11 ms·
Taking Lichess to the next level
- yewenjie 4y agoI have said this countless times, and I will say it again - it is just marvelous how Lichess provides so much value being completely free (both libre and gratis). I would love to see more publicity of Lichess though - and seems like this move will help in that regard. I don't know for sure, but is there any other chess organization in the world of this scope that is truly non-profit? Sure, FIDE itself is non-profit, but profit-motives of its commercial counterparts and allies are controversial, to say the least.
- perihelions 4y agoFIDE's finances are the sort of finances where your Swiss bank terminates all of your accounts in response to OFAC sanctions against terrorist states [0]. I don't think they belong on this list, even if they technically are a nonprofit! [0] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-43053626 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-43053626
- MonkeyClub 4y ago> after a statement on it's website said he had resigned. Sort of insane how the BBC missed the correct form of the possessive.
- rogual 4y agoThe BBC website is full of sloppy writing, not to mention straight-up clickbait, these days. It's kind of sad.
- mandmandam 4y agoDon't forget the casual racism: [0] Which is part of their racist, institutionally colonial makeup at the top, according to their own staff: [1] Then there's how they treated Corbyn, or how they "covered" Assange, or their role in the war on terror, etc, etc. They don't deserve your pity. They've been like this for a long time. [0] - https://www.msn.com/en-ie/news/other/irish-people-rage-over-bbc-article-which-claimed-ronaldo-was-throwing-a-bit-of-a-paddy/ar-AA13rR98 https://www.msn.com/en-ie/news/other/irish-people-rage-over-... [1] - https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/bbc-institutionally-racist_uk_5f3f9c78c5b697824f977779 https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/bbc-institutionally-r...
- dweekly 4y agoAs a rule, if an article uses [sic] in ANY part of its reporting it better have been scrubbed clean by an editor to not have any typos of its own.
- usednet 4y agoImagine if those sanctions had been successful and the “moderate rebels” had taken over Syria. It’s incredulous how atrocious Western foreign policy has become.
- ShivShankaran 4y agoAlso worth noting that the current "Director Of Content" for reddit is from Atlantic Council. Its board of directors has been and continues to be a who’s who of high U.S. statespeople like Henry Kissinger, Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, as well as senior military commanders such as retired generals Wesley Clark, David Petraeus, H.R. McMaster, James “Mad Dog” Mattis, the late Lt. Gen. Brent Scowcroft, and Admiral James Stavridis. At least seven former CIA directors are also on the board.
- ksaun 4y ago(Colin Powell died about a year ago.)
- logical_proof 4y agoTo be fair the parent comment was saying that the current director of content for Reddit is ALSO part of the Atlantic council, then says the Atlantic council is and has been made up of those individuals. Powell could have been on that council before his death at some point.
- throwrqX 4y agoThe reddit board of directors? That doesn't seem right https://www.bloomberg.com/profile/company/0893288D:US https://www.bloomberg.com/profile/company/0893288D:US
- ShivShankaran 4y agoNow, what I meant is Reddit director of content was transplanted from Atlantic council which had these politicians as board
- ulpoker 4y agoOwnership and influence of chess companies and FIDE sponsoring is not very transparent. This article for instance claims that Mark Scheinberg has a chess.com stake. https://www.uktech.news/news/this-european-vc-wants-to-invest-75m-in-software-startups-from-central-eastern-europe-israel-baltics-finland-and-cis-20201216 https://www.uktech.news/news/this-european-vc-wants-to-inves... The Scheinberg family also sponsors FIDE: https://www.fide.com/news/1694 https://www.fide.com/news/1694
- stevage 4y agoThere is or was FICS, the free internet chess server. It never really had a web interface afaik.
- perihelions 4y agoRelated thread from not too long ago, discussing Lichess' operating budget: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29955204 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29955204 ("It takes $420k per year to run Lichess") https://lichess.org/costs https://lichess.org/costs (a spreadsheet)
- noxvilleza 4y agoI'm interested what costs $0.38 on the Google Cloud in that spreadsheet!
- lukhas 4y agoKeeping a template image containing enough code to start fishnet (https://github.com/lichess-org/fishnet/ https://github.com/lichess-org/fishnet/) so that we can boot up quick and (relatively) cheap fishnet instances should the need arise.
- pocketarc 4y agoMain Developer Salary: $52,747.25 Damn. That's nothing, especially for someone doing such important work.
- Jamie9912 4y agostandard european salary
- yewenjie 4y agoNo it is not. Even if you are talking about the average software dev salary across Europe, Thibault is way more experienced, and he lives in France.
- iLoveOncall 4y agoFrance has very low developer salaries. While 50K is towards the bottom of the barrel with his experience, it's definitely not uncommon either.
