5 ms·

This whole freenoda issue is a problem primarily because of the control of the domain name. Who controls libera.chat domain? It says it is a swedish nonprofit

This whole freenoda issue is a problem primarily because of the control of the domain name. Who controls libera.chat domain? It says it is a swedish nonprofit (although I cant see any specifics on their website), but the unredacted portions of the whois show it is owned by an Icelandic entity. Sounds like scope for more future drama...

Jiocus 5y ago
Is https://libera.chat/about https://libera.chat/about specific enough?
- supermatt 5y ago
  Not at all. Why is the domain owned by an icelandic entity instead of the nonprofit? Where is the company registration number of the nonprofit (required to open a bank account - where will donations be held, etc). Its all very vague and handwavy at the moment - just like early days of freenode... EDIT: Loads of downvotes, but why? Any of you want to leave a comment instead of just downvoting?
  - wut42 5y ago
    I think you are getting downvoted because you're making points that I've already responded to you. Libera is a week old. It may have been started to get in shape before the launch and mass resign of a week ago, but give them time to create the org properly (which, again, is in progress, and was already a week ago).
    - supermatt 5y ago
      Heh, and I wrote it before you even responded :D This comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27289097 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27289097 Your comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27289100 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27289100 Im happy to give them time - im just pointing out the current state of things, and what sets off my alarm bells. These are all things that can be addressed, no doubt.
      - wut42 5y ago
        Ha! Sorry, didn't noticed this one when I replied before to you, so I thought it was new. All the bells you are ringing has been pointed already (and since Libera got opened), it's in progress. I trust them to do the correct things, and will be addressed soon. Maybe as you said in another comment that it should have been made more clear on their website, tho.
  - Jiocus 5y ago
    > Why is the domain owned by an icelandic entity instead of the nonprofit? According to the WHOIS information, the registration of libera.chat was made 2021-04-23. This registration was made ~1 month before the organisation Libera Chat was announced. As far as I can tell, the organisation could not have made the registration as a legal entity before existing. Seeing the registrar is Namecheap, I guess someone made the registration and made use of the zero-cost Whoisguard service available. Perhaps the registrant's contact details point to Iceland. Some of my domains point to Panama, what gives. > Where is the company registration number of the nonprofit (required to open a bank account - where will donations be held, etc). As the OP title suggests, Libera Chat was assembled a week ago. There is no Swedish law requiring that an organisation registers, but as you suggest, it will be necessary to register a legal entity for financial purposes. Fulfilling the paperwork of registering a non-profit organisation with Skatteverket and thus receiving an ORG number generally comes after the fact of the foundation of said organisation. Non-profit organisations in Sweden are real and protected entities, registration or not.
    - majewsky 5y ago
      > As far as I can tell, the organisation could not have made the registration as a legal entity before existing. Domain name ownership can be transferred. It's trivial for a founding member to register the domain name first, then transfer ownership to the organisation once it has been founded.
      - Jiocus 5y ago
        Of course, but many services would require a registered VAT number to be able to fulfill a purchase or transfer to an organisation. Or rather, to set up such an account in the first place. Frankly, WHOIS records is to crude a metric to really pass judgement on anything nowadays. The masked entries in the lookup for libera.chat i.e. "REDACTED FOR PRIVACY", are typical of registrars not overstepping GDPR compliance when making them public.
wut42 5y ago
Libera.Chat is likely owned by the Swedish Non profit. The Icelandic entity you see in the whois is the privacy protection of "with held for privacy"[0], a privacy DNS entity. The Swedish non-profit is still in bureaucracy approval from what I've heard from their staff, but you can already look at their bylaws[1]. [0]: https://withheldforprivacy.com https://withheldforprivacy.com [1]: https://libera.chat/bylaws https://libera.chat/bylaws
- wut42 5y ago
  Adding some info on the freenode situation -- it did not really came from the DNS issue. DNS was always more or less owned by freenode limited, just that rasengan got locked out by a previous mistake and then took this as an offense while it was just a mistake. Surely tomaw did some retention on giving the access back after, but for other reasons (mainly signs of interference from rasengan).
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- supermatt 5y ago
  That is simply an assumption. It is not clear who the owner is exactly because of this "privacy protection". Why does a nonprofit organisation need this privacy protection? The org is the identity that should control it, and the information of the org is a matter of public knowledge (if it REALLY exists, which isnt clear either.) These issues are critical for the trust that the libera.chat domain isn't suddenly going to be pointing elsewhere due to it not being control by the "trusted" org.
  - wut42 5y ago
    The non-profit isn't really live yet, this may be why. I'm sure the libera.chat staff wants do to things correctly this time-- they have learned the mistakes. As said, the entity isn't formally created yet because bureaucracy seems to be slow. This will happen, I'm 99% sure of this.
account42 5y ago
The domain matters less than control of the servers. While the freenode servers were controlled by ohters, Andrew was obviously able (via legal threaths from what it seems) to get the previous staff to relinquish control of them. If it would have just been the domain, getting people to change their client settings to connect somewhere else but keep all channel and user registrations would have been easier.

