10 Years Torservers.net: Death or Future?
tl;dr: torservers.net needs a new home! I started torservers.net after a random chat at a local bar some time early 2010. I wore a Tor shirt, and the guy next to me asked if that was "The Onion", the satire magazine. He became pretty excited about Tor after I told him what it was about, opened his wallet and gave me a 100€ bill "to put towards the network". Eventually it turned out that he was an Oracle software developer, so it's kind of funny to think about this as "one of the few good things Oracle has ever done". I thought about it for a bit, and then decided to take the money, which cemented the idea that I have had for quite some time: to get a more beefy machine to "properly" run a Tor exit, sharing the costs with others. Only a few days after I announced this idea on or-talk [1] in May 2010, some crazy Swede wired me another 1000€ (Thanks!). So, bad luck, I really had to do this now! I am still surprised at how successful the fundraising was. In fact, when we finally created a legal envelope of protection around me by starting the Zwiebelfreunde association in 2011, it was already clear that we needed to find others to do the same, instead of growing larger ourselves. The network was a lot different then, and some people tell me we had 80% of the overall exit capacity for quite some time after Olaf shut down his fast Blutmagie exit. So I went on a tour to inspire others. So, here we are, almost 10 years later, with 23 partner organizations in 15 countries. [2] After I got a "real job" in 2013 (that quickly grew into "more than full-time"), and at the same time the first grant money for torservers.net, we tried in many different ways to "recruit" others to "take over". Looking back, of course a lot of things happened and it was a crazy (and fun!) time, but long story short, until now nobody stepped up to take over the core role of a "coordinator" of activities. There are many many offers for help, and even more ideas of what torservers.net could do and be, but all people involved heavily at the beginning (Thanks!) don't have time to coordinate all the wonderful help, and do a proper handover. We tried a couple of times, only to spend a lot of time "training" a poor person to get them somewhat up to speed, but eventually everyone decided they had better things to do than to become frustrated at trying to walk blindly without much guidance. This is not an easy role to step into. If we take the May 2010 announcement as "launch date", the 10 years anniversary will be on May 10th, 2020. My dream would be to celebrate this with a fresh board at Zwiebelfreunde that has taken over the association, and another group that coordinates the international platform that torservers.net was meant to be(come). Of course we will not simply give away the domains and the legal entity and all our exit relays to just anyone. But, hm, yeah, truth is, probably almost anyone! ;-) For some years now, we've talked about the idea of a "relaunch". The most promising idea is to organize a proper Tor Relay Operators Retreat, maybe 50 people or so, with all the great people who have dedicated their lives to this project at some point, and all the great new folks who are as excited as all of us were back then about contributing to the Tor network. It would likely to be possible to convince Open Technology Fund or some other money source to sponsor travel and venue. I've always imagined this to happen in a nice "holiday" setting. At some point, I *will* go with a group of people to this fine venue [3], as an example of how this could look like. So far, I've tried to talk to individuals about it in smaller groups, and never announced it to the broader community in the way I do now. However, I still believe that this can only really be moved forward _in person_. I will do my best to ignore all mails you write to me or in this thread. Please write, coordinate, do everything that you think would be good to do to move this forward, but I don't really have the capacity to lead a good discussion. The only capacity I can offer is that we *need* someone to step up, and grab me at some event in meatspace. Ideally at that point that person is willing to have the A record pointed at some new place under their control, and we can begin the transition. Otherwise we will probably simply kill it for the 10 years anniversary, and finally make room for something new altogether. This is a call for help! Thanks. :-) Moritz P.S.: I will at some point soon post another mail about what I was up to the past years, and what I will be up to in the next few years. Don't worry, I'll still be around. [1] http://archives.seul.org/or/talk/May-2010/msg00058.html [2] https://torservers.net/partners.html [3] For a real Tor Relay Retreat, we would need something larger, but I think this gives you a pretty good idea of how I imagine it to look like: https://www.homeaway.co.uk/p868562
On 04.05.19 17:21, Ralph Seichter wrote:
This is a call for help! I offered to help last year, but my email to your support address did not result in an answer, so I pretty much shrugged it off. I'm sure I can find that message and forward it to you.
