maemo.org - Talk - [RFC] On the roles of Maemo Council and Maemo e.V.

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Re: [RFC] On the roles of Maemo Council and Maemo e.V.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Estel (Post 1441304)

And as part of this productive talk, you quickly ignored ...
/Estel

The same way I quickly ignore all the posts (be it by you or by someone else) where a personal war is put on the table.

Re: [RFC] On the roles of Maemo Council and Maemo e.V.

Quote:

Originally Posted by woody14619 (Post 1441211)

Which is the problem. If you think you're going to have problems with people giving their names to be part of a body of people to vote on those with legal liability, where do you plan on finding a group willing to give their names and be legally liable for things, and have no say or control over what they're being held liable for?

again - unless these orders are illegal. Why is that not sufficient to cover BoD's asses?

Quote:

It helps the community by keeping the lights on. There needs to be a legal entity to take responsibility for these items. That could be a single person, or an e.V., or a corporation. You may be able to pull off having servers dangling out there is space for a while, an even have illegal things going on (ala Silk Road). But we've seen time and time again where that ends, and it's never pretty.

I am not arguing whether there is a need for a legal entity. Sure, there must be one. Most probably it is my English, but I have no better :)

1. Turn Maemo (community) into a corporation, with GA on top and BoD(or whatever it is called in german) as executive body. In this scenario I don't see (or didn't get it) what exactly role has the community council. If GA is "the community" that tells BoD what to do, there is really no need for another entity doing the same. And how's that going to work legally. So maybe completely removing CC in this scenario is the sanest thing to do.

So, in (1) CC is completely removed, thus my question - how that benefits the community.

Quote:

Because there are other legal items that it needs to do. Filing tax forms, renewing trade marks, handling requests from governments and other companies.

My bad for not putting quotes around "cashier". Sure those legal items you describe are implicitly included in the "cashier"'s role

Quote:

Tell me: If someone in tech staff were to post something they thought was legal, and it turns out it was not (just randomly, lets say something like an Angry Birds app). When Rovio comes after those servers, it's not going to go after "the community" or "Council" or even "GA". It looks for the legal entity responsible for the servers and goes for them. And there is always someone legally liable. Minimally the company or individual providing internet access to the server if the "owner" can't be found.

This is something that should be well thought and I don't feel competent enough in the matter to have the answer ready, but I am sure one can find a way so the legal entity to have the means to stop illegal activity by techstaff or CC

Quote:

As for TechStaff and sysops not doing something requested if they feel it's "bad for the community", that was the core of an argument about device images. Nokia claimed it's images were copyright and needed to be removed. TechStaff bulked at removing them (someone was claiming they were "all FOSS") and they were vital to community. Legally though, we had to remove them. Nokia was nice about looking the other way for months while we had that debate internally.

Who will put themselves in a position of being liable for that, while having only the job of "cashier", and no say in what's going on?

again, we fall into "if not illegal" clause.

Quote:

Which is exactly what HiFo is, with the exception that HiFo is elected by the masses, where the e.V. board would be elected by the GA (in this case Council) only. GA elects the Board, and can force a new election. That is it's main power. Council has that same power over HiFo, except that it must potentially give up it's own reign at the same time by calling joint elections.

And I tend to disagree here - the type of people needed in the Board is not the same as for CC IMO. So the Board cannot be a replacement for CC.

Re: [RFC] On the roles of Maemo Council and Maemo e.V.

everyone, _please_ clearly mark your edits, in my view if you doing more that simple corrections you should make a new post - editing your post after it has been responded both makes you look undecided and makes keeping the responses both concise and relevant very difficult.

Quote:

Originally Posted by joerg_rw (Post 1441328)

By listening to community and the intentions and interests that get voiced. And of course by applying simple common sense

And how do they "listening to community and the intentions and interests that get voiced"?
of the things that get voiced how do they know what the community thinks is in the community's best interests?

note: joreg_rw's responce is a "what" not a "how", think " what is the goal, as opposed to "how it gets executed", but ill take it, it will just take longer to explain myself...

Re: [RFC] On the roles of Maemo Council and Maemo e.V.

@freemangordon

my reasoning behind the stance of "in the best interest" as opposed to "is it illegal"
is to do with liability
first: legally the community is _not_ part of HiFo.
second: legally the board are the "controlling entity" and therefore have the most liability.

unfortunately without more research i cannot tell you the exact position of the council in regards to legal liability, but suffice to say their legal liability sits well below the board.

so if the HiFo board do something that the community council tells it too do on behalf of the community, they are responsible for that action, If that action leads to circumstances that the community dislikes, then the board are in a position were they are legally vulnerable and legal action could be taken against them, even though the original action was perfectly legal.

Re: [RFC] On the roles of Maemo Council and Maemo e.V.

Quote:

Originally Posted by chainsawbike (Post 1441353)

so if the HiFo board do something that the community council tells it too do on behalf of the community, they are responsible for that action, If that action leads to circumstances that the community dislikes, then the board are in a position were they are legally vulnerable and legal action could be taken against them, even though the original action was perfectly legal.

