[Osmf-talk] Funding of iD Development and Maintenance

[Kathleen Lu]

What would be the purpose of having two separate entities, one an IP
holding entity and the other an operational one? Only as a liability
shield? I see holes in this proposal:
1) It's not clear at all that OSMF can assign the database rights to anyone
else. The Contributor Terms don't account for it.
https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/w/index.php?title=Licence/Contributor_Terms
<https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/w/index.php?title=Licence/Contributor_Terms&uselang=vi&mobileaction=toggle_view_desktop>
2) Adding another entity would complicate operations, accounting, legal,
and corporate registrations, at significant added cost (as a side note,
OSMF is not a charity under English law, and I would very much doubt that
an IP holding entity could count as a charity).
3) I'm not an English lawyer, so I would want an opinion from an UK lawyer
as to whether a wholly owned subsidiary would be a successful tactic under
these circumstances in containing any potential liabilities. (If there's a
goal besides creating a liability shield, I've missed the explanation.)

Kathleen

On Wed, Aug 5, 2020 at 10:39 AM Mateusz Konieczny via osmf-talk <
osmf-talk at openstreetmap.org> wrote:

>
>
>
> Aug 5, 2020, 18:16 by mike at teczno.com:
>
> On Aug 5, 2020, at 7:01 AM, michael spreng <osmf at m.spreng.ch> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> On 05.08.20 14:14, Frederik Ramm wrote:
>
> Or the other way round, possibly you meant that by "arms-length
> organisations", that the OSMF becomes the nondescript charity that only
> has a couple of trademarks and rights, and all the operative business is
> run by the "OpenStreetMap Services Ltd." or whatever, which would be the
> organisation that can fail without tearing down the project.
>
>
> I was just thinking the same thing. It would feel a lot better if we
> could spin employing editor developers out into another organization.
>
>
> I think you’re describing the prior status quo here, Frederik. iD editor
> development was owned by a collection of loosely-aligned organizations who
> recently decided to halt their support, leaving OSMF in a situation that
> resulted in this conversation
>
> The proposal seems to have OSMF holding critical assets and OSMF-bis that
> would fund
> capital intensive things like software development/employ poeple etc.
>
> Frederik is not proposing to have this things funded directly by
> third-parties (status quo).
>
>
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