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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 priv

by 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.
  - supermatt 5y ago
    That should be made clear to all those migrating. As it is it says it IS a NPO: "Libera Chat is a Swedish nonprofit organisation" - but doesnt provide any evidence to that effect. I guess this is why some of the larger (and more knowledgeable?) projects have moved to OFTC instead.
  - sampo 5y ago
    > The non-profit isn't really live yet Sweden seems to have really lightweight legislation for non-profits: Write by-laws, convene a meeting of at least 3 people, accept the by-laws, and bang: you're a legal entity. So it may be live, who knows. You only need to register with the Swedish Tax Office and get an organization number, if you want to conduct business transactions, such as opening bank account, pay taxes etc. https://skatteverket.se/foretagochorganisationer/foreningar/ideellforening/startaenideellforening.4.70ac421612e2a997f85800028338.html https://skatteverket.se/foretagochorganisationer/foreningar/...
- tokai 5y ago
  >It is not clear who the owner is The owner are the members of the organization. Look up what an Ideell Förening is.
  - supermatt 5y ago
    Can you prove that this Ideell Förening exists? Can you prove that libera.chat domain name is registered on behalf of that org? These are things that should be provable! Anyone can say: "I am the chairperson of an Ideell Förening called Libera Chat, and it holds every privacy protected domain on the planet (apart from the ones you know of that belong to others).". Prove me wrong. Show the official registration information for that organization. Show the official registrant of the domain. Thats all Im asking for. Honestly... As I mentioned, if they hold a bank account (which clearly they should, to pay for the domain if nothing else, to reinforce "ownership" of the domain), then they need - BY LAW - a company registration number. EDIT: So many downvotes for asking for proof that this non-profit exists and "owns" the domain. What a silly thing to ask... I'll be putting off migrating until its clear its not another bait and switch.
    - matsemann 5y ago
      Prove it by writing supermatt in a html comment on libera.chat, or editing a dns entry...?
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - mPReDiToR 5y ago
        Is this not what Keybase and the like are for?
    - aaronmdjones 5y ago
      As has already been explained by others in this thread (e.g. [1]); we are still waiting for the Swedish tax authority to get back to us. We will be happy to publish a registration number when we are assigned one. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27289911 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27289911
- CaptArmchair 5y ago
  > Why does a nonprofit organisation need this privacy protection? This isn't about keeping public information entirely secret. It's about controlling where and how public information is shared. As an individual, you might agree to have your telephone number and your address published in a paper telephone directory, but you might not be so keen to have that information published in an easily scraped online service leaving you with obnoxious sales calls, and junk mail. The same applies to a non-profit as well. > the information of the org is a matter of public knowledge Yes. But the what and the how is typically explicitly outlined by local laws. Typically, you could direct yourself to a local tax office or public registry where you could search and look into basic information about a legal entity as defined / outlined in a legal statute. You might find that domain names aren't required to be divulged publicly by law, and doing so is entirely at the discretion of the organization. (Example in the same vain: a public office isn't going to outright hand you a list of employees at a company if it's not legally mandated) Whether there's a moral responsibility is a different question. > 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. The freenode.net domain name isn't pointing to anywhere differently over the past period. It's also still very much registered to Freenode Ltd. That hasn't changed. What really changed is the control over the Ltd as the a majority stake in voting rights changed hands some time ago, and how that majority stake is now suddenly behaving very differently. In that regard, DNS records aren't a definitive indicator for trust. You have to amend that by (a) looking at who's represented in the board governing the non-profit, (b) look at documents such as yearly account balances and year reports which are typically legally mandated to be made publicly each year to see how the organisation is governed and (c) gauging day-to-day operations. Last week, I made a remark that the libera.chat website was precariously terse in contact information or mentions about it's legal status or whoever was behind this initiative. It's assuring to see that the website has been amended over the past week with the "bylaws" section and the "about Libera" section with mentioning full composition of the board as well as whoever actively contributes to the organiation.
  - sampo 5y ago
    > Typically, you could direct yourself to a local tax office or public registry where you could search and look into basic information about a legal entity as defined / outlined in a legal statute. Sweden doesn't require non-profit associations to be registered. https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideell_f%C3%B6rening https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideell_f%C3%B6rening

