Re: Problem application
On Thu, Oct 05, 2000 at 11:55:36AM -0400, Gopal Narayanan wrote:
>
> Just a note of caution - with items 3 & 4, we are asking a person
> whose trustworthiness is in question to agree not to sue. IANAL, and
> it worries me as to how legally binding his agreement not to sue
> (assuming he agrees to that condition) would be. On that matter, I am
> not sure if any of us, as individual developers have any
> organizational legal backing from such a suit.
>
> It would be simpler to phrase the letter to the applicant in words
> that are clear that his best option is to cancel his application.
>
My understanding of indemnities and such is that you can never sign away
your right to sue anyway, but you can make it awfully hard to win if you sue
after agreeing not to. Most lawyers won't work on a no-win case for free. I
don't think we can really do any better than that and still function.
Failing to act could also be actionable. Legal advice on this would
probably be a very good thing if possible. I imagine it wouldn't be too
difficult to obtain if we already had a process and just asked "Is this
good?" and making necessary changes rather than asking a lawyer to draft a
whole process for us.
Hopefully most questionable applicants would immediately drop out after
being put on hold and told of the accusations, but allowing a process after
that point if they don't wish to quit would offer some protection for
Debian, the AM, and the applicant. The letter after step 1 could discourage
them from taking this course. "If your really want to continue your
application there is a process you can still go through, but it will likely
take far more effort and time than most applications, and may end up being
more public than desirable."
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