an SPI with more member projects, and an
established method for the creation of new member projects. I'll write
something up and post it as my own proposal before debconf.

Regards,
Mako

--
Benj. Mako Hill
mako(at)debian(dot)org
http://mako.yukidoke.org/

On Fri, 2003-07-11 at 18:00, Benj. Mako Hill wrote:
> > But SPI caters to more than just Debian. Consider the Fresco project, or
> > the services we provide for OFTC.
>
> I agree. I also find it problematic. I was presenting this an example
> and as something that I'd heard discussed before.

I will present some of my ideas in a compact form here. I really need to
expand them into a proper document. Here goes...

*** Why SPI is a Dumb Name for the Debian Foundation ***

My contention is that SPI is, and always has been, the Debian
Foundation. Due to an unfortunate naming accident at its inception many
people have become confused about this fact but its true. In every sense
the services that SPI provides, its membership and its mission are
impossible to seperate from the Debian community. Debian is the sole
reason SPI exists and the sole reason it continues to be resurrected
every time it dies.

I know some people will protest and say "what about the projects that
SPI hosts?". Well, what about it? Is there a problem saying "Debian
hosts Fresco"? I mean, don't we host the source, bugs, CVS and other
resources for thousands of other Open Source projects? Take the HURD for
example. We've virtually become the center of development. Does the HURD
have to become a SPI project or is it a Debian project? Can Debian have
projects? Is the distinction even meaningful? I say no.

What I want people to focus on is the concept that Debian is a community
and that community is bigger than just a Linux distribution. When you
look at our philosophy you can see that we are a community first and
foremost and that the OS is just a symptom of our mission and our
beliefs. If producing an OS was job #1 then we wouldn't put philosophy
before market share. But we do, and that is important. Money isn't what
drives us. We have shared values that bind us together as a community
and motivate us to try and change the status quo.

SPI is just a piece of equipment, no different than faure or samosa.
It's a chunk of legal machinery designed to store copyrights and money
the same way as one of our hard drives stores data. Trying to make it
something seperate from Debian is like one of our servers striking out
on its own. Without Debian, SPI has no function, nothing to do and no
one to do it. The power and the people come from Debian and we have
allowed SPI's confusing name to distract us far too long.

Renaming SPI to the Debian Foundation will make its mission clear. It
will disperse suspicions about it and make people comfortable spending
time and effort to make it grow. We can get rid of the perception that
some weird parasitic organization, seperate from Debian, is hanging off
of Debian's neck and sapping its strength. Debian and SPI are the same.
SPI serves Debian. It is our tool. We should eliminate the confusion so
that we can move ahead.

Last, but not least, getting rid of the SPI name will let us ditch that
stupid spi-inc.org domain name and speak with one voice and one name.
Debian.

--
_____________________________________________________________________
Ean Schuessler ean(at)brainfood(dot)com
Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com

On Fri, Jul 18, 2003 at 09:12:33PM -0500, Ean Schuessler wrote:

> I will present some of my ideas in a compact form here. I really need to
> expand them into a proper document. Here goes...
>
> *** Why SPI is a Dumb Name for the Debian Foundation ***

> Last, but not least, getting rid of the SPI name will let us ditch that
> stupid spi-inc.org domain name and speak with one voice and one name.
> Debian.

OK, you've got a few good points, and a few bad ones, IMHO.

In fact, I think you're probably going at it arse-about-face. Thinking of
the community, it's probably more the case that Debian-the-OS is just one
of the things that we all care about -- it just happens to be the one that
begat SPI.

If you really want to change things, I don't think it's a good idea to give
the impression that any other SPI-hosted projects are merely afterthoughts,
or in some way subservient to Debian-the-OS. This would probably require that
the OS distribution be clearly run by SPI -- in effect moving the top
management from Debian to SPI. This however would increase SPI's role possibly
too much, and I suspect be rather US-centrically-unpalatable to a lot of
developers (SPI being a US entity and so on).

The only way out of this that I can see is to introduce another layer of
abstraction -- bring a new (but not a "legal") entity into existence, to
which all these other projects could be affiliated. SPI would then still be
suitably distanced that were things to go pear-shaped, the entire organisation
would not go with it.

I'm not sure that this would be worth the effort, but it might.

Thoughts? (feel free to ask me to explain better what the hell I'm on about)

Cheers,

Nick
--
Nick Phillips -- nwp(at)lemon-computing(dot)com
Fine day to work off excess energy. Steal something heavy.

Hi,

On Fri, Jul 18, 2003 at 09:12:33PM -0500, Ean Schuessler wrote:
> I know some people will protest and say "what about the projects that
> SPI hosts?". Well, what about it? Is there a problem saying "Debian
> hosts Fresco"? I mean, don't we host the source, bugs, CVS and other
> resources for thousands of other Open Source projects? Take the HURD for
> example. We've virtually become the center of development.

Uhm, no. The Hurd people moved their stuff over to savannah some time
ago, barely using our BTS. Upstream work is not being discussed on
debian-hurd either, just the port.

The same is probably true for most other projects. We keep a BTS, and we
mirror their upstream source, that's all. I wouldn't say we *host* them.

Michael

Previously Ean Schuessler wrote:
> My contention is that SPI is, and always has been, the Debian
> Foundation. Due to an unfortunate naming accident at its inception many
> people have become confused about this fact but its true. In every sense
> the services that SPI provides, its membership and its mission are
> impossible to seperate from the Debian community. Debian is the sole
> reason SPI exists and the sole reason it continues to be resurrected
> every time it dies.

I already disagree here. Debian's aim is to provide a free operation
system, developer in an open manner. SPI's aim is to help organisations
to develop and distribute open hardware and software (see
http://www.spi-inc.org/about). It naturally follows that Debian fits
that very well, but there are also many other projects which fit just
as naturally.

Yes, SPI was founded because these services were needed for Debian, but
the founders were wise enough to realise that Debian is not unique in
needing them. In my opinion it would be an error to suddenly forget
about all other projects and focus solely on Debian.

> I know some people will protest and say "what about the projects that
> SPI hosts?". Well, what about it? Is there a problem saying "Debian
> hosts Fresco"?

Fresco is not a Debian project. It has nothing to do with developing an
operation system or any of Debian's goals. It's free software, but
that is about it.

> I mean, don't we host the source, bugs, CVS and other resources for
> thousands of other Open Source projects?

We don't.

> Take the HURD for example. We've virtually become the center of
> development. Does the HURD have to become a SPI project or is it a
> Debian project? Can Debian have projects? Is the distinction even
> meaningful? I say no.

The HURD is not a Debian project. They have their own CVS, their own
webapges and just happen to (also) use a mailinglist on the Debian
listserver.