Sure, but AIUI it is the same even if there is no CC - they can always do something (like removing SDK images :) ), that the community dislikes. How's that different?

Re: [RFC] On the roles of Maemo Council and Maemo e.V.

Quote:

Originally Posted by freemangordon (Post 1441356)

Sure, but AIUI it is the same even if there is no CC - they can always do something (like removing SDK images :) ), that the community dislikes. How's that different?

Correct, the board, being the legal entity, is 100% legally responsible. I said this before, and I repeat it here.
This is why it is important that the board (of eV) is indeed the upper mandate (power if you want) - since they are the ones risking legal actions - and yes, that could include prison or in 'best' case fines for for example copyright enfridgments.

Re: [RFC] On the roles of Maemo Council and Maemo e.V.

Quote:

Originally Posted by freemangordon (Post 1441356)

Sure, but AIUI it is the same even if there is no CC - they can always do something (like removing SDK images :) ), that the community dislikes. How's that different?

well consider this:
Nokia hold the distribution rights for the SDK images correct? ( some of the content can be freely distributed by itself due to its licensing but as whole package Nokia holds the rights)

Nokia have chosen ( or are forced to by a 3rd party ) not to allow HiFo those rights therefore its illegal to distribute that package.

how would a court case against someone who complied with a valid legal request to stop doing something, taken up by a party that was disadvantaged by the action that was legally forced be stopped end?

if the board did not take down the images Nokia could take legal action against the board. the board could be forced to pay damages( for example *) which would harm the community due the lack of funds to run the infrastructure.

OTOH if the board receives a formal request that the board believes it does not legally need to be complied with, it can at its discretion choose to ignore it if it concludes the potential threat of not complying is less harmful that the action needed for compliance.

*there are many ways this could play out, this is a simple example, action could be taken against HiFo or the board members themselves or both, depending on the circumstances.
(this paragraph has been edited to correct a spelling error, sorry :( )

Re: [RFC] On the roles of Maemo Council and Maemo e.V.

Quote:

Originally Posted by freemangordon (Post 1441344)

So, in (1) CC is completely removed, thus my question - how that benefits the community.

And how you think that keeping Council benefits the Community? Especially, looking at Council's history?

Quote:

Originally Posted by freemangordon (Post 1441344)

again - unless these orders are illegal. Why is that not sufficient to cover BoD's asses?

This is something that should be well thought and I don't feel competent enough in the matter to have the answer ready, but I am sure one can find a way so the legal entity to have the means to stop illegal activity by techstaff or CC

The, we end up with exactly what we have now, and had for looong time - Board thinking that some decision is illegal and denying to do it, Council (or someone from Council) insisting that it's legal and pushing to do it = eternal conflict.

I will repeat myself - guys without legal responsibility can't decide on a rat's s**t thing, that require guys with legal responsibility to be done. It's insane, and won't EVER work.

Want to decide on something - take legal responsibility. Want to just volunteer to make Community better by talking with people, forwarding problems to legal entity, etc - do it, with or without ego-name of Councilor before your nick. But don't expect to have decisive power.

/Estel

Ps.

Quote:

Originally Posted by freemangordon (Post 1441340)

The same way I quickly ignore all the posts (be it by you or by someone else) where a personal war is put on the table.

I'm unsure what "personal war" you're referring to - I quoted your post only, and answered to it. If you mean that I've written some examples of wrong doings of one "Councilor" that wanted too much power - sorry, but those are facts, not opinions.

Just like that fact that he threatened to delete Maemo's infra zillion times, and that he started to demand money for his doubtful service. Board VOTED on moving infra to other, free and reliable hosting, and got ACCUSED of doing "coup" and illegal things by said "Councilor".

If you deny others the right to write about such things and still being kept threatened as "serious discussion partners" by you, then you're not objective and try to pivot discussion to go along your personal sympathies/opinions.

Just like you were OK to write that chemist failed and sucked as CSSU-Stable maintainer (having good examples of why), everyone else is free to write that joerg failed, sucked, acted irrationally, and tries to grab power, then goes crybaby, when others took "toys" away from his hands.

/Estel

Re: [RFC] On the roles of Maemo Council and Maemo e.V.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Estel (Post 1441460)

Just like that fact that he threatened to delete Maemo's infra zillion times, and that he started to demand money for his doubtful service.

PROVE! Or rename to ESTEL_THE_LIAR
don't come up with quotes of other people saying similar ****, they probably just quoted you. Prove what I did, by quoting me
And for the smart*sses: I never provided any *own* service [except my free-of-charge_free-of-thanks 24/7 admin coordination], I announced that I will stop to PAY from own purse for service techstaff contracted with some provider, after careful evaluation that techstaff (and council) considred that service the right one, and it's not up to HiFo to overrule both entities, HiFo evidently lacks the competence, yet they not only overruled but actually bypassed council and parts of techstaff, and I've been told they more or less cheated the rest of techstaff into thinking they didn't do such rogue bypassing. THAT'S what I call a coup.
The only council member ever been heard of doing something rogue been YOU actually. No? What been that story with you "stepping down"?

Re: [RFC] On the roles of Maemo Council and Maemo e.V.

Joerg_rw. Are you in or out of council?