These terms are meant to be included by reference in multiple agreements of the Post Open Administration. They must apply only when they are explicitly included by reference in a document.
These terms include this entire document and those portions included by reference, except for the contents of Advisory Notes and Working Notes.
This is a Draft. The terms are only proposals at this time, and we are interested in your opinion about how we can best operate this process. Please write to [email protected]
These terms have not had a complete legal review, and is not recommended for use until such a review is complete.
The headings of sections are advisory in nature, and must not be interpreted as limiting the effect of the terms.
Unless the context requires otherwise, words in the singular number include the plural, and those in the plural include the singular.
Text contained within square brackets ("[" and "]") indicates an Advisory Note. It is advisory in nature, and not part of these terms. These terms will not be invalidated or otherwise impaired if advisory sections are incorrect or become out-of-date. [This is an example of an advisory section.]
Text contained within angle brackets ("<" and ">") is a Working Note, and is not intended to be present within a Final version of these terms. Working notes are of relevance to the terms authors only, and must have no effect. <This is an example of a working note.>
These terms include, by reference:
Defined terms are rendered in a Small Capital Letter font. A definition for each of them exists in the Post Open Definitions document. [For your convenience, the web version of legal documents at PostOpen.org will display definitions for those terms when you click your pointer upon them.]
These definitions apply to these terms, in order of preference:
Copyright (C) 2024 Post Open Administration. All rights reserved.
These sections do not originate with us and we do not claim copyright upon them:
Any controversy or claim arising out of or relating to these terms, or the breach thereof, will be settled by arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association if the parties are all within the United States, or the International Centre for Dispute Resolution in the case that a party to the dispute is external to the United States, in accordance with the Commercial Arbitration Rules and/or other appropriate rules of those organizations. Judgment on the award rendered by the arbitrator(s) may be entered in any court having jurisdiction thereof. [This text originates with the American Arbitration Association.]
You and all parties to these terms consent to the use of computer videoconferencing or telephone conferencing, as an alternative to personal appearance, for the operation of arbitration and any court session.
[Mandatory arbitration is required to keep the cost of disputes within finite bounds, for all parties. We note that there is opposition to mandatory arbitration, but feel it is mainly originated by law firms to maintain the astronomical fees that can accompany a legal proceeding. The author of this document, as a individual defendant - not a deep-pockets company, expended about half a million dollars of legal services on what should have been a simple case, and escaped paying that amount from his personal assets only due to the California Anti-SLAPP law and fee adjustments mandated by the court.]
The Post Open project maintains high standards for comportment and we're serious about them. We understand that anyone can get upset, especially when software is not performing as expected. One of our behavior standards is tolerance, but our tolerance is not infinite.
When You interface with the Post Open project and its users, Contributors, and staff, Your behavior, and that of all persons interfacing with those parties on Your behalf, must comply with the Post Open Code of Conduct, except that we place no restrictions on speech that is a part of a legal proceeding (that is the business of the court). The Post Open Administration may deny a specific person service or any other communication on comportment grounds. We may deny communications involving a Machine Learning Model. In the case that You are denied communications, You must use a real person who is able to maintain comportment to interface with the project.
Where there is ambiguity regarding equivalence in value, currency exchange rates are to be calculated according to the last report of the United States Treasury Reporting Rates of Exchange dataset (established by Title 22 of the United States Code, Section 2363, Subsection b). [At https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/datasets/treasury-reporting-rates-exchange/treasury-reporting-rates-of-exchange We are aware of the differences in official and unofficial currency exchange rates, we selected one source to reduce the potential for dispute.]
Post Open is, fundamentally, publicly disclosed worldwide, and developed by people of many nationalities. US munitions export law (ITAR and EAR) requires that military and defense technology, including software, must be kept secret from foreign persons. Some of our software has both civilian and potentially military use, and includes specific technology restricted as a munition, for example: cryptography, space and satellites, digital voice CODECs, SDR and spread-spectrum radio, facilities for advanced computation. However, export control laws usually have carve-outs for published works, information that is publicly known, and information that is a product of fundamental scientific research. Other nations, for example Australia, have similar law, because of their treaties with the United States and for their own defense. This creates a conflict that we must manage carefully. We must conduct ourselves so that the carve-outs always apply to our software.
All persons who are making use of a facility of the Post Open Administration must not:
You must not compel, encourage or assist them to perform such activities or mislead them into performing such activities without their knowledge of the purpose or destination. The military and governments have well-paid contractors who can provide these services in compliance with their laws and our responsibilities, if necessary.
For us to do these things things could be rendering defense services and could cause our software to be placed under export restrictions. This applies even if it's only for use by the United States, because we can't keep the work or information from reaching foreign persons.
[The section on defense services in ITAR is Title 22, Chapter I, Section 120, subsection 32 of the United States Code.]
No Rule of Strict Construction shall be applied against any party to these terms.
If any part of this agreement is found to be invalid, illegal, or or unenforcible for any reason, that provision shall be limited or eliminated to the minimum extent necessary, the remainder of the agreement must continue in force; and the Parties, arbitrator, or a court of competent jurisdiction must substitute suitable provisions having like economic effect and intent for the limited or eliminated portion.
A Party affected by Force Majeure will not assume any liability under these terms. However, subject to the Party affected by Force Majeure having taken its reasonable and practicable efforts to perform these terms, the Party claiming for exemption of the liabilities may only be exempted from performing such liability as within limitation of the part performance delayed or prevented by Force Majeure. Once causes for such exemption of liabilities are rectified and remedied, all parties agree to resume performance of these terms with their best efforts. [This text comes from a list of examples at https://afterpattern.com/clauses/force-majeure, but we don't have any other information regarding its origin.]
A party to a dispute concerning these terms or the breach thereof may obtain filing under seal, even if the information is otherwise restricted by these terms:
[Bruce Perens created this document, including the legal text and the HTML, JavaScript, and CSS for the web version with definition pop-ups. Steve Wood and Jeff Villalobos of Vela Wood are providing legal review, under supervision of Kevin Vela.
In the web version of this document, attention was given
to access by the visually-impaired: CSS
voice-stress is used on defined terms. The HTML
attributes aria-description and
aria-details are inserted using JavaScript to
provide access to definitions for the visually-impaired, just
as pop-ups are inserted for people without visual disability.
The ability to disable pop-ups is provided, in case they get in
the way of visually-impaired readers. Links to definitions are
present for users that disable JavaScript. ]