Of course there are disadvantages to not using the name Debian; it is
much harder to get donations for example (SPI has needed a second server
for a long time for example but all donations seem to go directly to
Debian). However how is this different from say FSF and the GNU project?
You don't see the FSF being renamed to 'the GNU foundation'. Their goals
are compatible, but they are not the same. Just as Debian and SPI.

SPI is not a piece of equipment, it is an organisation with its own
goal. Those are compatible with the goals of Debian, Fresco and many
other projects (free software and others). Tying it too Debian would
cause confusion and people missing that fact.

Wichert.

--
Wichert Akkerman <wichert(at)wiggy(dot)net> It is simple to make things.
http://www.wiggy.net/ It is hard to make things simple.

On Fri, 18 Jul 2003, Ean Schuessler wrote:
> *** Why SPI is a Dumb Name for the Debian Foundation ***

Uh oh.

> My contention is that SPI is, and always has been, the Debian
> Foundation. Due to an unfortunate naming accident at its inception many
> people have become confused about this fact but its true. In every sense
> the services that SPI provides, its membership and its mission are
> impossible to seperate from the Debian community. Debian is the sole
> reason SPI exists and the sole reason it continues to be resurrected
> every time it dies.

SPI was founded, from what I can gather, with the intent of using Debian
as a starting point for a philanthropic mission of education and
development of free software.

The articles of incorporation list 11 reasons for the existence of
Software in the Public Interest and none of them refer to Debian, or any
other specific project.

> I know some people will protest and say "what about the projects that
> SPI hosts?". Well, what about it? Is there a problem saying "Debian
> hosts Fresco"? I mean, don't we host the source, bugs, CVS and other
> resources for thousands of other Open Source projects? Take the HURD for
> example. We've virtually become the center of development. Does the HURD
> have to become a SPI project or is it a Debian project? Can Debian have
> projects? Is the distinction even meaningful? I say no.

As an active member of SPI who comes from a project other than Debian, I
am forced to disagree. OFTC being a Debian project could put off a large
portion of our user base. It isn't a Debian project, it's a project
interested in the development of software in the public interest - making
SPI a perfect fit.

SPI's future shouldn't be based on its history of inertia and control by
Debian developers, but rather on its stated mission and potential to be a
more encompassing organisation encouraging and supporting the wider
adoption of public software.

Can a project be a member of Debian?

I don't think so. Projects that are members of Debian make them part of
the Debian distribution, for better or for worse, to the outside world.
As famous and popular as apt, a Debian project, is, I don't think the 7
other member projects of SPI are on the same level.

> What I want people to focus on is the concept that Debian is a community
> and that community is bigger than just a Linux distribution. When you
> look at our philosophy you can see that we are a community first and
> foremost and that the OS is just a symptom of our mission and our
> beliefs. If producing an OS was job #1 then we wouldn't put philosophy
> before market share. But we do, and that is important. Money isn't what
> drives us. We have shared values that bind us together as a community
> and motivate us to try and change the status quo.

Debian is a community. SPI is also a community. Debian is a member of the
SPI community, however SPI is not a member of the Debian community.

Wichert's comments about FSF/GNU vs SPI/Debian are more succinct than my
own thoughts on the matter.

> SPI is just a piece of equipment, no different than faure or samosa.
> It's a chunk of legal machinery designed to store copyrights and money
> the same way as one of our hard drives stores data. Trying to make it
> something seperate from Debian is like one of our servers striking out
> on its own. Without Debian, SPI has no function, nothing to do and no
> one to do it. The power and the people come from Debian and we have
> allowed SPI's confusing name to distract us far too long.

The vaste majority of SPI's membership does come from Debian and it is
difficult to get outside people into an organisation that takes the
attitude that "Debian is all that matters." Other smaller projects have,
however, joined SPI and their members are joining SPI as well, as
contributing members, and SPI can only benefit from that.

Debian is the only project, as far as I know, that has an automatic SPI
membership policy. As Debian is a much larger project than any others
involved, and as its members are automatically SPI members, it is that
much more difficult for an expansion to take place. Outsiders can only see
Debian involved in SPI and so they do not become involved. It is a vicious
circle.

> Renaming SPI to the Debian Foundation will make its mission clear. It
> will disperse suspicions about it and make people comfortable spending
> time and effort to make it grow. We can get rid of the perception that
> some weird parasitic organization, seperate from Debian, is hanging off
> of Debian's neck and sapping its strength. Debian and SPI are the same.
> SPI serves Debian. It is our tool. We should eliminate the confusion so
> that we can move ahead.

To me it is distressing that these comments come from the president of the
parent organisation to a project in which I am heavily involved. SPI's
mission is not Debian, SPI's mission is making software available to the
public and teaching the public how to use it. It is achieving these goals
by parenting multiple organisations who, together, do both those things.

> Last, but not least, getting rid of the SPI name will let us ditch that
> stupid spi-inc.org domain name and speak with one voice and one name.
> Debian.

Well, with a little work perhaps SPI could acquire spi.int, as it is
something of an international organisation, though I don't believe the
domain is a big enough deal to change the mission of SPI for.

---
David "cdlu" Graham
Guelph, Ontario
cdlu(at)railfan(dot)ca

Wichert Akkerman wrote:
> Previously Ean Schuessler wrote:
> > My contention is that SPI is, and always has been, the Debian
> > Foundation. Due to an unfortunate naming accident at its inception many
> > people have become confused about this fact but its true. In every sense
> > the services that SPI provides, its membership and its mission are
> > impossible to seperate from the Debian community. Debian is the sole
> > reason SPI exists and the sole reason it continues to be resurrected
> > every time it dies.
>
> I already disagree here. Debian's aim is to provide a free operation
> system, developer in an open manner. SPI's aim is to help organisations
> to develop and distribute open hardware and software (see
> http://www.spi-inc.org/about). It naturally follows that Debian fits
> that very well, but there are also many other projects which fit just
> as naturally.
>
> Yes, SPI was founded because these services were needed for Debian, but
> the founders were wise enough to realise that Debian is not unique in
> needing them. In my opinion it would be an error to suddenly forget
> about all other projects and focus solely on Debian.

I agree with Wichert and disagree with Ean.

Regards,

Joey

--
Testing? What's that? If it compiles, it is good, if it boots up, it is perfect.

On Sat, Jul 19, 2003 at 01:29:40PM +0200, Wichert Akkerman wrote:
> I already disagree here. Debian's aim is to provide a free operation
> system, developer in an open manner. SPI's aim is to help organisations
> to develop and distribute open hardware and software (see
> http://www.spi-inc.org/about). It naturally follows that Debian fits
> that very well, but there are also many other projects which fit just
> as naturally.
>
> Yes, SPI was founded because these services were needed for Debian, but
> the founders were wise enough to realise that Debian is not unique in
> needing them. In my opinion it would be an error to suddenly forget
> about all other projects and focus solely on Debian.

