response 1 of 28:

Aug 30 18:08 UTC 1995

I have entered an item in coop to propose that Grex enroll in the SBI List.

response 3 of 28:

Aug 31 05:09 UTC 1995

No, we aren't.

response 5 of 28:

Sep 1 06:45 UTC 1995

But if Grex owns Grex, then who owns Grex?
If Grex bit the mailman, who would he sue?

response 7 of 28:

Sep 1 17:46 UTC 1995

Grex is a corporation. That is, the law views Grex as a *person*. This
legal person has lots of internal organs, which give it life. In
particular, the members are the food gathering organels. All users
collectively constitute cells in the nervous system, although there are
brain organels also. At this point, my anatomy knowledge breaks down. The
board is one of the organels concerned with allocation of resources, and
coordination of activity. Staff combines the mitachondrial and immune
systems ;-}. Well, enough of this... 

If Grex bit the mailman (more likely, the meter reader), he or she would
sue the corporation - the Grex "person". That is why it would be desirable
for Grex to carry liability insurance, so that the meter reader would not
try to go after a pound of flesh, too. 

We will have to ascertain what SBI means by "private", which I will do.
They exclude universities and Freenets, but I don't think they are using a
legal defintion but one they have made up. However I know that it doesn't
matter whether a bbs is incorporated or not, as incorporated bbs are in
the SBI list already. 

response 9 of 28:

Sep 2 07:28 UTC 1995

Its in your homeowners insurance *umbrella* policy, in Michigan. I
was speaking more to a) protecting the corporate property, and b)
compensating the public if we are at fault. Its when the corporation
can't do the latter, though, that plaintiffs tend to get nasty and
try to penetrate the "corporate shield". 

response 11 of 28:

Sep 3 07:53 UTC 1995

The provision comes under Exclusions, and is round-about. It reads

"We will not provide insurance:
.........
8.  for any loss caused by your act or omission as a member of
    a corporation's board of directors. This exclusion does not apply
    if the corporation:
    a.  was formed as a not-for-profit coporation; and
    b.  does not involve your business.

Hence, your insurance company will pay under Personal Liability
coverage if you are legally obligated to pay damages for a loss
(above retained limit, and not exceeding policy limit). 

An example would be a court finding the corporation without liability
insurance but a person was injured because the board failed to ensure
that visitors to the building in which the dungeon is located could
not get access to the dungeon, and someone got electrocuted (this
is a hypothetical example). 

response 13 of 28:

Sep 3 14:11 UTC 1995

The coverage, that is.

response 15 of 28:

Sep 4 18:11 UTC 1995

(Sigh...there's one in every crowd...and often its me...) Well, not quite.
From our bylaws: "This organization shall be known as "Cyberspace
Communications". The computer conferencing system provided by the
organization is known as "Grex"." So, Grex is the conferencing "system",
not just a computer (upon which its code resides). 

response 17 of 28:

Sep 8 05:57 UTC 1995

Can correct things be picky? You are free, of course, to call the
computer "grex", but that an informality (I think we had an item
here once on what we called our computers), and by virtue of the fact
that that is where the grex *system* resides. In illustration of that -
what are you going to call the Sun 4, if the Sun 3 is "Grex"?

response 19 of 28:

Sep 8 17:06 UTC 1995

You have made my point...its not the *computer* that is named grex.

response 21 of 28:

Sep 9 05:36 UTC 1995

All Unix boxes have to have a name.  The current name of the Sun 3 is Grex
(thus the name grex.cyberspace.org).  Once we go to the Sun 4, the Sun 4 will
also be named Grex (if you think something has to be exclusive to be a name,
look at all the Steves around here), and this computer's name will be changed
to something else (yes, names can change).