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Unless, of course, GitHub considers every single contributor to Tornado to be part of the sanctioned entity due to the decentralized nature of git? Seems like a
by oliwary 4y ago
Unless, of course, GitHub considers every single contributor to Tornado to be part of the sanctioned entity due to the decentralized nature of git? Seems like a very dangerous interpretation for open source in that case…
- yrro 4y agoIf you really want to lose some sleep look up partnership law. Everyone who has ever contributed to an open source project _could_ be (in the absence of the project setting up proper legal structures) considered a membership of a general partnership, and thereby become jointly and severally subject to unlimited liability for the actions of the partnership. (IANAL this is just what I've read online)
- jaywalk 4y agoIANAL either, but I have taken business law courses. And what you said is simply not true. At all.
- jsty 4y agoI think it would be a fairly novel interpretation of "persons carrying on a business in common with a view to profit" required to catch out contributors to an open source project. Outside of a project that takes contributions / donations without a legal entity to receive them and parcels those out amongst the contributors, I can't think of a reasonable situation that would enable such a definition.
- yrro 4y agoSeems unlikely to me too but that's what I've read. If you ask a lawyer "what are the risks of doing X" they'll give you a list, and some will be more likely than others. It's up to the client to decide what level of risk they're happy with. I managed to dig up the mailing list thread where I read about this risk: https://groups.google.com/g/linux.debian.vote/c/Nl-J8h2pO9A/m/npmD0t-jBwAJ https://groups.google.com/g/linux.debian.vote/c/Nl-J8h2pO9A/...; for context, Sam Hartman is a former Debian Project Leader and I assume his opinion is formed by advice from SPI's lawyers.