Legal Framework

1. Purpose

The Legal Framework page summarises the main legal aspects that affect FactHarbor as a small organisation and open-source project.

2. Organisational Form

The precise legal form (e.g. association, foundation, company, or hybrid) will be chosen based on jurisdiction, funding needs, and governance requirements.
Regardless of the final form, the organisation should support:

• transparent governance
• open collaboration and community involvement
• clear rules for asset ownership (code, data, documentation).

3. Future Non-Profit Entity and Mission-Lock

In the medium term, FactHarbor is intended to be operated by a mission-locked non-profit entity, for example a Swiss Verein or a comparable legal form in another jurisdiction.
The key design intentions are:

• Mission-locked purpose
• The legal entity exists to pursue the FactHarbor mission: helping people understand complex, unclear, and contested information on an evidence-based foundation.
• All activities and uses of funds must remain compatible with this public-interest purpose.
• No profit distribution
• Any surplus is reinvested into the mission (infrastructure, development, organisational work, community support).
• There is no distribution of profits to founders, members, or donors.
• Fair, market-aligned salaries and reimbursements for work are allowed where they fit the legal form and funding situation.
• Independence from funders
• Funders (donors, grant-makers, customers) cannot unilaterally override the Governing Team or the mission.
• Governance rules should prevent capture by a single sponsor or interest group.
• Asset and IP stewardship
• Critical assets (domains, repositories, trade names, trademarks where applicable) are held by the non-profit entity, not by individuals.
• Open source and open content licences remain the primary tools for protecting long-term use and auditability.
• Where early assets were held by the Founder or an initial entity, a transparent Asset Transfer Protocol must document how they are transferred to the non-profit.
• Dissolution and continuity
• If the non-profit is dissolved, remaining assets should be transferred to another mission-compatible, non-profit organisation.
• The goal is that the knowledge and artefacts created by FactHarbor remain usable and accessible as far as legally and technically possible.
  These principles are design guidelines.
  The concrete implementation (legal form, statutes, contracts) must be reviewed and adapted by qualified legal counsel before being used in practice.

4. Intellectual Property and Licences

• Code, documentation, and data are licensed as described on the Open Source Model and Licensing page.
• Contributors retain copyright to their contributions but grant the organisation and the public the rights described in the relevant licences.
• Contribution processes should include clear licence notices so that contributors know what they agree to.

5. Data Protection

FactHarbor must respect applicable data-protection laws (e.g. GDPR or local equivalents). Key principles:

• minimisation of personal data stored
• clear consent and privacy notices where required
• secure handling of donor and user data
• the ability to respond to access and deletion requests where applicable.

6. Contracts and External Partners

Where contracts with funders, hosting providers, or partners are required:

• they must not compromise FactHarbor’s independence and neutrality
• they must be documented and accessible to the Governing Team
• conflicts of interest must be disclosed.

7. Future Work

More detailed legal material (e.g. draft statutes, terms of use, privacy notice) will be developed in collaboration with legal advisors and stored as separate documents or pages.