- Barrin92 4y agoI think it's incredibly responsible that they take governance seriously at a small organization like this. It'd be easy to take donations in some informal or crowdfunded way but going down the route of registering as a charity and having proper accounting and paperwork in place goes a long way to make sure people can be certain that their money is used well. In particular if the people running it ever change.
- texasbigdata 4y agoBeing on the board of an American charity is kinda stressful imho. Even when you have D&O insurance if you’re on the board. Having buttoned up financials and processes and controls is a HUGE sign of relief for anyone on the outside considering partnering / joining / advising.
- Razengan 4y agoI read that as "lichness" and was amused for a second, expecting some kind of immortality project for the aging elite.
- sundarurfriend 4y agotl; dr: > We’ve also been looking into options to set up a charitable presence in the United States, by either partnering with an existing charity or helping to set up a new independent 501(c)(3) organisation to support free open source software/technology in chess. > We know that we’ll need to talk to awesome accountants and lovely lawyers, especially for the 501(c)(3) initiative. > As we grow, we’re going to need more help from our community, and especially from skilled professionals who aren’t necessarily developers. Would you like to help? Do you have experience or skills in finance/accounting, law, nonprofit administration, communications, or something else that we could use? If so, we invite you to complete this short survey: https://forms.gle/TAAja3MqnbJRGgea9 https://forms.gle/TAAja3MqnbJRGgea9 (closes at 2359 CEST on Sunday 13 November).
- pabs3 4y agoIf partnering with an existing org, Software Freedom Conservancy would seem like the right one. https://sfconservancy.org/ https://sfconservancy.org/
- knocte 4y agoOr OpenCollective.
- pabs3 4y agoAFAICT OpenCollective currently is not a 501c3, they are a VC funded for-profit company, although it sounds like they might be changing that. https://opencollective.com/e2c https://opencollective.com/e2c
- notpushkin 4y agoThey do run a 501(c)(3) fiscal host though, but I'm not sure if Lichess would fit its charitable purposes: - increasing access to educational resources and training - creating a positive social impact - developing tools to improve civic participation within cities or communities https://opencollective.com/foundation https://opencollective.com/foundation
- sidcool 4y agoPleasantly surprised to see the title image generated by Stable Diffusion.
- sour-taste 4y agoGood for them, seems like a good move. I always get nervous when I see one of these titles from a well respected charity: I assume that it'll be the announcement of a new direction for the organization, or the establishment of a for-profit arm. This is just lichess growing to give better benefits for donors, among other things. They deserve it.
- sdfjkl 4y agoI always read lichess as female lich. Then I get confused when I click on it and see chess boards. Probably played too many fantasy games.
- jdthedisciple 4y agowhat the hell is lich if i may ask and yes I know google exists
- sdfjkl 4y agoA necromancer who voluntarily became undead: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lich https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lich
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- moffkalast 4y ago> Therefore, in 2016, Lichess was formally registered under French law as an association loi 1901. This type of association applies to groups with clearly defined purposes that benefit the public, similar to charities. However, it’s quite easy to form one - the total number in France is over 1.5 million! It is surprising that Lichess is a French charity, much like VLC. France also has a very low entry barrier for forming an LLC, so it seems to be a rather good approach all things considered. > once we become an association of general interest, our French donors will be able to make tax-deductible donations, meaning they can reduce their individual tax burden through supporting us. In theory, this should also apply to donors who are citizens of other EU countries, but the last bit of legislation supporting EU-wide application was passed in 2009 and we’re still waiting for it to be cleanly implemented. Classic EU. It really is a running theme that EU member state governments have to be dragged kicking and screaming to implement beneficial EU directives as local laws while they at the same time blame the EU for everything unpopular they do themselves. If that's not a clear indicator that the Parliament should have more authority to assert itself I don't know what is. At least we get the "project funded by the EU" signs on random buildings to not make the good stuff completely invisible on the local level.
- mhb 4y ago> France also has a very low entry barrier for forming an LLC In what places is this difficult? It's essentially trivial in the US.
- moffkalast 4y agoMost of Europe requires you to put up several thousand in starting capital for an LLC equivalent entity. 7.5k for where I live, and Germany would be highest I think at over 12k. It's an extreme barrier for entry to say the least. Not sure what the requirements are for a non-profit though, but I assume it's the same with just a different tax classification.
- batmansmk 4y ago1 euro in France.
- IshKebab 4y ago> but the last bit of legislation supporting EU-wide application was passed in 2009 and we’re still waiting for it to be cleanly implemented. Classic EU. Careful what you complain about...
