Yeah - to sum up and top post, it would be good to get an internal balanced view among the mentor team as to what we consider "appropriate" for the mentor list, and what we have the band width for. [I get the same thing when I mentor start-ups: where is the line between mentoring and providing specific legal advice? And it is not just "what you would charge fees for", as there is quite a lot of basic stuff in mentoring that I would/could charge fees for if I weren't a mentor]
Like Carlo, I don't mind responding to any copyright/FOSS related question, if I have time, so we don't necessarily need to "reject" questions off hand just because they are off-mentoring-topic. It would be good (maybe in a couple of days, whatever) to check the main LN list have understood what the mentor list is for ("introducing newbies to FOSS" and not giving legal advice...) and also it is not a mentors list for all on the LN as the whole concept of "mentor" is usually for "startups", in this case, newbies.
What I am not keen to do is to respond to copyright or even FOSS questions from old hands (who may be trying to pull a fast one and get legal advice). I'm not saying Jeremiah did this, just that we don't want to set too much precedents so that we later get a complaint that "you answered X question, why won't you answer Y question now?" (assuming both X and Y off-mentoring-topic).
But Carlo is right (when is he not?) - there are questions that could fairly easily be answered, that are not for the full list of mainly busy lawyers - so they fall in the cracks between "appropriate for newbies" and "appropriate for general discussion, moved onto the main list".
Maybe, if we have the bandwidth, we could still answer these "fall in the cracks" questions, but prequel the answer with "This is not really what the mentoring list of for, as the list is for supporting newcomers to FOSS legal issues, but as you've asked, one answer could be...". And defaulting what Carlo puts below, if there is no time to answer.
malcolm
-----Mensaje original----- De: mentors.ln-bounces@lists.fsfe.org [mailto:mentors.ln- bounces@lists.fsfe.org] En nombre de Carlo Piana Enviado el: martes, 24 de mayo de 2016 17:29 Para: Alessandro Rubini; mentors.ln@lists.fsfe.org Asunto: Re: [Mentors of the Legal Network] What is a code "snippet" and howis it licensed?
On 24 May 2016, Alessandro Rubini rubini@gnudd.com wrote:
Regardless of the interest of the question, Mentors.ln is not a new place to ask for legal advice (especially someone like Jeremiah [...]
Full ack.
Thanks malcolm. According to the invitation sent today, I would have directed Jeremiah to post it publicly, with a "you are not a novice" remark added.
Now, I have to ask Carlo for help. Will he refuse because I disagreed or will he feel bound to help so to show he didn't take this personally? Let me try, but tomorrow.
Not at all, the fact that I have hastily replied does not strike me as overruling this possibility.
Of course, once the cat is out of the bag, it's difficult to put it
back,
but on the other hand, that was a quick question, I felt it was too low level and obvious to deserve discussion in front of the general
audience.
I would myself have restrained a lot more, and would have been perhaps more elaborate if the question was for that forum. That was what I intended with it was a good question for mentoring, I meant this would have been too basic to disrupt the time of many busy lawyers who have to bother sending it to the trashbin.
On the other hand, Malcolm is right, Jeremiah should know better, and
all
in all, this was not a specific FOSS question, rather a fundamental copyright one, anybody in this list is supposed to know already, lawyer
or
non lawyer. The LN is a specialists' forum, not an educational one, that is for mentors. But mentors is for FOSS specifics.
Therefore, the choice being "this belongs here" and "this belongs
nowhere
here", I tend to think the exit point is not "this is for LN" but
"sorry,
this is the sort of non-FOSS specific that absent a volunteer [like
Carlo]
nobody should take, no offence meant".
my two cents, of course.
Carlo
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