Specifically
I am referring to this section that was added with the latest update, not the licensing we have previously discussed, which is a pretty significant addition:
"Shared ownership of community projects
As an experiment in decentralised organisation structures, we need rules to ensure everyone can build on shared value to develop projects in whatever direction they like, without getting in the way of others who wish to do the same. Projects born out of the community and built on the Edgeryders.eu platform are the property of the EdgeRyders community as a whole. Whenever a project born on the platform is taken out of the platform, the new initiative /organisation /network /technology /site/ application is required to be named in such a way as to clearly communicate that it is a new iteration, and different from the original Edgeryders community project. This ensures the brand to which everyone is contributing remains a part of the commons without enclosure, while giving everyone liberty to fork, remix and or continue to contribute to the original project.
The same applies to Edgeryders taken as a whole. You can use the Edgeryders red logo when you are speaking for/as the community, e.g. participating in debates, presentations…but not for business. You cannot use the Edgeryders blue logo unless you are working with Edgeryders LBg (have a valid contract with the company signed by the board of directors). If you want to set up your own Edgeryders organisation, you are free to do so with the only restriction that the name, domain name(s) and visual branding you give it are different enough from the Edgeryders Community and Edgeryders LBg names, domain names and logos to avoid confusion about who people are dealing with."
Lets take a specific example in respect to this, that follows this line of thinking, with the legals added retroactively (which I have raised previously in the admin group, and was shouted down for). At lote4 I hosted a session with Remy focused on Hacker Care, and open source approaches to health. Which subsequently EdgeRyders LBG mounted a H2020 bid for funding on - as cited on the group page “The idea first came in the context of a LOTE4 session proposed and led by Rémy Cagnol” (although you’ve conveniently managed to redact my name from attribution, which must mean the CC-BY thing is really working well here).
Now this session was derived from a number of conversations, ideas and workshops that were intended to be deployed into other initiatives, including people not attached to ER, but myself and Remy proposed the session and ran it at lote4 because we thought it would be of interest to other EdgeRyders - not because I had any interest in articulating and developing these ideas within the EdgeRyders space. So understandably the H2020 application came as quite a surprise.
Previously you have made claims of enclosure when I’ve raised this, pushing me into the position of not being “open”. I’m sorry but this isn’t the case, I was merely not aware that everything that touches the EdgeRyders platform and space, is eligible for an EdgeRyders LBG project. Whilst you have contacted me very recently to make me aware of the bids submission and suggested that if successful we might discuss my involvement in the project, this is irrelevant to the way in which I’d imagined any such initiative might proceed - it feels to me as a community member incredibly opportunist and not what I signed up for. I wish you luck in the project, and I hope that it proves to be enjoyable and profitable undertaking for EdgeRyders LBG, but this is not mine nor do I think most peoples approach to collaboration.
Now you can continue to tell me that I am being unreasonable, attempting to enclose ‘community projects’, etc but this is a public space, people are reading this and people aren’t stupid when it comes to their time and investment or what they might consider to be best practice for developing work and initiatives within the commons. If you think my words are unfair, please respect that this addition of legal addendum’s as if it’s no big thing and many of the other experiences I have highlighted in the past months have caused me to call into question much of what I trusted before and seriously reconsider the way in which I contribute here.
It feels really important at this point for the health of the overall community that there be a separation between EdgeRyders LBG the consultancy (legal infrastructure) and EdgeRyders Community (platform).