by wut42 5y ago

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.
- supermatt 5y ago
  That should be made clear to all those migrating. As it is it says it IS a NPO: "Libera Chat is a Swedish nonprofit organisation" - but doesnt provide any evidence to that effect. I guess this is why some of the larger (and more knowledgeable?) projects have moved to OFTC instead.
- sampo 5y ago
  > The non-profit isn't really live yet Sweden seems to have really lightweight legislation for non-profits: Write by-laws, convene a meeting of at least 3 people, accept the by-laws, and bang: you're a legal entity. So it may be live, who knows. You only need to register with the Swedish Tax Office and get an organization number, if you want to conduct business transactions, such as opening bank account, pay taxes etc. https://skatteverket.se/foretagochorganisationer/foreningar/ideellforening/startaenideellforening.4.70ac421612e2a997f85800028338.html https://skatteverket.se/foretagochorganisationer/foreningar/...
tokai 5y ago
>It is not clear who the owner is The owner are the members of the organization. Look up what an Ideell Förening is.
- supermatt 5y ago
  Can you prove that this Ideell Förening exists? Can you prove that libera.chat domain name is registered on behalf of that org? These are things that should be provable! Anyone can say: "I am the chairperson of an Ideell Förening called Libera Chat, and it holds every privacy protected domain on the planet (apart from the ones you know of that belong to others).". Prove me wrong. Show the official registration information for that organization. Show the official registrant of the domain. Thats all Im asking for. Honestly... As I mentioned, if they hold a bank account (which clearly they should, to pay for the domain if nothing else, to reinforce "ownership" of the domain), then they need - BY LAW - a company registration number. EDIT: So many downvotes for asking for proof that this non-profit exists and "owns" the domain. What a silly thing to ask... I'll be putting off migrating until its clear its not another bait and switch.
  - matsemann 5y ago
    Prove it by writing supermatt in a html comment on libera.chat, or editing a dns entry...?
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - mPReDiToR 5y ago
      Is this not what Keybase and the like are for?
  - aaronmdjones 5y ago
    As has already been explained by others in this thread (e.g. [1]); we are still waiting for the Swedish tax authority to get back to us. We will be happy to publish a registration number when we are assigned one. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27289911 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27289911
CaptArmchair 5y ago
> Why does a nonprofit organisation need this privacy protection? This isn't about keeping public information entirely secret. It's about controlling where and how public information is shared. As an individual, you might agree to have your telephone number and your address published in a paper telephone directory, but you might not be so keen to have that information published in an easily scraped online service leaving you with obnoxious sales calls, and junk mail. The same applies to a non-profit as well. > the information of the org is a matter of public knowledge Yes. But the what and the how is typically explicitly outlined by local laws. Typically, you could direct yourself to a local tax office or public registry where you could search and look into basic information about a legal entity as defined / outlined in a legal statute. You might find that domain names aren't required to be divulged publicly by law, and doing so is entirely at the discretion of the organization. (Example in the same vain: a public office isn't going to outright hand you a list of employees at a company if it's not legally mandated) Whether there's a moral responsibility is a different question. > 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. The freenode.net domain name isn't pointing to anywhere differently over the past period. It's also still very much registered to Freenode Ltd. That hasn't changed. What really changed is the control over the Ltd as the a majority stake in voting rights changed hands some time ago, and how that majority stake is now suddenly behaving very differently. In that regard, DNS records aren't a definitive indicator for trust. You have to amend that by (a) looking at who's represented in the board governing the non-profit, (b) look at documents such as yearly account balances and year reports which are typically legally mandated to be made publicly each year to see how the organisation is governed and (c) gauging day-to-day operations. Last week, I made a remark that the libera.chat website was precariously terse in contact information or mentions about it's legal status or whoever was behind this initiative. It's assuring to see that the website has been amended over the past week with the "bylaws" section and the "about Libera" section with mentioning full composition of the board as well as whoever actively contributes to the organiation.
- sampo 5y ago
  > Typically, you could direct yourself to a local tax office or public registry where you could search and look into basic information about a legal entity as defined / outlined in a legal statute. Sweden doesn't require non-profit associations to be registered. https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideell_f%C3%B6rening https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideell_f%C3%B6rening