You can also try to look at it from the different angle: What happens
if Debian would found a new Debian foundation and move its stuff over
there and leave SPI. What would happen to SPI?

What Ean says here is that Debian defines SPI, and that without
Debian, SPI would not exist at all. Which is probably true. And if
it is true than SPI can not be thought of being independent of Debian,
and it is an illusion to think so.

> Of course there are disadvantages to not using the name Debian; it is
> much harder to get donations for example (SPI has needed a second server
> for a long time for example but all donations seem to go directly to
> Debian). However how is this different from say FSF and the GNU project?
> You don't see the FSF being renamed to 'the GNU foundation'. Their goals
> are compatible, but they are not the same. Just as Debian and SPI.

The FSF does not try to uphold a virtual distinction between the FSF
and the GNU project. In fact, www.fsf.org and www.gnu.org point to
the same web page. I think it was attempted once to make them more
separate, and it proved to be a failure, in the sense that without
being closely tied to GNU, the FSF didn't receive a lot of attention
(my memory might be skewed, though). This seems indeed to look
remarkably like the situation the SPI is in now - maybe the FSF
learned something here that the SPI didn't learn yet?

Thanks,
Marcus

On Sat, Jul 19, 2003 at 07:09:18AM -0500, Marcus Brinkmann wrote:
> This seems indeed to look remarkably like the situation the SPI is in now
> - maybe the FSF learned something here that the SPI didn't learn yet?

Perhaps. Or perhaps they only learned how to cause #200003. :P

--
2. That which causes joy or happiness.

On Sat, 2003-07-19 at 13:09, Marcus Brinkmann wrote:
> On Sat, Jul 19, 2003 at 01:29:40PM +0200, Wichert Akkerman wrote:
> > I already disagree here. Debian's aim is to provide a free operation
> > system, developer in an open manner. SPI's aim is to help organisations
> > to develop and distribute open hardware and software (see
> > http://www.spi-inc.org/about). It naturally follows that Debian fits
> > that very well, but there are also many other projects which fit just
> > as naturally.
> >
> > Yes, SPI was founded because these services were needed for Debian, but
> > the founders were wise enough to realise that Debian is not unique in
> > needing them. In my opinion it would be an error to suddenly forget
> > about all other projects and focus solely on Debian.
>
> You can also try to look at it from the different angle: What happens
> if Debian would found a new Debian foundation and move its stuff over
> there and leave SPI. What would happen to SPI?
>
> What Ean says here is that Debian defines SPI, and that without
> Debian, SPI would not exist at all. Which is probably true. And if
> it is true than SPI can not be thought of being independent of Debian,
> and it is an illusion to think so.
>

Debian provides the inertia and manpower that SPI needs, because it's a
very large project. At the moment, SPI can't exist without Debian. But
the first goal of SPI is "to create, form and establish an organization
to formulate and provide software systems for use by the general public
without charge".

There are member projects other than Debian that want to work with SPI
to these goals.

--
Andrew Sobala <aes(at)gnome(dot)org>

This e-mail contains personal opinions only, and does not represent the
official position of the GNOME Foundation.

On Sat, Jul 19, 2003 at 01:29:40PM +0200, Wichert Akkerman wrote:
> I already disagree here. Debian's aim is to provide a free operation
> system, developer in an open manner. SPI's aim is to help organisations
> to develop and distribute open hardware and software (see
> http://www.spi-inc.org/about). It naturally follows that Debian fits
> that very well, but there are also many other projects which fit just
> as naturally.
>
> Yes, SPI was founded because these services were needed for Debian, but
> the founders were wise enough to realise that Debian is not unique in
> needing them. In my opinion it would be an error to suddenly forget
> about all other projects and focus solely on Debian.

Perhaps an interesting thing to think about is what differentiates the
Apache Foundation and the SPI. Both seem to have very similar
functions --- they provide a legal framework for organizations
interested in Open Source software. Both have a "key project" which
was the original reason for founding each respective organiztion, but
which now support many other projects in their respective frameworks.

One difference is that the Apache foundation seems to be a bit active
and energetic about telling the world that they exist, and that they
are open to hosting helping projects that wish to work under their
umbrella.

Now, before anyone gets any ideas, I'm not suggesting at this time
that the SPI and Apache foundation should merge, or any such
foolishness.(*) Only that it would perhaps be a useful exercise for
the board to consider in what ways the SPI and Apache foundation are
similar, and in what ways the SPI is unique and distinguishes itself
from the Apache foundation.

Put another way, suppose someone came up to you, and said, "our
particular project needs a legal/fincancial home to so we can accept
donations, et. al., and we have a couple of options, including (a)
affiliating with the SPI, (b) affiliating with the Apache Foundation,
(c), or creating our own non-profit organization with its own board
and legal charter. Please advise us what we should do". What advice
would you give that particular project leader, and why?

- Ted

(*) Although if the SPI had continued to have trouble finding
energetic volunteers willing to serve as officiers and board members,
it's something I would have suggested --- it's hard to
suckers^H^H^H^H^H^H^H conscientious works willing to serve on the
boards of such organizations, and who will do the thankless work of
worrying about budgets, doing the accounting, dealing with lawyers,
and so on.

>
> > I know some people will protest and say "what about the projects that
> > SPI hosts?". Well, what about it? Is there a problem saying "Debian
> > hosts Fresco"?
>
> Fresco is not a Debian project. It has nothing to do with developing an
> operation system or any of Debian's goals. It's free software, but
> that is about it.
>
> > I mean, don't we host the source, bugs, CVS and other resources for
> > thousands of other Open Source projects?
>
> We don't.
>
> > Take the HURD for example. We've virtually become the center of
> > development. Does the HURD have to become a SPI project or is it a
> > Debian project? Can Debian have projects? Is the distinction even
> > meaningful? I say no.
>
> The HURD is not a Debian project. They have their own CVS, their own
> webapges and just happen to (also) use a mailinglist on the Debian
> listserver.
>
> Of course there are disadvantages to not using the name Debian; it is
> much harder to get donations for example (SPI has needed a second server
> for a long time for example but all donations seem to go directly to
> Debian). However how is this different from say FSF and the GNU project?
> You don't see the FSF being renamed to 'the GNU foundation'. Their goals
> are compatible, but they are not the same. Just as Debian and SPI.
>
> SPI is not a piece of equipment, it is an organisation with its own
> goal. Those are compatible with the goals of Debian, Fresco and many
> other projects (free software and others). Tying it too Debian would
> cause confusion and people missing that fact.
>
> Wichert.
>
>
> --
> Wichert Akkerman <wichert(at)wiggy(dot)net> It is simple to make things.
> http://www.wiggy.net/ It is hard to make things simple.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Spi-general mailing list
> Spi-general(at)lists(dot)spi-inc(dot)org
> http://lists.spi-inc.org/cgi-bin/listinfo/spi-general

