Hi.
As I understand it, many Wikimedia Foundation employees are required to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA). Is there a copy of the current version of this non-disclosure agreement anywhere? I briefly checked Meta-Wiki and wikimediafoundation.org, but didn't see anything off-hand.
(I did come across other interesting and somewhat related pages such as https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Statement, though.)
MZMcBride
Hi,
This is the Wikimedia UK version: http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Non_Disclosure_Agreement
Also relevant may be this discussion: http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Water_cooler/2012#Comparison_of_UK_NDA_with_WMF...
~~~~, Salvidrim
-----Original Message----- From: MZMcBride Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2013 8:21 PM To: Wikimedia Mailing List Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation's non-disclosure agreement
Hi.
As I understand it, many Wikimedia Foundation employees are required to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA). Is there a copy of the current version of this non-disclosure agreement anywhere? I briefly checked Meta-Wiki and wikimediafoundation.org, but didn't see anything off-hand.
(I did come across other interesting and somewhat related pages such as https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Statement, though.)
MZMcBride
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Salvidrim wrote:
This is the Wikimedia UK version: http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Non_Disclosure_Agreement
Also relevant may be this discussion: http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Water_cooler/2012#Comparison_of_UK_NDA_with_W MF_NDA
Thanks for the links. :-) I started an index page at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Non-disclosure_agreements.
MZMcBride
MZMcBride wrote:
As I understand it, many Wikimedia Foundation employees are required to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA). Is there a copy of the current version of this non-disclosure agreement anywhere? I briefly checked Meta-Wiki and wikimediafoundation.org, but didn't see anything off-hand.
I'm still looking for a copy of the Wikimedia Foundation's non-disclosure agreement. Does anyone know who might be able to provide a copy for Meta-Wiki? There's a very sad index of Wikimedia-related NDAs here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/NDA.
MZMcBride
I think it's necessary for the Foundation to both provide a copy and explain the necessity of the NDA for transparency and legal/ethical reasons, especially if they are asking volunteers to sign them.
On Tue, Mar 5, 2013 at 3:40 PM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
MZMcBride wrote:
As I understand it, many Wikimedia Foundation employees are required to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA). Is there a copy of the current version of this non-disclosure agreement anywhere? I briefly checked Meta-Wiki and wikimediafoundation.org, but didn't see anything off-hand.
I'm still looking for a copy of the Wikimedia Foundation's non-disclosure agreement. Does anyone know who might be able to provide a copy for Meta-Wiki? There's a very sad index of Wikimedia-related NDAs here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/NDA.
MZMcBride
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Mono wrote:
I think it's necessary for the Foundation to both provide a copy and explain the necessity of the NDA for transparency and legal/ethical reasons, especially if they are asking volunteers to sign them.
Hmm, not just asking, but apparently requiring certain volunteers to sign them. It's unclear which volunteers are and are not exempt from this requirement. For example, it seems that Bugzilla administrators are now required to have signed an NDA, but OTRS volunteers and wiki administrators are not. Wikimedia stewards... it's unclear, as it is for many other user volunteer groups (people with access to rt.wikimedia.org, shell users, et al.).
I suppose we should begin to expand the page on Meta-Wiki. Cunningham's Law will kick in, as necessary.
MZMcBride
I have not seen a copy of such NDAs myself. Where did you see that Bugzilla admins have to sign an NDA?
As far as I know the relevant issue is that anyone who has access to private personal information of users needs to sign an agreement that they will not share that information.
Whatever people are signing, it makes sense for the agreements themselves to be public.
SJ
On Tue, Mar 5, 2013 at 6:21 PM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
Mono wrote:
I think it's necessary for the Foundation to both provide a copy and explain the necessity of the NDA for transparency and legal/ethical reasons, especially if they are asking volunteers to sign them.
Hmm, not just asking, but apparently requiring certain volunteers to sign them. It's unclear which volunteers are and are not exempt from this requirement. For example, it seems that Bugzilla administrators are now required to have signed an NDA, but OTRS volunteers and wiki administrators are not. Wikimedia stewards... it's unclear, as it is for many other user volunteer groups (people with access to rt.wikimedia.org, shell users, et al.).
I suppose we should begin to expand the page on Meta-Wiki. Cunningham's Law will kick in, as necessary.
