[Foundation-l] Proposal: Addition to the general disclaimer

[Jussi-Ville Heiskanen]

On 4/12/08, Michael Snow <wikipedia at verizon.net> wrote:
> Thomas Dalton wrote:
> > On 11/04/2008, Casey Brown <cbrown1023.ml at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Isn't the general disclaimer a local thing rather than a global one?
> >>  I think this is a matter for the individual communities, not the
> >>  Foundation.
> >>
> > It's a legal matter, so it probably does fall on the foundation.
> >
> To the best of my knowledge, the foundation has not created any of the
> existing disclaimers or dictated their contents. That makes them
> entirely community products, subject to the same process as any other
> wiki page. I'll defer to our lawyer if he thinks it should be otherwise,
> but that's how I understand the situation.
>
> --Michael Snow

If memory serves, there have been situations when stuff analogous
to the disclaimers has gone at least mildly - but sufficiently in any
case - awry, for the foundation to take interest in their goings on, but as
far as recall (and I wouldn't trust my memory further than I can throw
it :-), in each case it wasn't a situation of the foundation pouncing
on the project, but use of roundabout, gentle suasion, very low key.

Trusting each community to be sensible about things and
explaining things from the general mission point of view to
them. In general, personally I think the foundation can afford to
talk softly, and not really even measure how big their stick is.

The question of what the legal status of those documents is
I think should remain as unstated as possible. I think they are
communication to the reader, which is intended to be the people
who do the work in the communities, making sure there are as
few as possible avenues for our readers to believe there is some
thing they are entitled to, implicitly or not, which they should not
feel entitled to, nor for their own benefit make a mistake about
what we really are.

But if The Foundations lawyer feels a compelling need to spell
out precisely what the disclaimer status is and thus take the
disclaimers explicitly under its aegis, or completely distance
itself from them; I certainly cannot argue with that. It would
surprise me though.

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]