--

On Sat, 19 Jul 2003 19:34:06 -0400
Theodore Ts'o <tytso(at)mit(dot)edu> wrote:
> Put another way, suppose someone came up to you, and said, "our
> particular project needs a legal/fincancial home to so we can accept
> donations, et. al., and we have a couple of options, including (a)
> affiliating with the SPI, (b) affiliating with the Apache Foundation,
> (c), or creating our own non-profit organization with its own board
> and legal charter. Please advise us what we should do". What advice
> would you give that particular project leader, and why?

Personally, if I were in such a position (looking for a legal umbrella
for a project), I would *really* like it if they were all more or less
identical, and I could simply pick the least-used one.

The nature of these organisations is legal; as such, they can be sued
into oblivion, leaving their member-projects out in the cold. Thus, the
more the merrier - bad idea to put all the eggs in one basket and
whatnot.

From: David B Harris <david(at)eelf(dot)ddts(dot)net>
> The nature of these organisations is legal; as such, they can be sued
> into oblivion, leaving their member-projects out in the cold. Thus, the
> more the merrier - bad idea to put all the eggs in one basket and
> whatnot.

And there is a danger of losing the copyrights that these organizations hold
to the plaintiff in a successful lawsuit, or if the organization is
forced to settle.

However, a legal umbrella for individual developers is becoming increasingly
desirable, and a 501(c)3 vehicle is possibly even useful for getting our
developers under the Volunteer Protection Act.

So, there are a few ways to go. One is to make a lot of little
corporations, as we did in the movie business. Every film was its own
corporation, which is why you would see "Silver Screen Partners XXVIII"
as the producer of a Disney film, and another number next time.

Probably there are other ways to poison-pill the copyrights we hold so
that they would be useless to anyone who acquired them through a
lawsuit.

This is a matter for investigation with counsel.

Thanks

Bruce

On Sat, 19 Jul 2003 22:08:54 -0700 (PDT)
bruce(at)perens(dot)com (Bruce Perens) wrote:
> From: David B Harris <david(at)eelf(dot)ddts(dot)net>
> > The nature of these organisations is legal; as such, they can be sued
> > into oblivion, leaving their member-projects out in the cold. Thus, the
> > more the merrier - bad idea to put all the eggs in one basket and
> > whatnot.
>
> And there is a danger of losing the copyrights that these organizations hold
> to the plaintiff in a successful lawsuit, or if the organization is
> forced to settle.
>
> However, a legal umbrella for individual developers is becoming increasingly
> desirable, and a 501(c)3 vehicle is possibly even useful for getting our
> developers under the Volunteer Protection Act.
>
> So, there are a few ways to go. One is to make a lot of little
> corporations, as we did in the movie business. Every film was its own
> corporation, which is why you would see "Silver Screen Partners XXVIII"
> as the producer of a Disney film, and another number next time.
>
> Probably there are other ways to poison-pill the copyrights we hold so
> that they would be useless to anyone who acquired them through a
> lawsuit.
>
> This is a matter for investigation with counsel.

Thank sounds great. Thanks.

I don't like the idea of having a 501(c)3 for each developer - not if
it's on my bill anyways :) But protecting the copyrights are good.

However, what I was more worried about in the original email was simply
the organisational difficulties in recovering from the cessation of
business of the "big" copyright holder for FOSS, if such a beast
existed. I don't see many people assigning copyright to SPI. The only
SPI-like organisatoin that I'm aware of that serves as a repository for
copyrighted works is the FSF, and I'm not terribly impressed with how
that has turned out.

From: David B Harris <david(at)eelf(dot)ddts(dot)net>
> The only SPI-like organisatoin that I'm aware of that serves as a
> repository for copyrighted works is the FSF, and I'm not terribly
> impressed with how that has turned out.

Well, FSF's problems have little to do with their role of recieving
copyrights. They do get a lot of copyrights, seem willing to enforce
them, and have so far succeeded in doing so without having to go to court.

Thanks

Bruce

On Sat, 19 Jul 2003 22:33:57 -0700 (PDT)
bruce(at)perens(dot)com (Bruce Perens) wrote:
> From: David B Harris <david(at)eelf(dot)ddts(dot)net>
> > The only SPI-like organisatoin that I'm aware of that serves as a
> > repository for copyrighted works is the FSF, and I'm not terribly
> > impressed with how that has turned out.
>
> Well, FSF's problems have little to do with their role of recieving
> copyrights. They do get a lot of copyrights, seem willing to enforce
> them, and have so far succeeded in doing so without having to go to court.

No, but it does underline the flaws of a) indiscriminately assigning
copyright to an entity, and b) having one (or even very few) entities
which are getting those copyrights.

b) is the particular issue I'm interested in.

P.S.: Please note that I'm subscribed to the list, so in future you
don't need to send me copies of mail destined for the list :)

On Sat, Jul 19, 2003 at 10:33:57PM -0700, Bruce Perens wrote:
> From: David B Harris <david(at)eelf(dot)ddts(dot)net>
> > The only SPI-like organisatoin that I'm aware of that serves as a
> > repository for copyrighted works is the FSF, and I'm not terribly
> > impressed with how that has turned out.
>
> Well, FSF's problems have little to do with their role of recieving
> copyrights. They do get a lot of copyrights, seem willing to enforce
> them, and have so far succeeded in doing so without having to go to court.

Well, that depends on who you talk to. Their copyright assignment
contract requires that I indemnify them, which is a legal risk I
refuse to do, especially when I am offering to give away software for
free. (If you are asked to sign a contract which includes the word
"indemnify" in it, run-don't-walk to your lawyer before signing it.)

It is interesting to note that the copyright assignment paperwork by
which the FSF agreed to accept the S390 binutils changes did not
require IBM to indemnify FSF for anything, which both (a) shows the
wisdom of IBM lawyers, and (b) shows the FSF can be flexible with the
issue if you push hard enough (or the change is something they want
badly enough.)

I recently had another case where the Translation Project erroneously
recorded that I wanted the translations to e2fsprogs to be assigned to
the FSF before I would accept them, and I had a translator contact me
and explain to me that he absolutely refused to transfer copyrights to
the FSF, and I had reassure him that this was not necessary.
(Interestly, he had no problems transfering the rights to me
personally --- just not the FSF.)

