[Foundation-l] Board meeting in Rotterdam later this week

[Ray Saintonge]

Gerard Meijssen wrote:

>Hoi,
>The German chapter has been taken to court in the past on matters of law 
>in Germany. It is not as simple as you suggest. The Italian chapter is 
>another entity that plays its part in the whole mess that is the law. 
>The British say it nicely: "the law is an arse". Do you know what your 
>personal legal status is when you edit an existing article with a 
>legally problematic picture or whatever in it.. Are you responsible, 
>maybe. Can you be taken to court, certainly.
>
I accept that I am responsible for what I edit, but I am also careful.  
Regrettably we have more people who rejcct responsibility and are far 
from careful.

>The biggest error that I see is that people with not enough knowledge 
>about the law make the policy. 
>
Yes.

>What I believe in is that we know as an 
>organisation what our message is about all this. That we take our 
>position judiciously as the many organisations that are the WMF and its 
>chapters. This way we protect the most vulnerable, our editors. This way 
>we may be able to resist the continuing land grab of the proprietary 
>stake holders.
>
I wonder if your proposal to protect the most vulnerable is not acting 
too much like a parent. :-)

I don't see it as the Foundation's responsibility to protect every 
editor from himself.  The best countermeasure to the proprietary land 
grab may lie in making sure that there is very little land for them to grab.

Ec