MZMcBride
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-- Samuel Klein @metasj w:user:sj +1 617 529 4266
Samuel Klein wrote:
I have not seen a copy of such NDAs myself. Where did you see that Bugzilla admins have to sign an NDA?
Philippe B. said so, I'm told. As it happens, most Bugzilla admins are Wikimedia Foundation staff, so the issue doesn't seem to come up much.
As far as I know the relevant issue is that anyone who has access to private personal information of users needs to sign an agreement that they will not share that information.
This definition doesn't seem to include CheckUsers, oversighters, OTRS volunteers and OTRS administrators, wiki administrators, and many others, so I'm not sure it's accurate.
It's unclear whether Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees members and Wikimedia stewards are also required to sign NDAs. It seems all Wikimedia Foundation employees are required to sign one.
And I imagine there are other (volunteer) user groups I'm forgetting.
Whatever people are signing, it makes sense for the agreements themselves to be public.
Agreed. :-) Any idea who I could poke about that? I e-mailed this list in January 2013 with no real response.
Relatedly, the Wikimedia Foundation's employee handbook was posted to wikimediafoundation.org in December 2012, but it was subsequently deleted without explanation: https://wikimedia.org/wiki/Employee_Handbook and https://wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Smerrick#Employee_Handbook. I'm not totally sure this level of transparency is exactly needed, per se, but it was an interesting read and it may serve as a reference point for other non-profits and similar organizations. It'd be nice to see it re-posted at some point.
MZMcBride
On 6 March 2013 07:11, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
It's unclear whether Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees members and Wikimedia stewards are also required to sign NDAs. It seems all Wikimedia Foundation employees are required to sign one.
Staff contracts should effectively do this, though one might need to add NDAs for temporary contractors and consultants.
(A personal statement, off the top of my head and without doing any research...) trustees should not be asked to sign a NDA as they should be free to act with their conscience for the long term benefit of the charity, which may include being free to publicly discuss negative material; hard to do if every email and document is covered by a NDA. Plus one expects trustees to have liability insurance, so unless there is gross misconduct, such a contract would never be enforceable if the trustee can claim to be acting within their role as a trustee (i.e. any civil claim for damages would effectively be the charity acting against itself).
Wikimedia UK has a Trustee Code of Conduct, which ensures that trustees do not go "off the rails", and sets the behavioural expectations for prospective trustees rather nicely.[1] As well as a list of NDAs, it would be good to have an index of similar governance related codes (Trustee CoC, COI policies,[2] Financial reporting standards, et al).
Links 1. https://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Trustee_Code_of_Conduct 2. https://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Conflict_of_Interest_Policy, http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Conflict_of_interest_policy
Cheers, Fae
On Wed, Mar 6, 2013 at 5:11 PM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
...
As far as I know the relevant issue is that anyone who has access to private personal information of users needs to sign an agreement that they will not share that information.
This definition doesn't seem to include CheckUsers, oversighters, OTRS volunteers and OTRS administrators, wiki administrators, and many others, so I'm not sure it's accurate.
(OTRS Wise) That may be a historical thing and queue dependant, I know the gentlemen from OTRS (Martin?) had to sign one before he could start work on updating the foundation's install
Just a quick note - while I was a fellow, I don't remember signing a NDA. I think people who did surveys had to (researchers, staff members, whatever) depending on the type of information they'd be gathering from people. Or, of course, the type of database you'd be given access too (i.e. it makes sense that maybe someone from analytics or grantmaking <depending on the role> would have to sign an NDA versus someone from the education program).
Most organizations don't walk around releasing their NDA's. In fact, I don't know a single organization that would engage people to do so. And even though WMF is WMF, I don't think it's bad for it to hold onto some professional practices like that. It's common practice, in the States, for non and for profits to do. I always thought it was funny that NDA's existed at WMF just because of the openness, but, at the same time, it's industry standard and doesn't phase me. People should be glad WMF has one.
-Sarah
On 3/5/13 11:34 PM, K. Peachey wrote:
On Wed, Mar 6, 2013 at 5:11 PM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
...
As far as I know the relevant issue is that anyone who has access to private personal information of users needs to sign an agreement that they will not share that information.
This definition doesn't seem to include CheckUsers, oversighters, OTRS volunteers and OTRS administrators, wiki administrators, and many others, so I'm not sure it's accurate.