- Ted

Le dimanche 20 juillet 2003 à 06:44 -0400, Theodore Ts'o a écrit :
[...]
> I recently had another case where the Translation Project erroneously
> recorded that I wanted the translations to e2fsprogs to be assigned to
> the FSF before I would accept them, and I had a translator contact me
> and explain to me that he absolutely refused to transfer copyrights to
> the FSF, and I had reassure him that this was not necessary.
> (Interestly, he had no problems transfering the rights to me
> personally --- just not the FSF.)

A little word about copyright assignments, note that in France it
means nothing. Here we have the "droit d'auteur". As a translator, i did
transfer copyright to the FSF, but a lawyer would say that it means
nothing.

Cheers,
--
Pierre Machard
<pmachard(at)debian(dot)org> http://debian.org
GPG: 1024D/23706F87 : B906 A53F 84E0 49B6 6CF7 82C2 B3A0 2D66 2370 6F87

On Sat, 2003-07-19 at 06:29, Wichert Akkerman wrote:
> I already disagree here. Debian's aim is to provide a free operation
> system, developer in an open manner. SPI's aim is to help organisations
> to develop and distribute open hardware and software (see
> http://www.spi-inc.org/about). It naturally follows that Debian fits
> that very well, but there are also many other projects which fit just
> as naturally.
>
> Yes, SPI was founded because these services were needed for Debian, but
> the founders were wise enough to realise that Debian is not unique in
> needing them. In my opinion it would be an error to suddenly forget
> about all other projects and focus solely on Debian.

I agree, in every way, that the goals of SPI are praiseworthy. I am not
advocating that we abandon those goals. What I am noting, and you have
failed to address, is the fact that SPI cannot perform any of these
services in any realistic way except by using Debian's resources. It is
entertaining to dream of a SPI that has its own resources that are
greater than Debian's but that SPI does not exist. I think it is time
that we recognize that Debian will foot the bill if any of these legal
adventures go awry.

> Fresco is not a Debian project. It has nothing to do with developing an
> operation system or any of Debian's goals. It's free software, but
> that is about it.

I believe that "being free software" is the only thing that any piece of
software has in common with Debian's goals. Debian's goal is to build a
useful operating system composed entirely of Free Software. It is
natural that Debian, with its many resources, would want to incubate
interesting Free Software projects and aid their success.

> > I mean, don't we host the source, bugs, CVS and other resources for
> > thousands of other Open Source projects?
>
> We don't.

I don't think that is accurate. At various times, Debian has certainly
become the definative source for various packages when upstream has
abandoned them. I can't think of a definative list but mawk and psutils
come to mind.

> The HURD is not a Debian project. They have their own CVS, their own
> webapges and just happen to (also) use a mailinglist on the Debian
> listserver.

The only HURD bootable by humans bears the Debian name.

> SPI is not a piece of equipment, it is an organisation with its own
> goal. Those are compatible with the goals of Debian, Fresco and many
> other projects (free software and others). Tying it too Debian would
> cause confusion and people missing that fact.

Again, I reiterate my earlier point. The services that SPI claims to
provide cannot be provided without Debian's resources. The copyrights
SPI has pledged to hold and defend will have to be defended with Debian
money if it ever comes to legal blows. That fact has to be recognized.
Debian, as an organization, needs to be on board with SPI's mission or
we will face a disaster when it comes time to perform on the promises we
have made to our projects.

--
_____________________________________________________________________
Ean Schuessler ean(at)brainfood(dot)com
Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com

Hi,

I've held back from commenting, or saying anything thus far - being
relatively new to SPI etc - but as the current 'leader' of OFTC, a
project which is parented by SPI, I felt I should voice my thoughts.

On Mon, Jul 21, 2003 at 01:46:06PM -0500, Ean Schuessler wrote:
> I agree, in every way, that the goals of SPI are praiseworthy. I am not
> advocating that we abandon those goals. What I am noting, and you have
> failed to address, is the fact that SPI cannot perform any of these
> services in any realistic way except by using Debian's resources. It is
> entertaining to dream of a SPI that has its own resources that are
> greater than Debian's but that SPI does not exist. I think it is time
> that we recognize that Debian will foot the bill if any of these legal
> adventures go awry.

That for the time being at least Debian will provide the vast majority
of resources, which are available to SPI, is I think a given - I mean,
Debian's been around (nearly) 10 years, and has developed a very large
userbase throught the world.
10 years from now though, its is conceivable, if not that Debian is no
longer the largest SPI project, that at least that SPI parents, some other
projects, which garner a signficant amount of interest, with a
sustantial userbase.
I for one, hope that OFTC will be one of them.

Since OFTC went public on 21st June 2002, it has grown to a userbase of
over 2200 users[0], following a steady pattern of growth, with over 1000
users online at any one point.[1]

It was stated earlier in the thread, one of the reasons for suggesting
renaming SPI-INC to "The Debian Foundation" was to try and ensure "SPI"
is linked more closely to its projects - and namely its biggest one -
Debian.

This to put it quite frankly stinks of a corporate rebranding exercise,
the type of which, from my experience rarely succeeds, and ends up
causing much more harm than good.

As someone who is reputably one of the greatest playrights of all time
said "What's in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name
would smell as sweet."

I don't see how renaming SPI would drastically change things. Cutting
out a lot of the beaucracy which is preventing it functioning (e.g
Quorum...), is a much more beneficial way to improve its workings,
and ensure it runs efficiently.

Sure SPI has its "star player" - currently Debian, but I don't think
it should risk overlooking its less high profile projects in this way.

Wichert, and Mako, already mentioned the problems which could affect
other projects.

One of these problems, which would ineviatably because, would be
the reopening of the bitter flame war which took place last summer,
is I think what would happen to irc.debian.org...
If Spi Inc, became the Debian Foundation, then OFTC would be, a Debian
Project.
Which would then make the fact that irc.debian.org points to FreeNode
a more than contentious issue. - I'm not saying it should be repointed,
its not my position to say, but if "The Debian Foundation" was seen to be
publically (as it would appear to a layman), having a vote of no
confidence in one of its projects (in choosing not to use it), it could
have serious reprecussions for that project.

> Again, I reiterate my earlier point. The services that SPI claims to
> provide cannot be provided without Debian's resources. The copyrights
> SPI has pledged to hold and defend will have to be defended with Debian
> money if it ever comes to legal blows. That fact has to be recognized.
> Debian, as an organization, needs to be on board with SPI's mission or
> we will face a disaster when it comes time to perform on the promises we
> have made to our projects.

