search

QuiltMC / rfcs

Repository for requests for comments for proposing changes to the Quilt Project.
Other
61 stars 33 forks source link

RFC 0072: Legal Team #72

Closed Akarys42 closed 1 year ago

Akarys42 commented 1 year ago

This adds an RFC for the upcoming Legal Team.

This PR assumes #47 is merged.

Initial members: @Akarys42, @gdude2002 Initial team lead: @Akarys42

Rendered view.

Akarys42 commented 1 year ago

I would advise a name change. It's really dangerous to call a group a "legal team" if they have no legal experience and no rights to be providing legal counsel.

There are no issues with that, and we greenlit the name internally. It is a team handling legal matters, it is a legal team. Legal experience is also a very loose term, field experience is a thing. The team very explicitly will only be providing counselling internally, where it will be made clear that it does not have any legal value.

kvverti commented 1 year ago

I highly recommend you procure some legal expertise for both drafting this document and for performing duties on the team. I think one or more members must have appropriate legal qualifications, especially if this team is supposed to review contracts and measure regulatory compliance. You’ll also need qualified people to provide Quilt with legal representation, if that is desired.

Akarys42 commented 1 year ago

We will do our best to get as much qualified people on the team as possible. As outlined in the RFC, we're still required by law to have this team, such as to provide a DPO. We cannot block the existence of that team just because we don't have a lawyer in Quilt, which isn't a reasonable expectation anyway. I'd note that we are still going to have some people with specific formal training (eg. on GDPR) and field experience with other subjects (eg. copyright laws or running a non-profit).

As for legal representation, it is something we'll only bother with and pay for if there is a need for it (eg. Quilt is being sued), which hopefully will never happen.

Akarys42 commented 1 year ago

Alright, I've seen a few people saying we need a lawyer. We don't have the funds for that, that's just how it be. I may have a solution in the future to have some legal support, but that's about it. Those are tasks we still need to carry out, not having a lawyer doesn't exempt us from those tasks. It is also worth noting that some people still have formal training on some points, I am for example certified by multiple organizations as a GDPR compliance expert, even if I'm not a lawyer.

triphora commented 1 year ago

The simple solution: don't call it a legal team! "Oversight Committee" is a term I've heard used for these sorts of things.

Akarys42 commented 1 year ago

Overseeing isn't its only role. If someone has a better suggestion, we can rename it, but it really isn't that big of a deal.

CheaterCodes commented 1 year ago

Do we need to merge the privacy and legal teams? Iunderstand that you would fit into both, but I don't really see why they need to be the same, correct me if I'm wrong.

In particular, I could understand why a privacy team would require their own server without oversight, but I'm not sure how relevant that would be for other legal matters (which could be overseen by Admins/CMs).

Akarys42 commented 1 year ago

Do we need to merge the privacy and legal teams? Iunderstand that you would fit into both, but I don't really see why they need to be the same, correct me if I'm wrong.

In particular, I could understand why a privacy team would require their own server without oversight, but I'm not sure how relevant that would be for other legal matters (which could be overseen by Admins/CMs).

It is the similar tasks handled by the same people. There are other legal matters that might need privacy, such as a DMCA, contracts under NDA, or needing to exchange private information when signing bylaws.

The goal is to keep the usage of that server to the strict minimum. I don't think splitting the teams would even change anything there.

Akarys42 commented 1 year ago

If someone has a better name for the team that still encompasses all the tasks carried out, feel free to suggest it here.

I personally don't have any other idea, nor do I see any fundamental (legal or not) issue with the current name.

Akarys42 commented 1 year ago

Hello GitHub?

Anyway, y'all re-requested for review I guess.

Akarys42 commented 1 year ago

The Legal Team is a team like any other; that shouldn't need clarification.

The initial members shouldn't be in the RFC, according to #47.

The Administrative Board isn't part of the team de facto, I don't see why this would need to be mentioned in the RFC considering it isn't the case for any team.

OroArmor commented 1 year ago
Akarys42 commented 1 year ago

The whole point of having a legal team is to not rely on admins to perform legal duties

OroArmor commented 1 year ago

The whole point of having a legal team is to not rely on admins to perform legal duties

Because Admins are the owners of the project, they have legal responsibilites even if there is a legal team. You can't just hand wave this away. It needs to be address how the legal team and admin board interact

Akarys42 commented 1 year ago

The admins have no mandatory responsibilities as defined by the law. If admins want to ask to join that team they're more than welcome to, but making them a de-facto member makes no sense, especially considering the problems with having your legal name be known.

Akarys42 commented 1 year ago

Was thinking about the name of this team and what about "Legal Advice Team"? The bare name kinda bothers me as it makes it sound a bit too "professional"/"liable" (you get what you mean, I don't have the correct words to describe this). I feel like the "Advice" part would relieve that a bit.

For the most part, the team will be taking action and not just providing advice.

LambdAurora commented 1 year ago

From my read of the RFC the work assigned to the team seemed to be more in the realm of advices, but sure, then I guess there's really no good name for this team.

Akarys42 commented 1 year ago

To clarify, the three main responsibilities of the team will be:

  1. the NPO
  2. responding to DSR
  3. keeping compliance

I can only see the last one being considered advice. Compliance Team or Clerical Team are the only two alternatives I could find, but I'm not a fan of those.

LambdAurora commented 1 year ago

I can only see the last one being considered advice. Compliance Team or Clerical Team are the only two alternatives I could find, but I'm not a fan of those.

Legal Compliance Team perhaps?

Akarys42 commented 1 year ago

We could use that, it does brush over the NPO though.

Akarys42 commented 1 year ago

I see you mention often about NPO but don't see the word anywhere in the RFC. Did I missed something or I'm just not knowledgeable enough?

There it is

https://github.com/QuiltMC/rfcs/blob/463596947743fe0bd72c95c7c2261d221b6d8ab2/structure/0072-legal-team.md?plain=1#L35

LambdAurora commented 1 year ago

Ok, was just me not being well-versed with acronyms then.

Akarys42 commented 1 year ago

This PR is placed under a 10 days FCP

Cypher121 commented 1 year ago

I have to once again bring up the name. "Legal team" is an exceptionally loaded term for organisations. Having no legal counsel on it, in my view the arguments for using it anyway should be bulletproof and alternative names exhausted.

"Compliance team" as discussed above is better, I'd say. Yes, it doesn't cover registration as a non-profit and similar legal dealings. But I'd say those few situations would necessitate external legal advice to be done 100% properly to begin with.

Akarys42 commented 1 year ago

The majority of the Administrative Board voted in favor of the name Legal Team, this PR will therefore be merged as is.