(OTRS Wise) That may be a historical thing and queue dependant, I know the gentlemen from OTRS (Martin?) had to sign one before he could start work on updating the foundation's install
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As far as I know, NDAs are primarily for protecting people's privacy. I signed a WMF NDA because I'll be reviewing Wikimania scholarships, and I'll see the real names and nationalities etc of many Wikimedia volunteers who attend Wikimania but still try to keep their RL identity separate from their Wikimedia usernames. On Mar 6, 2013 4:43 PM, "Sarah Stierch" sarah.stierch@gmail.com wrote:
Just a quick note - while I was a fellow, I don't remember signing a NDA. I think people who did surveys had to (researchers, staff members, whatever) depending on the type of information they'd be gathering from people. Or, of course, the type of database you'd be given access too (i.e. it makes sense that maybe someone from analytics or grantmaking <depending on the role> would have to sign an NDA versus someone from the education program).
Most organizations don't walk around releasing their NDA's. In fact, I don't know a single organization that would engage people to do so. And even though WMF is WMF, I don't think it's bad for it to hold onto some professional practices like that. It's common practice, in the States, for non and for profits to do. I always thought it was funny that NDA's existed at WMF just because of the openness, but, at the same time, it's industry standard and doesn't phase me. People should be glad WMF has one.
-Sarah
On 3/5/13 11:34 PM, K. Peachey wrote:
On Wed, Mar 6, 2013 at 5:11 PM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
...
As far as I know the relevant issue is that anyone who has access to private personal information of users needs to sign an agreement that they will not share that information.
This definition doesn't seem to include CheckUsers, oversighters, OTRS volunteers and OTRS administrators, wiki administrators, and many others, so I'm not sure it's accurate.
(OTRS Wise) That may be a historical thing and queue dependant, I know the gentlemen from OTRS (Martin?) had to sign one before he could start work on updating the foundation's install
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-- *Sarah Stierch* */Museumist and open culture advocate/*
Visit sarahstierch.com http://sarahstierch.com<<
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On Wed, Mar 6, 2013 at 10:48 AM, Deryck Chan deryckchan@wikimedia.hkwrote:
As far as I know, NDAs are primarily for protecting people's privacy.
That's my understanding as well. I have a NDA with the WMF as a volunteer from a couple years ago to help with fundraising after I no longer contracted for the foundation in order to access the donations CRM. Frankly, I don't know if I can even log into that anymore...l
On Wed, Mar 6, 2013 at 3:10 PM, Keegan Peterzell keegan.wiki@gmail.comwrote:
On Wed, Mar 6, 2013 at 10:48 AM, Deryck Chan deryckchan@wikimedia.hkwrote:
As far as I know, NDAs are primarily for protecting people's privacy.
That's my understanding as well. I have a NDA with the WMF as a volunteer from a couple years ago to help with fundraising after I no longer contracted for the foundation in order to access the donations CRM. Frankly, I don't know if I can even log into that anymore...l
-- ~Keegan
Ignore the I. End message.
On 6 March 2013 22:11, Keegan wrote:
That's my understanding as well. I have a NDA with the WMF as a volunteer from a couple years ago to help with fundraising after I no longer contracted for the foundation in order to access the donations CRM. Frankly, I don't know if I can even log into that anymore...l
Well, I believe it is pretty obvious that one has to sign an NDA when dealing with such information as that available from donors; the donor policy https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donor_policy/en mentions names, addresses and phone numbers of our donors as well as "data visible on the checkques", so I guess it's pretty serious.
I agree that one of the reasons for the existence of NDAs is to protect people's privacy, especially when one has access to such databases as the fundraising one; however, I can't see why a Bugzilla administrator would be required to sign an NDA -- is there anything secret when it comes to bugs in a GPL-licenced software? Or maybe there is a different reason for signing the NDA? Perhaps the admins can access some sensitive data other than IP addresses, etc., which volunteer checkusers and oversighters also have access to, without the need to sign anything?
And just by the way (I think Sarah mentioned that): you just need to Google for "non-disclosure agreement" to find examples of organisations publicly sharing their NDAs--since it is no secret what is usually covered by such documents, why would the WMF not publish their NDA?
On Mar 6, 2013, at 1:40 PM, Tomasz W. Kozłowski odder.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
I can't see why a Bugzilla administrator would be required to sign an NDA -- is there anything secret when it comes to bugs in a GPL-licenced software?
