Bonum Certa Men Certa

Can Volunteers Sue Debian?

Reprinted with permission from Debian Community News

There was a recent discussion on debian-project about lawsuits involving Debian. Pierre-Elliott Bécue has written:



But Debian having no legal existence, it can't file


Personally, we don't want to encourage anybody to make an un-necessary lawsuit but it also concerns us that false information has been presented about this issue. The false information is problematic because claimants may be deterred from pursuing legitimate claims but more importantly, because volunteers may not realize they are at risk of being sued.





If a non-profit organization is incorporated, most lawsuits have to be sent to the office of the organization. The managers and employees can't be named in most lawsuits. The person making a claim is claiming against the assets of the organization but they probably can't claim against the homes and other private assets of managers and employees.



As people noted in the discussion on debian-project, Debian is not incorporated. This means that none of the volunteers have the protection described above.



Some people may feel they are participating in Debian for their job and they are protected by their employer. This is not always true. Many people use their private email addresses in Debian, even when making contributions for their employer. This, in itself, may make them targets for personal lawsuits. Some large companies may choose to indemnify their employees, in other words, even if a claimant finds a way to make a personal lawsuit against a volunteer, the employer could voluntarily pay the legal defence fees. What about contributors who work for small companies? What if a person decides to change jobs during a long-running lawsuit, will the old employer continue to pay their legal bills? What if the volunteer changes jobs and then a few months later, somebody else starts a lawsuit about something the volunteer did during their last job? Will either the past or present employer want to pay the employee's defence costs? It just sounds messy.



These are very important questions both for volunteers and also for all employers who choose to have staff contributing to free software projects like Debian.



It may be far easier to incorporate the Debian organization. Incorporation would give volunteers more certainty about their protections, it would give employers more certainty that their employees won't get sucked into a legal nightmare and it would also give all members more protection and rights. When managers of an organization want to benefit from the buffer against personal liability, they also have to ensure the organization is accountable to the members and they can no longer indulge in abusive expulsions and shamings. Oddly enough, that is one of the reasons cabal members often resist the idea of incorporating.



The project currently hosts a lot of information about shamings and character assassination. Who is legally liable for that? Is it only the person who wrote each email, or can the DPL and volunteers who run the mail servers, BTS and other facilities be sued too? People who use the good name of Debian to shame volunteers should have nowhere to hide.



Anybody choosing to nominate in the upcoming Debian Project Leader elections may want to think carefully about whether their personal assets will be at risk. If the organization doesn't want some candidates to be deterred from nominating, it might be a good idea to prioritize the issue.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Microsoft Bankruptcy
"Microsoft unit in Russia to file for bankruptcy, database shows"
Techrights Does Not Compete With LLM Slop, It Exposes the Bastards, Plagiarists and Scammers Who Do That
People like Scam Altman, still facing a lawsuit from his own sister for sexual abuse against her
 
Links 01/06/2025: Windows TCO, Openwashing, "It's FOSS" Still Promoting Microsoft
Links for the day
Gemini Links 01/06/2025: Simplification and Networks Everywhere
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, May 31, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, May 31, 2025
Google Bribes EFF. EFF Promotes LLM Slop as 'Fair Use'. To GAFAM It's a Low-Cost Lobby Hedge.
So the bribes pay off ("slush fund") and the word spreads
Slopwatch: Fake Text and Images, Financial Bubbles, and Scams in "Intelligent" Clothing
Sometimes what they mean by "AI" is just cheap labour somewhere else, as we discussed in IRC a few hours ago
Why Microsoft is Collapsing (Similar to What's Happening at IBM), As Insiders See It
IBM seems like one heck of a mess
Reliable Computing Means Free (Libre) Computing
Sites that want to promote security ought to deal with the biggest issues
Links 31/05/2025: US Court Orders Sides With RFE/RL, War Updates From Ukraine
Links for the day
Gemini Links 31/05/2025: ARM Server and power_supply Subsystem
Links for the day
Links 31/05/2025: Slop Stigmatised as Disinformation, Catalyst/Driver of "Death of Communication"
Links for the day
Common Sense 101: Do Not Write Blog Posts Saying You Want to Murder Colleagues (or Yourself)
Only crazy people would think stabbings are a joke
Links 31/05/2025: Microsoft-Connected Builder.ai is a Fraud and US is Purging Students Based on Race/Nationality
Links for the day
Gemini Links 30/05/2025: Limmat, Doomscrollers, and Arguments Parsing
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, May 30, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, May 30, 2025
The "AI" (Slop) Bubble Already Popped, But It's Not an Overnight Collapse
where Microsoft put its money
No More Steven Astorino at IBM, Chatter About Weekly/Nonstop Layoffs at IBM
What happened? Good luck guessing.
Looking at Corruption in Europe, Going Beyond the EPO
Expect a new series to kick off very soon
Slopwatch: Security SPAM and LLM Slop for SEO and FUD Purposes, Perpetually Tarnishing the Perception of Linux and (Open)SSH Security
A lot of this Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD) comes from Microsoft and its LLMs
Links 30/05/2025: Google's LLM Slop Pushers Are Killing Journalism and Shira Perlmutter Fails to Stop Bribed Regime From Legalising Plagiarism (in "AI" Clothing)
Links for the day
Links 30/05/2025: Offline Arts and "Threshold of Patience"
Links for the day
Signing Off Serious Lies With a Statement of Truth is No Joking Matter
It's not hard to see what's happening here
Links 30/05/2025: LLM Slop Already Ingests and Vomits Its Own Garbage, Facebook Exec Admits Copyrights a Concern Too
Links for the day
Mass Layoffs at Microsoft Result in More Whistleblowers From Microsoft
Microsoft's predatory pricing is further
Slopwatch: Planet Ubuntu Became LLM Slop and Some People Fail to See the Immorality of Plagiarism
it lessens the incentive for people to publish real articles
EPO Poll: 68% Dissatisfied With Quality of Slop (Wrongly Framed as "AI") for Patent Classification
Slop does not work, it's just falsely advertised with extra hype (funded by slop pushers that sponsor the major media)
Big Crowds Gather to Learn About Software Freedom From the Man Who Started GNU/Linux in 1983
"It was a great success"
Microsoft Layoffs Again in Bay Area
Microsoft relies on people's false belief that being "in LinkedIn" will get you a job; well, seems like even working inside LinkedIn really sucks and you lose the job
Gemini Links 30/05/2025: Fighting Against the Bad News, and Slop is Dehumanisation Disguised as "Intelligence"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, May 29, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, May 29, 2025