Licence Questions Team
Information
- Coordinator
- Gabriel Ku Wei Bin
- Deputy
- Lucas Lasota
- How to join
- This is a closed group. If you have some experience with copyright issues and would like to join our group of volunteers please write a short introduction to the coordinator. The FSFE's staff and interns can add themselves and briefly introduce them to the list.
- Contact Address
- Description
- The Licence Questions mailing list is our group of volunteers dedicated to provide help with Free Software licences and compliance.
About us
If you need advice on what Free Software licence you should use or if you want to know more about what rights you have over a piece of Free Software you have come to the right place. You can contact us by sending a message to licence-questions@fsfe.org. The members of the Licence Questions mailing list are from different countries and can probably provide you with a reply in you native language. To ensure that you get a faster reply, it is advisable to write in English, as that is the language in which the internal discussions are held.
Please understand that, as an NGO, the FSFE is neither in a position nor allowed to give legal advice. If that is what your situation requires, we will be glad to use the FSFE’s extensive legal contacts to point you to a specialised lawyer in your jurisdiction.
The Licence Questions mailing list is composed of around 20 volunteers that are experts in Free Software legal matters selected directly by FSFE. We consider the information shared in such list confidential and we will not share it with anyone outside this list.
Due to high levels of spam, we have to moderate all incoming message. If you receive a warning after posting to the list, please ignore it: your email will be accepted by our moderator shortly after. Once an enquiry reaches the list, our experts discuss it internally; this might take different amounts of time depending on the complexity of the question. When the list reaches a general consensus, we will write you directly with our answer.
How we work
John Doe sends an email to licence-questions@fsfe.org. By that it goes to the OTRS tickets system in the licence questions queue. The sender receives an auto reply from the OTRS ticket system that we received the inquiry. From there the Coordinator and the Deputy distribute the message to licence-questions@lists.fsfe.org an internal mailing list for the team which does not accept other external e-mails. (max 1 week).
- The coordinator collects feedback from the team, and makes sure we draft an answer to it (max 2 weeks).
- In case the coordinator is sure we can send it out, s/he will directly proceed and send the reply from the OTRS ticket system, and will let the licence question team know about the final answer. (max 3 weeks)
- In case s/he is unsure, s/he will wait for more feedback by the team, and then after clarification send a reply (max 4 weeks).
Our principles for answering
- We are not allowed to give legal advise, this is something which should also be highlighted in the replies.
- In case people should seek legal advise, we want to tell them asap.
- We will be in line with the position of the FSF and OSI in our replies.
- The priority is to help individual developers and non-profits who else cannot afford to pay a lawyer for the answer. We as a non-profit should not spent resources on giving legal advise to law firms. Cases in which it is not clear, an appropriate answer will be drafted with the team
Our Decision making
- Recommend: Licence team
- Agree: None
- Perform: Licence team
- Input: external experts, e.g. from LN
- Decide: Licence questions coordinator