For the moment the above is true, yes.
As other SPI Projects grow, and flourish alongside Debian, the resources
will be more evenly distributed.

I would recommend against a renaming of SPI to The Debian Foundation.

thanks,

Andrew Mulholland
Chair - Network Operations Committee
OFTC.net

[0] 20:22 -OperServ(services(at)services(dot)oftc(dot)net)- NickServ: 2237
records, 192 kB (currently registered nicks, going by my logs, there
is at least another 1000 users without registered nicks).
[1] http://irc.netsplit.de/networks/OFTC/history.var

On Mon, Jul 21, 2003 at 01:46:06PM -0500, Ean Schuessler wrote:
> I agree, in every way, that the goals of SPI are praiseworthy. I am not
> advocating that we abandon those goals. What I am noting, and you have
> failed to address, is the fact that SPI cannot perform any of these
> services in any realistic way except by using Debian's resources.

Uh, SPI already does things Debian cannot: SPI can accept tax-deductible
donations in the US, and limit the liability to its officers. These are
the reasons OFTC and Debian make use of SPI, and they're essentially the
defining characteristics of SPI. SPI's not about incubating free software
projects -- the times it's tried to do that, it's failed miserable (cf
Open Hardware, or even the LSB and OSI) -- it's purpose is to support
existing free software projects.

> It is
> entertaining to dream of a SPI that has its own resources that are
> greater than Debian's but that SPI does not exist. I think it is time
> that we recognize that Debian will foot the bill if any of these legal
> adventures go awry.

SPI is the mechanism by which Debian pays for things it values,
whether they be domain registrations, debian conferences, or legal
adventures; neither more nor less. Debian will foot the bill for these
"legal adventures" if, and only if, it wants to undertake them in the
first place.

> Again, I reiterate my earlier point. The services that SPI claims to
> provide cannot be provided without Debian's resources. The copyrights
> SPI has pledged to hold and defend will have to be defended with Debian
> money if it ever comes to legal blows.

Or defended with moneys donated by the project for whom the copyrights are
held. Or defended on a no-win-no-fee or pro-bono basis. Or not defended
at all. I don't think it's appropriate for SPI to be committing the funds
it holds in Debian's name to defend OFTC trademarks. Or the converse.

Cheers,
aj

--
Anthony Towns <aj(at)humbug(dot)org(dot)au> <http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/>
I don't speak for anyone save myself. GPG signed mail preferred.

``Is this some kind of psych test?
Am I getting paid for this?''

On Mon, Jul 21, 2003 at 01:46:06PM -0500, Ean Schuessler wrote:
> > Fresco is not a Debian project. It has nothing to do with developing an
> > operation system or any of Debian's goals. It's free software, but
> > that is about it.
>
> I believe that "being free software" is the only thing that any piece of
> software has in common with Debian's goals. Debian's goal is to build a
> useful operating system composed entirely of Free Software. It is
> natural that Debian, with its many resources, would want to incubate
> interesting Free Software projects and aid their success.

But Fresco has _nothing_ to do with Debian. I don't remember if it's even
packaged. Fresco is being hosted by SPI and SPI only. In addition to that,
I don't believe they transferred any copyrights or trademarks to SPI so SPI
isn't obliged to use any money (especially not Debian's money) to defend
them in court.

> The services that SPI claims to provide cannot be provided without
> Debian's resources.

Fresco is the perfectly valid example of exactly the contrary.
And it's working out just fine. Don't fix it when it ain't broken.

--
2. That which causes joy or happiness.

On Tue, 2003-07-22 at 06:41, Josip Rodin wrote:
> But Fresco has _nothing_ to do with Debian. I don't remember if it's even
> packaged. Fresco is being hosted by SPI and SPI only. In addition to that,
> I don't believe they transferred any copyrights or trademarks to SPI so SPI
> isn't obliged to use any money (especially not Debian's money) to defend
> them in court.

So, then, what is our mission? Does "SPI hosted" just mean web hosting?
Is it a productive use of all of our time to build an organization that
provides "free" web hosting for Open Source projects? Isn't that
SourceForge? Who will provides the bandwidth for these downloads? I will
note that Purcel (which provides Fresco with its web space) is hosted by
my company at my expense. I'm friends with Graydon Hoare so I'd host
Fresco anyway, but I'd like a Brainfood button on the page or something.

Purcel is just another resouce that was given to SPI because of Debian.
The fact that Fresco is only a small draw on borrowed Debian resources
doesn't really make your point effectively. SPI clearly isn't fulfilling
its mission in Fresco's case. We should be doing much more for them or
we don't have a very compelling reason to exist.

If we have a project that really uses our services and we are drawn into
a legal action and the courts make a judgement against us then we better
have Debian behind the decisions that drew us into court. Our
disorganized accounting saying "this money is Debian's" is probably not
going to diminish our liability. The board is almost all Debianers, the
membership is mostly Debianers, so the court is probably going to decide
that the responsibility (and the cost) belong to Debian. I'll run this
by Chris Rourk to verify my thinking.

--
_____________________________________________________________________
Ean Schuessler ean(at)brainfood(dot)com
Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com

On Wed, Jul 23, 2003 at 04:59:52PM -0500, Ean Schuessler wrote:

> If we have a project that really uses our services and we are drawn into
> a legal action and the courts make a judgement against us then we better
> have Debian behind the decisions that drew us into court. Our
> disorganized accounting saying "this money is Debian's" is probably not
> going to diminish our liability. The board is almost all Debianers, the
> membership is mostly Debianers, so the court is probably going to decide
> that the responsibility (and the cost) belong to Debian. I'll run this
> by Chris Rourk to verify my thinking.

This is a very good point; perhaps some kind of trust administered by SPI
would be a better way to hold each project's money if there are at some
point a significant number of larger ones?

Cheers,

Nick
--
Nick Phillips -- nwp(at)lemon-computing(dot)com
Be security conscious -- National defense is at stake.

On Wed, Jul 23, 2003 at 04:59:52PM -0500, Ean Schuessler wrote:
> SourceForge? Who will provides the bandwidth for these downloads? I will
> note that Purcel (which provides Fresco with its web space) is hosted by
> my company at my expense. I'm friends with Graydon Hoare so I'd host

I fail to see what relevance the fact that you host purcel has on this
discussion of the overall mission of SPI. In fact, I resent the notion that
since you host one of our machines, that you should therefore have more say
about what our organization does.

> Fresco anyway, but I'd like a Brainfood button on the page or something.

I think that any conditions on donated machines or bandwidth should be named
up front so that SPI can approve or reject them in advance.