Well. These security bugs are zero-day exploits and often contain patches or other juicy tidbits that will allow hostile individuals to attack sites running vulnerable versions of MediaWiki - including our own cluster - until the hole is closed.
So yes. There's a need for an NDA there.
--- Brandon Harris, Senior Designer, Wikimedia Foundation
Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
On 6 March 2013 22:11, Keegan wrote:
That's my understanding as well. I have a NDA with the WMF as a volunteer from a couple years ago to help with fundraising after I no longer contracted for the foundation in order to access the donations CRM. Frankly, I don't know if I can even log into that anymore...l
Well, I believe it is pretty obvious that one has to sign an NDA when dealing with such information as that available from donors; the donor policy https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donor_policy/en mentions names, addresses and phone numbers of our donors as well as "data visible on the checkques", so I guess it's pretty serious.
I agree that one of the reasons for the existence of NDAs is to protect people's privacy, especially when one has access to such databases as the fundraising one; however, I can't see why a Bugzilla administrator would be required to sign an NDA -- is there anything secret when it comes to bugs in a GPL-licenced software? Or maybe there is a different reason for signing the NDA? Perhaps the admins can access some sensitive data other than IP addresses, etc., which volunteer checkusers and oversighters also have access to, without the need to sign anything?
And just by the way (I think Sarah mentioned that): you just need to Google for "non-disclosure agreement" to find examples of organisations publicly sharing their NDAs--since it is no secret what is usually covered by such documents, why would the WMF not publish their NDA?
Two small points: * you don't always need to sign something to enter a contract or accept a regulation; * I know that laws sometimes (e.g. Italy) require orgs to clearly tell users who's managing their data and to teach such delegates what they must do, but I suppose they don't necessarily care about additional legal sovrastructures that reiterate what the laws themselves order.
Nemo
I had to sign a NDA when I became a "Fellow" three years ago. It was mailed to me (not emailed) so I don't have a copy to refer to anymore. But from what I recall it was actually quite sensible and not "over-reaching". It talked about not publishing other staff's employment details if you happen to learn it, not sharing passwords etc. As other people have said in this thread there are several genuinely valid and good reasons for having a formal agreement. NDA is not inherently bad.
On the other hand, I have been presented with a contract for some work with one of Chapters - that was clearly just copy/paste from a corporate organisation - that included NDA sections. It also included several amusingly irrelevant sections about "returning company equipment" and even an actually free-culture-incompatible section about how I should "assign all rights" to the organisation, including copyright and any patents "current and future" related to my work. Needless to say I didn't sign that.
This being the case, I do agree there is a genuine need for a standardised and clear staff agreement - that is public - that the Chapters can use as a template and so everyone knows what the 'rules' are.
-Liam/Wittylama (no longer a WMF Fellow)
Sarah Stierch wrote:
Most organizations don't walk around releasing their NDA's. In fact, I don't know a single organization that would engage people to do so. And even though WMF is WMF, I don't think it's bad for it to hold onto some professional practices like that. It's common practice, in the States, for non and for profits to do. I always thought it was funny that NDA's existed at WMF just because of the openness, but, at the same time, it's industry standard and doesn't phase me. People should be glad WMF has one.
Generally I'd agree that it'd be an unusual request. On the other hand, if the Wikimedia Foundation is requiring certain _volunteers_ to sign non-disclosure agreements, I think that changes matters.
Deryck Chan wrote:
As far as I know, NDAs are primarily for protecting people's privacy.
Given who is and who is not being asked to sign NDAs, I'm not sure this definition is totally accurate, at least not in the context of Wikimedia.
Keegan Peterzell wrote:
On Wed, Mar 6, 2013 at 10:48 AM, Deryck Chan deryckchan@wikimedia.hk wrote:
As far as I know, NDAs are primarily for protecting people's privacy.
That's my understanding as well. I have a NDA with the WMF as a volunteer from a couple years ago to help with fundraising after I no longer contracted for the foundation in order to access the donations CRM.
Out of curiosity, if you sign an NDA as a volunteer, what is the "disclosure period", then? Is it indefinite?
MZMcBride
On 06/03/2013 23:00, MZMcBride wrote:
Out of curiosity, if you sign an NDA as a volunteer, what is the "disclosure period", then? Is it indefinite?
"Disclosure period"? If you mean how long the party is bound by the agreement, then it'll depends on the exact agreement. For things like personally identifiable information, it will be forever which is kinda the point of having the NDA in the first place.
