Policies / process for domain ownership

[choldgraf]

In jupyterhub/team-compass#424 we're discussing some challenges around designating shared ownership and control of mybinder.org. It's currently under my personal account, and I'd like to somehow move to a shared ownership model.

However, we aren't sure what domain registry service will allow for something like "shared ownership". I believe that NameCheap allows for shared access / management but not ownership.

Does anyone know if it is possible to have "shared" ownership of a domain like mybinder.org? E.g., could I donate it to NumFocus as an asset that is handled similar to other Jupyter assets? And if so, what kind of registrar service should we use to ensure that the Binder team still has easy access / control over its usage?

More generally, something we should figure out as part of the governance re-working is what kind of policy we want for "Jupyter-related domains", and what process we recommend to carry out that policy.

[ellisonbg]

However, looking forward, I think we can separate legal ownership from management. From a legal perspective, because Jupyter is part of NumFOCUS, any assets that are owned by Jupyter and its subprojects (such as Binder) are owned by NumFOCUS. Thus, for example, NumFOCUS holds the Jupyter logo/word mark trademarks, domains, etc. I don't see why the binder trademark, domains, etc. would be any different. Thus, if the domain service asks for the legal owner of the domain, I think the correct answer would be "NumFOCUS."

The question of management of those assets is different and more tied to the practical dimensions of the people doing the day to day work. Thus for example, the domain could leverage a shared email that all binder team members have access to.

(I forget how this is currently handled for the jupyter and ipython domains - the way they are handled may not be ideal as well.)