-- John

On Thu, 2003-07-24 at 08:18, John Goerzen wrote:
> I fail to see what relevance the fact that you host purcel has on this
> discussion of the overall mission of SPI. In fact, I resent the notion that
> since you host one of our machines, that you should therefore have more say
> about what our organization does.

John, you are still not seeing my point. I am involved in SPI because of
Debian. The only service that Fresco uses is web hosting provided by
Purcel, which I host. Therefore, I can tell you definatively that Fresco
uses yet another service that only exists because of Debian. That is all
I'm saying.

Stop trying to paint my donations and participation as some sort of
threat. It has been done many times over the years and every time it has
been baseless. Furthermore, it hurts my feelings.

--
_____________________________________________________________________
Ean Schuessler ean(at)brainfood(dot)com
Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com

On Thu, Jul 24, 2003 at 04:29:01PM -0500, Ean Schuessler wrote:
> John, you are still not seeing my point. I am involved in SPI because of
> Debian. The only service that Fresco uses is web hosting provided by
> Purcel, which I host. Therefore, I can tell you definatively that Fresco
> uses yet another service that only exists because of Debian. That is all
> I'm saying.

OK, got that now. That's not what I understood; sorry for the
misunderstanding.

> Stop trying to paint my donations and participation as some sort of
> threat. It has been done many times over the years and every time it has
> been baseless. Furthermore, it hurts my feelings.

I am not trying to do that. I merely said that 1) I didn't see why purcel
was relevant to the discussion of the overall mission, and 2) it seemed that
you were claiming a special ability to have say over SPI because you host a
machine. Given that you say #2 was false, I'll accept your word on that.

I also commented on the Brainfood button thing, suggesting that any requests
of this type should have been made at the time the donations were offered,
rather than in an ex post facto manner. (This is a general practice that we
should implement.)

I don't see how any of this constitutes attempting to paint your donations
and participation as a threat. So I misunderstood you; where do you get me
attempting to paint you as a threat out of that?

-- John

On Wed, Jul 23, 2003 at 04:59:52PM -0500, Ean Schuessler wrote:
> So, then, what is our mission? Does "SPI hosted" just mean web hosting? Is
> it a productive use of all of our time to build an organization that
> provides "free" web hosting for Open Source projects? Isn't that
> SourceForge? Who will provides the bandwidth for these downloads? I will
> note that Purcel (which provides Fresco with its web space) is hosted by
> my company at my expense. I'm friends with Graydon Hoare so I'd host
> Fresco anyway, but I'd like a Brainfood button on the page or something.
>
> Purcel is just another resouce that was given to SPI because of Debian.
> The fact that Fresco is only a small draw on borrowed Debian resources
> doesn't really make your point effectively.

You make the whole thing sound really... wrong. I don't know how else to
describe this attitude. We can evacuate purcel from Brainfood if you like,
too. The only reason nobody suggested it before was because it wastes so
little bandwidth it's not even remotely touching the limits of your T1.
(FYI there are many places that would be happy to give us lots more bandwidth,
and places with a much higher threshold of when money is mentioned.)

But even if graydon being a Debian developer was the only reason for SPI to
originally host Berlin (now Fresco), I don't see how this could be construed
as something that needs the whole project's backing in any way (regardless
of what you speculate courts will think). Fresco needs some resources, and
it's SPI that's lending them a hand, not Debian. If it was Debian, it would
be done on a .debian.org machine.

--
2. That which causes joy or happiness

On Thu, Jul 24, 2003 at 04:29:01PM -0500, Ean Schuessler wrote:
> I am involved in SPI because of Debian. The only service that Fresco uses
> is web hosting provided by Purcel, which I host. Therefore, I can tell you
> definatively that Fresco uses yet another service that only exists because
> of Debian.

Non sequitur. A more correct conclusion is that Fresco uses a service that
came to existence because of several reasons, behind which is Debian. It
doesn't remain to exist because of Debian -- if Debian dropped off the face
of the Earth and Fresco remained, I (and I trust several other SPI members)
would do whatever we could to maintain Fresco stuff, otherwise why bother in
the first place?

> Stop trying to paint my donations and participation as some sort of
> threat. It has been done many times over the years and every time it has
> been baseless. Furthermore, it hurts my feelings.

Yeah, don't remind us of that pointless series of flamewars on Debian
mailing lists when ftp-master was relocated out of Brainfood. :p
It is exactly because of those feelings that issues such as where something
is hosted can't be done rationally as they should.

--
2. That which causes joy or happiness.

On Thu, 2003-07-24 at 16:40, John Goerzen wrote:
> I don't see how any of this constitutes attempting to paint your donations
> and participation as a threat. So I misunderstood you; where do you get me
> attempting to paint you as a threat out of that?

I understood you to be saying that I am trying to use my meager
bandwidth donation on Purcel as some sort of leverage in a decision
making process.

--
_____________________________________________________________________
Ean Schuessler ean(at)brainfood(dot)com
Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com

On Thu, 2003-07-24 at 16:53, Josip Rodin wrote:
> You make the whole thing sound really... wrong. I don't know how else to
> describe this attitude. We can evacuate purcel from Brainfood if you like,
> too. The only reason nobody suggested it before was because it wastes so
> little bandwidth it's not even remotely touching the limits of your T1.
> (FYI there are many places that would be happy to give us lots more bandwidth,
> and places with a much higher threshold of when money is mentioned.)

I have little doubt that MSU, ISC, HP or any number of donors with much
greater capacity than I have are available to help. But they would, as I
do, offer help purely because of SPI's association with Debian. If you
went to any of these donors and explained what you wanted for SPI your
conversation would immediately require that you explain that SPI is
essentially Debian. This, once again, only reinforces the point I am
trying to make but failing to communicate.

> But even if graydon being a Debian developer was the only reason for SPI to
> originally host Berlin (now Fresco), I don't see how this could be construed
> as something that needs the whole project's backing in any way (regardless
> of what you speculate courts will think). Fresco needs some resources, and
> it's SPI that's lending them a hand, not Debian. If it was Debian, it would
> be done on a .debian.org machine.

Again, please, just because a resource isn't labeled *.debian.org
doesn't mean that functionally it isn't a debian resource. Fresco is a
bad example because it doesn't pose much risk or draw much power. Here
is the kind of scenerio that needs to be contemplated:

- Among many new projects SPI picks up something peer-to-peer (ie.
Bittorrent) or something media oriented (ie. mplayer).
- Giant RIAA DMCA related legal behemoth decides to target this project.
- Finding no tangible corporation other than SPI associated with the
project the RIAA/DMCA entity files suit against SPI with various
confusing a baseless legal claims.
- We contact Chris Rourk, he agrees that the claims are bullshit and
consults with his superiors about how much he can help us.
- Chris finds that the RIAA/DMCA entity is some consortium of Phillips,
Sony, Time Warner and other similar clients, several of whom are major
cash cow customers of the firm and sadly explains his inability to
participate in our defence.
- Chris provides us with the names of several good lawyers who have low
rates.

