Re: Question to all candidates: registering Debian as an organization
On 2022-03-20 13:10, Felix Lechner wrote:
> I'm sorry no one has gotten back to you so far. I do not know which
> ideas Jonathan Carter and Brian Gupta (copied as a courtesy) have been
> pursuing.
>
> My own thinking on this point is also evolving, as detailed below. I
> copied Christan Kastner to make sure he sees this expanded answer.
I was actually less concerned with regards to malicious litigation
(although that is a valid concern), and more with the day-to-day stuff.
Currently, the Project has no legal standing of its
own, meaning that within any legal context, there is no Project. You
can't donate to Debian, you donate to some other organization (SPI). The
DPL can represent the Project only formally, as formally, it doesn't
exist yet. The Project can't own hardware directly, or hold copyrights
directly. It's all down to individuals.
A common pattern to address this within the open source world is to
create a non-profit legal entity, e.g. the FSF Foundation or the GNOME
Foundation.
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