What is the legal status of BeWelcome ?
Written by midsch 13 years agoRecently we experience an unsual number of new members, that's great! So first of all: BeWelcome, I'm happy to have you here. As a lot of questions naturally come up to a newbies mind, someone had the idea to explain some of the important things in the community news, so here we go: I'm no lawyer, but I'll try to explain the basic legal setup of BeWelcome.
BeWelcome isn't owned by anyone and I think that's a good thing. The software and content (except private data off course) is open source / open licenced and can't be monopolised by anyone. Nevertheless it's very usefull (if not required) to have a legal organisation to run the network. Right now there is a french Organisation called BeVolunteer who is running the site and dealing with the financial and legal issues. The french legal setup of BeVolunteer is in a way, what makes it impossible to "own" or "sellout" anything. Personal profits are just illegal. Everyone at BeWelcome can become a member of BeVolunteer (and therefore vote or be elected to the board), but doesn't have to, i. e I'm not.
Experience with similar networks show, a lot of people don't really care, so I think this "outsourcing" helps to have a structure able to work and make legal decisions. But the practical decisions for BeWelcome are usually made by consensus of people (who do care about it) in the forums. More tools at BeWelcome to make deciscions (i. e. polls) have been discussed but need to be implemented first. In theory BeVolunteer could ignore such decisions / decide in another way, but it won't work very well, as the members of BeWelcome could make most changes anyway.
In an unlikely worst case scenario, when BeVolunteer is taken over by "bad guys", BeWelcome is free to move on to another setup / legal setup. And sure we do. If the "bad guys" try to get their fingers on donation money, they'll face legal consequences in France, as it is simply illegal. On the long run, it's maybe useful to back up the french organisation with similar setups / organisations in other countries as well. In the moment BeWelcome / BeVolunteer is lacking personal ressources, maybe also the urge to do so. Dealing with this legal stuff isn't so much fun for the most of us.
I hope this helps to get an idea, here are more Details: FAQ BeWelcome organisation in general - Feel free to explore the Wiki, the Forum and all the other pages. And if there are more questions, feel free to ask.
BeWelcome works because we (yes, this includes you) make it work.