31 Oct
2022
31 Oct
'22
4:50 a.m.
Tomasz,
This is a very interesting and relevant question.
To the extent that there is an implied and enforceable contract between
donor and donee that a donation not be neglected or removed from public
use, if a donated item were to actually be removed from public use, that
would definitely be actionable in the courts. Whether one would prevail or
not would depend on the competency of their argument.
If the LCM is a non-profit corporation, their inventory of computers are
considered public property, and therefore subject to specific rules for
disposition. However, I believe (but could be wrong) that the LCM was a
foundation of sorts, so the same rules wouldn't necessarily apply.
Foundations are typically of a private nature, and so to the extent that
the wishes of the donor are to be honored, they would have to be explicitly
established. Otherwise, as a gift to the foundation, the foundation could
then reasonably do with the property what it wished per its own needs or
desires, irrespective of the considerations of the donor.
I'm hoping Rich Alderson will pipe in and give us the actual story as to
what's going on with the LCM and its collection, but there's a possibility
that he may be legally constricted from giving comment at this time.
Sellam
On Sun, Oct 30, 2022 at 9:13 PM Tomasz Rola via cctalk <
cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
On Sun, Oct 30, 2022 at 12:34:29PM -0400, Paul Koning
via cctalk wrote:
[...]
> Even if it doesn't reopen, I'd hope that its collection would not
> simply be scrapped. I imagine a lot of people here would be
> interested in parts of it. I'm one of them...
If I was a donator, I would now be writing an rather officially
looking letter to let them know, that if they have intention to misuse
my donation then I have intention to have it back.
So they have to stuff this paper into their files and maybe even be
nice to donator.
I have no idea how this seems from the side of the law - is it at all
possible that donator can claim his donation back? If there is a good
reason for this, of course. It was given to the museum, with purpose
to have it exhibited or otherwise used by some group of people. If
museum is being scrapped for good, then this purpose is not going to
be fulfilled, so???...
Or, if museum decided to give it to some artistic movement, which used
it in their performances - say, peeing on olde computer, making it puff
and throw sparks, under the slogans painted on the wall, claiming this
very computer enabled certain pitiful aspects of western civilization
(which I will not name, so as to not have attention of bots).
How is that called in English law-speak, abuse of good faith?
--
Regards,
Tomasz Rola
--
** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature. **
** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home **
** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened... **
** **
** Tomasz Rola mailto:tomasz_rola@bigfoot.com **