KTC
Just out of curiousity, MZ, what is your interest in the text of the NDA? Anyone required to abide by one has seen it and knows what the terms are, and no one who hasn't seen it is bound by it. So other than just being curious, is there are particular reason you want to know more about it?
Nathan wrote:
Just out of curiousity, MZ, what is your interest in the text of the NDA? Anyone required to abide by one has seen it and knows what the terms are, and no one who hasn't seen it is bound by it. So other than just being curious, is there are particular reason you want to know more about it?
It came up in the context of Bugzilla adminship for me. On rare occasion, I've also heard threats (or admonitions, I guess) from Wikimedia Foundation staff about colleagues possibly violating the non-disclosure agreement. This of course led to: what are the exact terms of the Wikimedia Foundation's non-disclosure agreement?
Though as I learn more about who is and isn't required to sign an NDA (combined with the lack of a public rationale for making any volunteer sign one), it's become more perplexing and intriguing. It's similar to the "Identification noticeboard" in some ways, which is almost equally entirely arbitrary about who is and isn't required to identify themselves to the Wikimedia Foundation.
MZMcBride
On Wed, Mar 6, 2013 at 5:22 PM, Katie Chan ktc@ktchan.info wrote:
On 06/03/2013 23:00, MZMcBride wrote:
Out of curiosity, if you sign an NDA as a volunteer, what is the "disclosure period", then? Is it indefinite?
"Disclosure period"? If you mean how long the party is bound by the agreement, then it'll depends on the exact agreement. For things like personally identifiable information, it will be forever which is kinda the point of having the NDA in the first place.
KTC
My NDA, signed 7 November 2011, is for three years. I found the copy.
James Salsman:
There are no terms about "disparaging information" or anything like that. Save it for another thread, please.
I can't find a copy of mine (probably in storage somewhere) but I would assume mine was identical to Keegan's since we came in at the same time and did the same job.
-Dan
Dan Rosenthal
On Thu, Mar 7, 2013 at 3:11 AM, Keegan Peterzell keegan.wiki@gmail.comwrote:
On Wed, Mar 6, 2013 at 5:22 PM, Katie Chan ktc@ktchan.info wrote:
On 06/03/2013 23:00, MZMcBride wrote:
Out of curiosity, if you sign an NDA as a volunteer, what is the "disclosure period", then? Is it indefinite?
"Disclosure period"? If you mean how long the party is bound by the agreement, then it'll depends on the exact agreement. For things like personally identifiable information, it will be forever which is kinda
the
point of having the NDA in the first place.
KTC
My NDA, signed 7 November 2011, is for three years. I found the copy.
James Salsman:
There are no terms about "disparaging information" or anything like that. Save it for another thread, please.
-- ~Keegan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Keegan _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
On Mar 7, 2013 8:11 AM, "Keegan Peterzell" keegan.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Mar 6, 2013 at 5:22 PM, Katie Chan ktc@ktchan.info wrote:
On 06/03/2013 23:00, MZMcBride wrote:
Out of curiosity, if you sign an NDA as a volunteer, what is the "disclosure period", then? Is it indefinite?
"Disclosure period"? If you mean how long the party is bound by the agreement, then it'll depends on the exact agreement. For things like personally identifiable information, it will be forever which is kinda
the
point of having the NDA in the first place.
KTC
My NDA, signed 7 November 2011, is for three years. I found the copy.
Same for mine, except for personally identifying information, which is forever.
James Salsman:
There are no terms about "disparaging information" or anything like that. Save it for another thread, please.
-- ~Keegan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Keegan _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
On 7 March 2013 08:11, Keegan Peterzell keegan.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
My NDA, signed 7 November 2011, is for three years. I found the copy.
James Salsman:
There are no terms about "disparaging information" or anything like that. Save it for another thread, please.
The NDA I signed while helping out with WMF fundraising stuff while I was visiting the office (which I think was around April 2010) did have non-disparagement stuff in it. I remember because I had a discussion with Mike Godwin (who was General Counsel at the time) about it and got him to narrow the scope of the clause before I would sign it (the version I signed said I couldn't use anything I learned while doing the fundraising work to disparage the WMF, rather than that I couldn't disparage them at all).
If that bit had been removed from the standard NDA by 7 November 2011, then that's a very good thing IMHO.
It's been two days since the last message in this thread, and a few more days since MZMcBride asked his question.
