Re: The organization of xml.apache.org - legal issues

[Shane Curcuru <sh...@yahoo.com>]

---- Legal issues, PMCs/Members/Committers, etc. ----
Unfortunately, this is an area that some people have concern about, but
few of us seem to be actual lawyers with the experience to accurately
describe the details...  And when it comes to legal issues, the details
ARE the important stuff.

In terms of liability, remember it's a fairly unlikely thing to come up
anyway.  (Of course that's just some handwaving, I know)

What's the real state currently?  I don't know, since I'm not a lawyer
(and I haven't re-read the whole bylaws and other official ASF policies
that make up our legal corporate definitions).  I'm not even sure I
should try to paraphrase.

If there is a solution that can get effective liability protection to
every committer without having to change the whole structure of the
ASF, I would support it.  But I'm not sure of the best way to do this. 
One idea is to effectively have every committer also be a member of
their project's PMC; in theory since the PMC is the officially
recognized oversigh body by the ASF, then PMC members are somehow
covered.  But we'd really need to be sure of the details first.

Sorry, I just don't have good ideas on this issue yet.  8-(

Note also that if you're concerned with the future ASF license 2.0,
then you should consider joining the licensing@ list where that's being
discussed.  Subscriptions are moderated but (IMO) any active committer
who has an interest should be able to subscribe.

Oh, and talking about legal issues, some disclaimers:  I'm speaking
solely on behalf of myself here; I am a Member of the ASF; I'm an
active committer on the xml-commons and xml-xalan projects; I try to
listen on general@xml, general@jakarta, infrastructure@, licensing@,
and community@; I work at IBM; and I have cats.


=====
- Shane

<eof .sig="'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, 
in a very scornful tone, 'it means just what I 
choose it to mean - neither more nor less'"
"Oohayu oyod?!"=gis. />

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