The DEGEN Workgroup is interested in protecting its own interests, alongside the interests of BanklessDAO at large. We are willing to work alongside others to develop features that will bridge the many gaps that exist in the Discord space with regard to DAOs and Web3 services. However, there are many ways in which the services we provide in terms of development may be abused. As such, we present the following terms of ownership.
Because licensing for specific repos may not be sufficient for managing the rights allowed to particular sets of users, this section outlines the ownership rights over the intellectual property(IP) of bots and features developed by the DEGEN Workgroup for teams internal and external to BanklessDAO who seek to collaborate with the DEGEN Workgroup and what the DEGEN Workgroup develops for itself.
II. DEFINITIONS
“DEGEN Workgroup” refers to the core team responsible for the development of DEGEN and its affiliated suite of tools and services, including, but not limited to, Mad Hatter, Serendipity, and Mechanical Animal. The core team is defined by the seasonal project proposal, found here: +DEGEN Workgroup Season 3 Proposal
“BanklessDAO” refers to the collective group of individuals holding 35,000 BANK or more that comprises the organization commonly known as BanklessDAO. Rights provided to BanklessDAO are given to the organization and not any one or few individuals who hold the requisite amount of BANK and operate in or around the organization. Decisions made with respect to the rights provided to BanklessDAO herein should be addressed via consensus across the collective.
“Projects” refer to any entity—whether project or Guild—working within BanklessDAO, funded by BanklessDAO, and operated by members of BanklessDAO.
III. OWNERSHIP OF DIRECT IP
The DEGEN workgroup is comprised of many talented developers with the skills to bring ideation to creation through feature sets developed on proprietary bots. Work that is done internally, within the team itself, is content that belongs directly to the team. As such, these features are to be built out on bots that belong to the DEGEN Workgroup and whose licenses reflect the ownership of the IP by the DEGEN Workgroup. Generally, this is a Business Source License with a two year lead per release to Open Source. Specifically, this license designates that any development done on DEGEN or the DEGEN family of products and services belongs to the DEGEN Workgroup, and will be available as open source after a two year period has elapsed from the release date of those features and services.
TL;DR: if we dreamed it and built it, it belongs to us.
IV. OWNERSHIP OF IP CREATED IN COLLABORATION WITH PROJECTS WITHIN BANKLESSDAO
Projects(seeDEFINITIONS; hereafter“the project”) within BanklessDAO may choose to collaborate with the DEGEN Workgroup at any time and for any purpose. When doing so, the DEGEN Workgroup will serve as either consultants or contractors(details to follow) and provide bot development services for the project, in the form of a proprietary bot that will belong specifically to the project requesting these services.
CONSULTANCY
Ideally, the DEGEN Workgroup will work closely with developers on the project to onboard them to bot development, and guide the initial development of their feature sets. In this scenario, a member of the DEGEN Workgroup will act as a consultant, providing guidance and feedback until the native project developers are able to continue the work on their own.
In the event a DEGEN developer working in the capacity as consultant fails to deliver on the guidance expected from such a role, the developer will be replaced for another developer better suited to the task. If the developers on the project are incapable of completing the work set out by the terms of the project proposal, the contract should be renegotiated and a DEGEN developer assigned as a contractor.
CONTRACTING
Alternatively, a Project or Guild may choose to contract a developer from the DEGEN Workgroup to produce the desired feature set entirely. In this case, a member of the DEGEN Workgroup will fulfill the work, and an agreement would be made in terms of maintenance for the bot that is built for the project.
In either case, the project that consults or contracts with the DEGEN Workgroup retains full governance rights over the bot that is produced under agreed upon terms. The project may decide how and where the bot is deployed with no interference from the DEGEN Workgroup. The DEGEN Workgroup may provide guidance as to how best to deploy the bot, but ultimately, the deployment is up to the project to determine.
MAD HATTER
The Mad Hatter exists as the proprietary BanklessDAO administrative bot. Anything and everything built into Mad Hatter belongs to BanklessDAO directly. The DEGEN Workgroup reserves the right to repurpose features built into Mad Hatter for their own purposes, but BanklessDAO retains the rights to features and services as they appear in Mad Hatter.
TL;DR: if it’s your idea, and you work within BanklessDAO on a BanklessDAO-funded project or guild, we will build it for you, or help you build it, it belongs to you, and you may do whatever you want with it.
V. OWNERSHIP OF IP CREATED IN COLLABORATION WITH PROJECTS OUTSIDE OF BANKLESSDAO
Collaboration with projects, protocols, and DAOs outside of BanklessDAO(hereafter“external entities”) may appear similar to collaboration with internal Projects and Guilds to BanklessDAO. Initially, the IP produced under these collaborations falls under the ownership of the DEGEN Workgroup and will be reflected in the Business Source License of the repositories of bots that are built to fulfill the terms of each collaboration. This is, however, negotiable and predicated on the terms of development and compensation agreed upon by all parties involved in the collaboration.
TL;DR: if it’s your idea, and you contract us to build it, the code belongs to us, unless we come to terms otherwise as part of our collaboration agreement.
The DEGEN Workgroup reserves the right to negotiate on the price for development by consult or contract. Furthermore, the DEGEN Workgroup reserves the right to negotiate IP rights when consulting or contracting with external entities. The DEGEN Workgroup also reserves the right to refuse service to anyone, and for any reason.
I. SUMMARY
II. DEFINITIONS
III. OWNERSHIP OF DIRECT IP
IV. OWNERSHIP OF IP CREATED IN COLLABORATION WITH PROJECTS WITHIN BANKLESSDAO
V. OWNERSHIP OF IP CREATED IN COLLABORATION WITH PROJECTS OUTSIDE OF BANKLESSDAO