I am assuming that it (and my later reiteration of it) just got missed among all the e-mails that the WMF staff are receiving, so I'll let myself repeat them:
#1: Does anyone know who might be able to provide a copy of an example NDA signed by WMF staff for use on Meta (at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Non-disclosure_agreements)? #2: If it isn't possible to release the text for the public, is there any particular reason behind that? We all know (or can guess) what's usually covered by such documents, so it doesn't really make sense /not/ to publish that.
Thanks
On 9 March 2013 14:20, Tomasz W. Kozłowski odder.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
#1: Does anyone know who might be able to provide a copy of an example NDA signed by WMF staff for use on Meta (at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Non-disclosure_agreements)? #2: If it isn't possible to release the text for the public, is there any particular reason behind that? We all know (or can guess) what's usually covered by such documents, so it doesn't really make sense /not/ to publish that.
+1 - is the NDA itself under NDA or something?
-d.
On 10/03/13 01:30, David Gerard wrote:
On 9 March 2013 14:20, Tomasz W. Kozłowski odder.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
#1: Does anyone know who might be able to provide a copy of an example NDA signed by WMF staff for use on Meta (at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Non-disclosure_agreements)? #2: If it isn't possible to release the text for the public, is there any particular reason behind that? We all know (or can guess) what's usually covered by such documents, so it doesn't really make sense /not/ to publish that.
+1 - is the NDA itself under NDA or something?
As I said already, it is not.
On 10/03/13 01:32, K. Peachey wrote:
- The legal department could quiet easily do it.
If you ask a lawyer whether it is OK to blow your nose in public, they'll say with great anxiety "hmmm, I don't know, let me get back to you on that." Then depending on how busy they are with other stuff, maybe they'll get back to you a few weeks later with some relevant case law.
That is to say, there are plenty of people who could do it more easily than the legal department.
-- Tim Starling
On Sun, Mar 10, 2013 at 12:20 AM, Tomasz W. Kozłowski odder.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
... #1: Does anyone know who might be able to provide a copy of an example NDA signed by WMF staff for use on Meta (at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Non-disclosure_agreements)? #2: If it isn't possible to release the text for the public, is there any particular reason behind that? We all know (or can guess) what's usually covered by such documents, so it doesn't really make sense /not/ to publish that.
1. The legal department could quiet easily do it. 2. Normally I would find it strange that a legal document could be copyrighted, But you know 'merica where the Law is actually copyrighted (*sigh*) [or at least argued that it is] and the issues surrounding that, Although I do believe the foundation did give a pledge awhile back to make as much as possible under licenses (and iirc transparentancy as well)
On 07/03/13 10:00, MZMcBride wrote:
Sarah Stierch wrote:
Most organizations don't walk around releasing their NDA's. In fact, I don't know a single organization that would engage people to do so. And even though WMF is WMF, I don't think it's bad for it to hold onto some professional practices like that. It's common practice, in the States, for non and for profits to do. I always thought it was funny that NDA's existed at WMF just because of the openness, but, at the same time, it's industry standard and doesn't phase me. People should be glad WMF has one.
Generally I'd agree that it'd be an unusual request. On the other hand, if the Wikimedia Foundation is requiring certain _volunteers_ to sign non-disclosure agreements, I think that changes matters.
As far as I can tell, there's nothing in the volunteer confidentiality and copyright agreement that prevents volunteers from disclosing the text of the agreement. So anyone who's signed it could just post it to meta, assuming they kept a copy. It's probably protected by copyright, but you can always post the relevant excerpt and claim fair use.
-- Tim Starling
On 6 Mar, 2013, at 3:11 PM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
It's unclear whether Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees members and Wikimedia stewards are also required to sign NDAs.
Just for the purpose of information, stewards do not sign NDAs.
Regards,
Benjamin Chen / [[User:Bencmq]]
Benjamin Chen wrote:
On 6 Mar, 2013, at 3:11 PM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
It's unclear whether Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees members and Wikimedia stewards are also required to sign NDAs.
Just for the purpose of information, stewards do not sign NDAs.
Thanks! I've updated https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/NDA accordingly.
MZMcBride
I haven't seen the NDA, and I don't know if it's actually required or not, but Bugzilla admins would have access to the security queue, which would be something that necessitates non-disclosure.
--- Brandon Harris, Senior Designer, Wikimedia Foundation
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