Re: [Debconf-team] Regarding DebConf13 planned location
Hi
Moray Allan <moray@sermisy.org> writes:
> On Tue, 2012-11-27 at 12:39 +0100, Holger Levsen wrote:
>> Or maybe, if Le Camp agrees once again to delay the signing, people
>> will believe those who say that Le Camp is a nice trustworthy
>> organisation
>
> This is either misunderstanding people's concerns or a straw man
> argument: no one is saying that Le Camp is not "trustworthy".
>
>> and a
>> contract is just something written on paper.
>
> Someone asserted that contracts don't hold in Switzerland, but they
> didn't reply when asked for details about that.
IANAL, but this is wrong. What's true is that the one guiding principles
for contracts in Swiss law is that the *shared* intent of the parties
rules over what they actually declared (in the written form of the
contract). But you still have to have a shared agreement and if there is
doubt about the intended agreement the written text of the contract is a
very strong hint. You need very clear arguments before court if you want
to go down this route (argueing that both parties intended something
else than was actually written down).[1]
>
> All I know is that in the legal system I know best, contracts do mean
> something, and that being "trustworthy" is about keeping the contracts
> you sign, not about later giving some flexibility to change/remove
> contract terms, if that was not originally specified in the contract.
>
> That affects both what I would expect from Le Camp as a trustworthy
> organisation: that they will keep firmly to the things they agree to do
> in the contract, and what I would expect from the Debian side as a
> trustworthy organisation: that we will keep firmly to the things we
> agree to do in the contract.
To be completely clear and because I might be one of the persons signing
the contract on behalf of the DebConf13.ch associaiton: I only intend to
sign a contract where what's written in the contract is also what I
intend to follow and what I expect the debconf-team to do.
This does not exclude the possiblity to change some parts of the
contract or to do things differently to what's written in the contract
in mutal agreement (ie if both parties to the contract agree). I even
expect this to happen because you can't foresee everything. This is how
successful contractual relations work in most cases. But I don't intend
to sign any contract where I don't have the upfront intention to follow
what's written in the contract.
Gaudenz
>
>>From my viewpoint, if we sign the contract but plan to change points
> later (in a way that is not mentioned as a possibility in the contract),
> we are not being a trustworthy organisation.
>
> --
> Moray
> _______________________________________________
> Debconf-team mailing list
> Debconf-team@lists.debconf.org
> http://lists.debconf.org/mailman/listinfo/debconf-team
[1] See Art 18 and Art 24: http://www.admin.ch/ch/e/rs/220/a18.html,
http://www.admin.ch/ch/e/rs/220/a24.html
Some more background on the actual juidical praxis about this in german:
http://www.honsell.at/Publikationen/FSWalter.pdf
http://www.unifr.ch/zrhr/assets/files/Documents/Publikationen/Gauch/Vertrag_und_Parteiwille.pdf
--
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter.
Try again. Fail again. Fail better.
~ Samuel Beckett ~
Reply to: