Legal and Administrative Matters

one last check

• Legal and administrative tasks are the most commonly skipped and the most likely to cause problems later
• Most important thing is to keep a record of decisions made during shutdown: what was transferred, to whom, and when
  • And make sure that record is available after shutdown
• Determine who legally owns the project's outputs: individual contributors, an institution, or a formal entity
  • IP policies differ between universities, companies, and grant-funded projects
  • Check, don't assume
• Open source licenses are irrevocable, but closing repositories is still a meaningful decision for your community
• Confidential and personally identifiable data has specific legal obligations for retention and deletion
• Trademarks, domain names, and social media handles are assets with legal owners
  • Transfer or release them explicitly
• Financial accounts require formal closure
  • Residual funds may need to be donated or returned
• Grant reporting obligations survive project shutdown
  • Check whether a final report is due
• Build exit clauses into contracts and development agreements from the start, not when you need them
• The difference between rules as written and rules as enforced matters most during institutional turmoil

Exercises

Sequence Under Constraint

An open-source data analysis tool maintained as a US-based nonprofit. Primary funding is a three-year NSF grant with 18 months remaining. The GitHub organization has 400 stars and 12 contributors, two of whom are on visas. The mailing list has 800 subscribers whose email addresses are stored on a paid service. The project holds a registered trademark on its name.

1. Working individually, list the legal or administrative obligations that arise when this project shuts down.
2. Put them in the order they must be addressed. Which obligations create deadlines that constrain everything else?
3. Compare your sequence with a partner. Where do your orderings differ, and why?

Financial Wind-down

Your project has a bank account with $4,200 remaining from a completed grant, a recurring $45/month hosting bill on a team member's personal credit card, and a paid GitHub organization plan that renews annually in three months. The fiscal sponsor requires a final financial report within 60 days of closure.

1. List every financial action that must be completed before the project is fully closed, including transfers, reimbursements, and reports.
2. Sequence them in dependency order: which actions must happen before which others? Which have hard deadlines imposed by external parties?
3. Identify which actions require sign-off from someone other than the project lead, and draft the email requesting that sign-off.