- mlac 4y agoWhile I think a US non-profit makes a lot of sense, I would exercise caution with the non-profit board. The board’s job is to provide oversight and to appoint a director [1]. In this case it would clearly be Thibault, but what happens in a few years when Thibault is ready to go? Does he have say in his replacement? Does the French organization take precedent over the US nonprofit when it comes to leadership and governance? I say this because Lichess is extremely valuable (even as a non-profit) and that will attract the wrong kind of people. Thibault should take every precaution to make sure he retains control of the org, with good people around him. I’m not sure if there is a non-profit equivalent of retaining voting rights, but I’d want to be sure he retains control until it’s well established as a non-profit and a succession plan is in place. The wrong board could evaluate his performance (which right now he says he works at his leisure and loves what he does) and say “we need more fundraising and appearances in the US at tournaments” and he could balk / want to focus on the product. They could then look to appoint a US director of the nonprofit and things could get awkward and extremely costly. It’s incredible what has been built and maintained with a small team. I think they will see extreme diminishing returns after they hit a certain level of governance. Whether that’s going international with a nonprofit status in the US or at another point is beyond my level of expertise. If someone more knowledgeable that I am can correct what I’ve written above and point out that my concerns are overblown, I’d be happy. I’d also ask that person to volunteer and help Lichess establish a presence in the US. [1] https://www.councilofnonprofits.org/tools-resources/board-roles-and-responsibilities https://www.councilofnonprofits.org/tools-resources/board-ro...
- bombcar 4y agoThere’s an entire industry built around milking non-profits, and fighting them off is a major part of the job.
- themoonisachees 4y agoI'm not sure about the precedence of us vs french law, but possibly the US nonprofit could be set up as dependant on the whims of the french one. French law has a few safeguards in place about Association hijacking, namely the fact that officially changing an association's "statuts" (its written missions) cannot be done unilaterally, and must include named trustees (which could be Thibault) in the vote.
- eruci 4y agoI moved from Yahoo Chess, to Chess.com then to Lichess, and I haven't looked back since. I hope they continue to make it work as good as it does now - however they do it.
- naveen99 4y agocan lichess or chess.com add go please ?
- School-Cotton 4y agoNot sure why you’ve been downvoted. It’s not an unreasonable suggestion; chess.com already has loads of weird variants like Duck Chess.
- naveen99 4y agoThanks. I love chess as well. But go is under marketed in the west and has potential in the rest of the world (non chinese).
- dsjoerg 4y agoWhat do you think of the existing go offerings online?
- naveen99 4y agoNot as good as chess.com Go world is mostly on websites only (not mobile native apps). Also the largest servers are In Chinese with minimal English translation (fox). No standard equivalent of stockfish engine integration (while we are here, stockfish please add go support). On baduk subreddit, top recommendation is goquest, which is like flappybird compared to super Mario brothers. No 9x9 ladder climbs on YouTube to learn from like chess rating climbs by GM’s like levy and Aman.
- strenholme 4y agoIt would probably be a separate site like https://lishogi.org https://lishogi.org or https://lidraughts.org https://lidraughts.org (both based on the Lichess engine). Or, it might be added to https://playstrategy.org/ https://playstrategy.org/ (which is the Lichess engine with a bunch of other abstract games added)
- sunsetSamurai 4y agohave you tried https://online-go.com/ https://online-go.com/? it looks very featureful
- nomilk 4y agoTL;DR Lichess is a growing not-for-profit, it's awesome, and (last paragraph): > you might be just the sort of person we’re looking for – someone who’s clearly passionate about all things Lichess, even the minutiae. As we grow, we’re going to need more help from our community, and especially from skilled professionals who aren’t necessarily developers. Would you like to help? Do you have experience or skills in finance/accounting, law, nonprofit administration, communications, or something else that we could use? If so, we invite you to complete this short survey: https://forms.gle/TAAja3MqnbJRGgea9 https://forms.gle/TAAja3MqnbJRGgea9
- NickC25 4y agoCan Lichess please add Crazyhouse 960? They already have Chess 960 and Crazyhouse!
- greyman 4y agoIs this a thing? I don't like 960, but with crazyhouse it could be fun.
- NickC25 4y agoIt is indeed a thing! Check it out on Pychess.org I enjoy 960, and I enjoy Crazyhouse. Crazy960 is chess at its purest - no lines to memorize, no endgames to push for, just pure tactics.
- runarberg 4y ago> At the moment, there are no plans to add any more variants ever. https://github.com/lichess-org/lila/issues/11660#issuecomment-1269264956 https://github.com/lichess-org/lila/issues/11660#issuecommen...
- NickC25 4y agoAdding new variants like DuckChess, yeah, that makes sense. Adding a 960 option to Crazyhouse is a few lines of code. If PyChess.org can do it, so can LiChess.
- dromedariusCase 4y ago1. c4