Quoting Les Kitchen (ljk@csse.unimelb.edu.au):

Yes, though by then the LUV name and LUV domain would belong to LA. Still, I don't think that's a major obstacle. If (hypothetically) after the merger we decided to split from LA, then I'd expect that the LA people would be reasonable, and amicably let us have the LUV name/domain back.

I would hope that is true of the Linux Australia folks, and I know of no reason why it wouldn't be. The experience of Silicon Valley Linux User Group with these matters was not good -- though it was eventually worked out at the expense of some serious problems and hard feelings. SVLUG was originally a SIG (special interest group) starting of Silicon Valley Computer Society (SVCS), the latter serving as the tax-exempt incorporated 'umbrella' group. In 2004, somehow the active volunteers[1] arrived at the (erroneous) conclusion that SVCS had folded, and decided to re-affiliate with new umbrella group SBAY.ORG (South Bay Community Network), an amateur radio group that also had involvement in Linux and related matters. SBAY.ORG agreed that SVLUG would continue to have a president and vice-president elected by the SVLUG membership, that SBAY.ORG would not interfere in SVLUG's internal affairs, and that SBAY.ORG would furnish the corporate umbrella and liability insurance. The association turned sour within a year. SBAY.ORG's president reacted to SVLUG's elected president's desire to inform the membership about discussions concerning whether there were any benefit to continuing the SIG affiliation by threatening to 'remove' him.[2] About a month later, SVLUG's president likewise suggested putting the question of continued affiliation up to a referendum vote: SBAY.ORG's president declared such a vote 'unauthorised' and again threatened to 'removed' SVLUG's elected president. During this period, SVLUG's members inquired with SBAY.ORG about details of SBAY.ORG's incorporation and liability insurance, as we were unable to confirm existence of incorporation or other records. SBAY.ORG officers made no reply (a point I'll come back to, presently). After discussion among the membership, a referendum was held on 2006-03-01, and the members voted for resumed independence. SVLUG's president asked, a few days later, for return of the svlug.org Internet domain. SBAY.ORG's president refused[3], and also refused to furnish an example copy of the current zonefile, and also switched off the master nameservice. (Nameservice persisted because one of the secondaries refused to comply with shutdown.) Something like a week later, SBAY.ORG's president gave the svlug.org domain -- not to SVLUG -- but rather to SBAY.ORG's vice-president, who was one of SVLUG's webmasters. She eventually gave the domain back to SVLUG. After the above events, it emerged that SBAY.ORG had told untruths about being incorporated and having umbrella liability insurance. (Far less did they have recognition of tax-exemption, which in the USA requires incorporation as prerequisite for the category of tax-exemption sought in this case..) The initial applicdation for incorporation got belatedly filed shortly after we (SVLUG) politely asked for the corporate registration number that we'd been unable to find. SBAY.ORG to the best of my knowledge do not have liability insurance to this day. Later, we (SVLUG) also found that the entire basis for the SBAY.ORG misadventage, the supposed collapse and disappearance of SVCS, was simply untrue. However, at that point we'd had entirely enough of 'umbrella' corporate groups, and had found the alleged benefits to be illusory[4], so we have remained independent. (More about the SBAY.ORG debacle for anyone who cares is at a flyer and supporting FAQ: http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/flyer.sxw http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/sbay.html ) I am _not_ claiming that this calamity is likely for LUV. However, if you want to make sure it cannot happen, then transfer ownership of the luv.asn.au Internet domain to friendly insider individuals and keep it there. [1] I was absent from SVLUG during that period, or would have caught the error. [2] http://lists.svlug.org/archives/svlug/2006-February/048999.html [3] http://lists.svlug.org/archives/volunteers/2006q1/000750.html http://lists.svlug.org/archives/volunteers/2006q1/000754.html [4] Based on research of the many, many misconceptions about tax law, liability, and insurance that fueled the SBAY.ORG misadventure, I expandeded the Linux User Group HOWTO's coverage of legal and organisational issues accordingly. Note in particular the 'Common Misconceptoions Debunked' section for USA LUGs inside http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/User-Group-HOWTO-7.html#ss7.1 Whether similar considerations apply in Oz, I cannot say, but always welcome contributions to the HOWTO.

Quoting Les Kitchen (ljk@csse.unimelb.edu.au):

Not even that would be an adequate solution. Even trusted individuals can get incapacitated or die. I can imagine setups that protect against that, but they'd be no simpler than our current setup as an incorporated association.

I can comment on that, based on SVLUG's current technical and administrative measures for dealing with domain administration. The current Registrant (owner) of domain svlug.org is 'President, SVLUG'. Quoting from whois: Registrant ID:CORG-154923 Registrant Name:President, SVLUG Registrant Organization:c/o Heather Stern Registrant Street1:903 Harriet Ave Registrant Street2: Registrant Street3: Registrant City:Campbell Registrant State/Province:CA Registrant Postal Code:95008-5119 Registrant Country:US Registrant Phone:+1.4158066028 Registrant Phone Ext.: Registrant FAX: Registrant FAX Ext.: Registrant Email:president@svlug.org Contact address 'president@svlug.org' is an /etc/aliases entry that resolves to Mailman mailing list volunteers@lists.svlug.org . The domain is registered via Joker.com of Germany, and all key volunteers at SVLUG know the login credentials for the owning Joker.com user, which is via login president@svlug.org . We make sure that, at any given time, around six or seven reliable individuals know how to use those credentials. At the time of the SBAY.ORG debacle, a number of proponents of continued SIG association attempted to assert that 'unincorporated groups cannot own property', which they believed proved that an SVLUG without a corporate umbrella would be somehow unable to own, e.g., an Internet domain. As you see from the above data, that entire line of argument was a pile of humbug (just like the claims of SBAY.ORG incorporation, liability insurance, and the rest). At the time, I was able to point out that hundreds of local troops of the Boy Scouts of America own Internet domains, as has the unicorporated World Science Fiction Society (wsfs.org, thehugoawards.org, worldcon.org) for many decades. WSFS is the group that puts on the World Science Fiction Conventions aka Worldcons every year somewhere in the world (which was last in Melbourne in 2010). By coincidence, I'm leaving for this year's Worldcon in San Antonio, Texas in a few hours. http://www.lonestarcon3.org/ )

Also, thanks for the User-Group-HOWTO. I've learnt a lot from reading it.

Yr. very welcome!

[In reply to Russell:]

The whois entry for debian.org has hostmaster@spi-inc.org and hostmaster@debian.org listed as contact addresses and hostmaster@debian.org is only the tech address. So it seems that the Debian project trusts SPI more than you suggest LUV should trust LA.

Good point. But it's not so much a matter of trusting or not trusting LA, but an appreciation that weird random things can happen. -- Smiles, Les.