So, here we have a few choices:

- Abandon the project to the wolves by capitulating the unreasonable
(but legally binding if we settle) terms of the evil consortium.
- Fight in court.

Both options suck. But let's say we stick to our guns and don't abandon
the project we have made commitments to. We must have money so we can:

- Get approval from Debian to spend the money, which would probably take
longer than the court case itself.
- Try to get by on the small amount of money officially assigned to SPI,
which means we would probably lose.
- Ignore the case and cross our fingers which would gaurantee that we
lose.

So, what if we lose? Well, the court might decide that we owe damages
and will come looking for money. The fact that some of the money is
"earmarked" for Debian will probably have little impact on what the
court demands that we pay. We will probably have to hand over the Debian
money or face additional charges for failing to comply with the court's
settlement. Does this begin to paint the picture?

Of course, if the settlement was really screwy and out of control then
we might end up owing considerably more money than we actually have. If
that happened then ALL of SPI's assets might be forfiet. Money,
copyrights and even TRADEMARKS and DOMAIN NAMES. Imagine the reaction of
the Debian community when they find that the Debian trademark and
domains have been lost because of some screwy SPI adventure they weren't
even aware of. I, personally, don't want that on my shoulders.

All of this could be painted as mad ravings, but I suggest you take a
look at the current legal climate out there. I don't think I'm off base.
These risks must be controlled or we are totally failing in our due
diligence.

--
_____________________________________________________________________
Ean Schuessler ean(at)brainfood(dot)com
Brainfood, Inc. http://www.brainfood.com

[Josip Rodin pruned from the CC list, since I assume he's on the mailing
lists in the first place and this isn't a direct reply to him.]

On Thu, Jul 24, 2003 at 08:12:20PM -0500, Ean Schuessler wrote:
> - Among many new projects SPI picks up something peer-to-peer (ie.
> Bittorrent) or something media oriented (ie. mplayer).
> - Giant RIAA DMCA related legal behemoth decides to target this project.
> - Finding no tangible corporation other than SPI associated with the
> project the RIAA/DMCA entity files suit against SPI with various
> confusing a baseless legal claims.

That doesn't have any bearing on Debian specifically, other than that
most of SPI's current assets are being held on behalf of Debian. Yes,
it's possible that due to an adverse legal judgment Debian's money might
have to be tapped to pay damages. But, when Debian entrusted its money
to a corporation and then allowed that corporation to take on other
member projects, it must have known that the money might have to be
spent according to the outcome of a court case relating to one of those
other court cases. Conversely, if SPI is sued due to an action of
Debian's, and the judgment is for more money than SPI has in total, any
money held by SPI for other projects will also be wiped out. It works
both ways. The best way to guard against this happening, of course, is
for SPI's board to do its best not to accept projects that will bring
legal trouble, and for it to make an effort to prevent its existing
member projects from getting into legal trouble.

Certainly Debian currently has the most at stake, but it is quite
conceivable that Debian might cease to be the only large member project
of SPI. For one thing, imagine if some other already large project
decided to affiliate itself with us, and we decided to let it do so.
Immediately, the Debian Foundation would be an inaccurate name. The same
thing could happen over a period of time if an existing member project
grew in size relative to Debian. Also imagine that SPI might choose to
participate in some activities other than holding money and IP. For
instance, it could engage in lobbying (yes, 501(c)3 orgs can do certain
kinds of lobbying) or general public education about free software or
computers as a whole. The Debian Foundation would again be an inaccurate
name, because the organization would be engaging in substantial
activites not specifically related to the particular OS that is Debian,
nor would it be restricting itself to overseeing (a) software project(s)
(like the Apache and GNOME Foundations) or making targeted grants (like
most other foundations).

All of those reasons, as well as others, make me oppose a name change to
the Debian Foundation.

- Jimmy Kaplowitz
jimmy(at)debian(dot)org

On Thu, Jul 24, 2003 at 08:12:20PM -0500, Ean Schuessler wrote:
> > You make the whole thing sound really... wrong. I don't know how else to
> > describe this attitude. We can evacuate purcel from Brainfood if you like,
> > too. The only reason nobody suggested it before was because it wastes so
> > little bandwidth it's not even remotely touching the limits of your T1.
> > (FYI there are many places that would be happy to give us lots more bandwidth,
> > and places with a much higher threshold of when money is mentioned.)
>
> I have little doubt that MSU, ISC, HP or any number of donors with much
> greater capacity than I have are available to help. But they would, as I
> do, offer help purely because of SPI's association with Debian.

I disagree with such oversimplification. There are plenty of free software
projects out there that manage without Debian's explicit involvement. In
particular there are SPI-sponsored projects that manage without Debian's
explicit involvement.

SPI has long evolved beyond the point where it needs Debian to handhold it
to get anything done. (Cynics might say that it still isn't getting anything
done, but at least it's not getting it done on its own ;)

> > But even if graydon being a Debian developer was the only reason for SPI to
> > originally host Berlin (now Fresco), I don't see how this could be construed
> > as something that needs the whole project's backing in any way (regardless
> > of what you speculate courts will think). Fresco needs some resources, and
> > it's SPI that's lending them a hand, not Debian. If it was Debian, it would
> > be done on a .debian.org machine.
>
> Again, please, just because a resource isn't labeled *.debian.org
> doesn't mean that functionally it isn't a debian resource.

Silly word plays. It's not handled by the Debian Project. It serves a
purpose that's beneficial to Debian just like any other SPI-sponsored
project, but it's simply not handled by the Debian Project, on purpose!

> Fresco is a bad example because it doesn't pose much risk or draw much
> power. Here is the kind of scenerio that needs to be contemplated:

Perhaps it would be wiser to contemplate something that is actually
happenning (or even has a chance of happenning). SPI has never sponsored a
FS project that had pending legal issues and I doubt it ever will --
besides, people simply won't offer it to us because they know we can't,
shouldn't and won't handle it.

> All of this could be painted as mad ravings, but I suggest you take a
> look at the current legal climate out there. I don't think I'm off base.

I know the whole story, but rather than fixing the breakage we are
preventing it from ever happenning simply by sponsoring projects that
aren't done in a manner that's openly defying a law (how ever inane
the law may be).

The matter of founding new entities to handle each supported project's
donations can be handled in a less intrusive way than renaming the whole
kit and caboodle to "Debian Foundation".

--
2. That which causes joy or happiness.