Jiocus 5y ago

Is https://libera.chat/about https://libera.chat/about specific enough?

supermatt 5y ago
Not at all. Why is the domain owned by an icelandic entity instead of the nonprofit? Where is the company registration number of the nonprofit (required to open a bank account - where will donations be held, etc). Its all very vague and handwavy at the moment - just like early days of freenode... EDIT: Loads of downvotes, but why? Any of you want to leave a comment instead of just downvoting?
- wut42 5y ago
  I think you are getting downvoted because you're making points that I've already responded to you. Libera is a week old. It may have been started to get in shape before the launch and mass resign of a week ago, but give them time to create the org properly (which, again, is in progress, and was already a week ago).
  - supermatt 5y ago
    Heh, and I wrote it before you even responded :D This comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27289097 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27289097 Your comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27289100 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27289100 Im happy to give them time - im just pointing out the current state of things, and what sets off my alarm bells. These are all things that can be addressed, no doubt.
    - wut42 5y ago
      Ha! Sorry, didn't noticed this one when I replied before to you, so I thought it was new. All the bells you are ringing has been pointed already (and since Libera got opened), it's in progress. I trust them to do the correct things, and will be addressed soon. Maybe as you said in another comment that it should have been made more clear on their website, tho.
- Jiocus 5y ago
  > Why is the domain owned by an icelandic entity instead of the nonprofit? According to the WHOIS information, the registration of libera.chat was made 2021-04-23. This registration was made ~1 month before the organisation Libera Chat was announced. As far as I can tell, the organisation could not have made the registration as a legal entity before existing. Seeing the registrar is Namecheap, I guess someone made the registration and made use of the zero-cost Whoisguard service available. Perhaps the registrant's contact details point to Iceland. Some of my domains point to Panama, what gives. > Where is the company registration number of the nonprofit (required to open a bank account - where will donations be held, etc). As the OP title suggests, Libera Chat was assembled a week ago. There is no Swedish law requiring that an organisation registers, but as you suggest, it will be necessary to register a legal entity for financial purposes. Fulfilling the paperwork of registering a non-profit organisation with Skatteverket and thus receiving an ORG number generally comes after the fact of the foundation of said organisation. Non-profit organisations in Sweden are real and protected entities, registration or not.
  - majewsky 5y ago
    > As far as I can tell, the organisation could not have made the registration as a legal entity before existing. Domain name ownership can be transferred. It's trivial for a founding member to register the domain name first, then transfer ownership to the organisation once it has been founded.
    - Jiocus 5y ago
      Of course, but many services would require a registered VAT number to be able to fulfill a purchase or transfer to an organisation. Or rather, to set up such an account in the first place. Frankly, WHOIS records is to crude a metric to really pass judgement on anything nowadays. The masked entries in the lookup for libera.chat i.e. "REDACTED FOR PRIVACY", are typical of registrars not overstepping GDPR compliance when making them public.

wut42 5y ago

Libera.Chat is likely owned by the Swedish Non profit. The Icelandic entity you see in the whois is the privacy protection of "with held for privacy"[0], a privacy DNS entity. The Swedish non-profit is still in bureaucracy approval from what I've heard from their staff, but you can already look at their bylaws[1]. [0]: https://withheldforprivacy.com https://withheldforprivacy.com [1]: https://libera.chat/bylaws https://libera.chat/bylaws

wut42 5y ago
Adding some info on the freenode situation -- it did not really came from the DNS issue. DNS was always more or less owned by freenode limited, just that rasengan got locked out by a previous mistake and then took this as an offense while it was just a mistake. Surely tomaw did some retention on giving the access back after, but for other reasons (mainly signs of interference from rasengan).
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
supermatt 5y ago
That is simply an assumption. It is not clear who the owner is exactly because of this "privacy protection". Why does a nonprofit organisation need this privacy protection? The org is the identity that should control it, and the information of the org is a matter of public knowledge (if it REALLY exists, which isnt clear either.) These issues are critical for the trust that the libera.chat domain isn't suddenly going to be pointing elsewhere due to it not being control by the "trusted" org.
- wut42 5y ago
  The non-profit isn't really live yet, this may be why. I'm sure the libera.chat staff wants do to things correctly this time-- they have learned the mistakes. As said, the entity isn't formally created yet because bureaucracy seems to be slow. This will happen, I'm 99% sure of this.

account42 5y ago

The domain matters less than control of the servers. While the freenode servers were controlled by ohters, Andrew was obviously able (via legal threaths from what it seems) to get the previous staff to relinquish control of them. If it would have just been the domain, getting people to change their client settings to connect somewhere else but keep all channel and user registrations would have been easier.