-Ralph
Thank you. This is a good illustration of how this is broken, and how on all ends this just leads to frustration. Your mails are still there waiting to be answered, together with lots of other mail, marked as unread. They were NOT ignored, just nobody found the time to answer them yet. I have literally hundreds of mail sitting in my inbox waiting be answered some day, many of them older than a year. I send you and all the others who have been offering assistance warm greetings and a thank-you, but we need someone to step up as coordinator. All I can offer at this point is communication infrastructure so that a new group can form and self-coordinate, like our IRC channels (#torservers, #zwiebelfreunde), and our dormant mailing lists (e.g. https://www.freelists.org/list/torservers ). Maybe the better option is indeed to just celebrate its 10 years of existence and kill it gracefully, to make room to let a new group form independently, instead of waiting for someone to inherit it together with the complexity and expectation to stick to the principles behind it. Moritz
I'm very sad to read this but I totally understand you. Running such an organization is not easy and even a bit ungrateful. Never the less we from FVDE want to thank you and everybody behind torservers.net and Zwiebelfreunde e.V. It has been a hell of a ride and maybe you are right and the retreat of one organization makes room for others to grow. All the best virii Moritz Bartl:
On 04.05.19 17:21, Ralph Seichter wrote:
This is a call for help! I offered to help last year, but my email to your support address did not result in an answer, so I pretty much shrugged it off. I'm sure I can find that message and forward it to you.
-Ralph
Thank you. This is a good illustration of how this is broken, and how on all ends this just leads to frustration.
Your mails are still there waiting to be answered, together with lots of other mail, marked as unread. They were NOT ignored, just nobody found the time to answer them yet. I have literally hundreds of mail sitting in my inbox waiting be answered some day, many of them older than a year.
I send you and all the others who have been offering assistance warm greetings and a thank-you, but we need someone to step up as coordinator. All I can offer at this point is communication infrastructure so that a new group can form and self-coordinate, like our IRC channels (#torservers, #zwiebelfreunde), and our dormant mailing lists (e.g. https://www.freelists.org/list/torservers ).
Maybe the better option is indeed to just celebrate its 10 years of existence and kill it gracefully, to make room to let a new group form independently, instead of waiting for someone to inherit it together with the complexity and expectation to stick to the principles behind it.
Moritz _______________________________________________ tor-relays mailing list tor-relays@lists.torproject.org https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-relays
On 5/7/19, Tyler Durden <virii@enn.lu> wrote:
It has been a hell of a ride
Yes :) Many of us remember day of torservers beginning days, and or have taken part creating, running, supporting, aligning with it over time. Those sorts of big projects are no small undertaking. Especially setting up of legal and funding elements. That may be why it could take a while to find and handoff to a next gen of maintainers... as it keeping homed locally would certainly be easier than trying to port those existing legal operations over to other jurisdictions. So be sure to seek through CCC / WauH networks too. Regardless, there will always be quite some number of independant groups around world working together to support overlay networks :) Given ongoing worldwide adoption of cryptocurrency, it might even be easier in some ways.
* Moritz Bartl:
I send you and all the others who have been offering assistance warm greetings and a thank-you, but we need someone to step up as coordinator.
As I wrote last year, I would be willing to help Torservers, but coordinator is not a role I want.
Maybe the better option is indeed to just celebrate its 10 years of existence and kill it gracefully [...]
Based on your description, that might be the best solution. The more complexity/ballast a project has accumulated, the harder it becomes to find somebody to take over. -Ralph
On Saturday, 4 May 2019 11:57:24 CEST Moritz Bartl wrote:
The only capacity I can offer is that we *need* someone to step up, and grab me at some event in meatspace. Ideally at that point that person is willing to have the A record pointed at some new place under their control, and we can begin the transition. Otherwise we will probably simply kill it for the 10 years anniversary, and finally make room for something new altogether.
This is a call for help!
I have been thinking about this for the past week (and hoping that someone else would step forward) and have come to the conclusion that: (1) I care enough about internet freedom to sacrifice considerable amounts of my own time towards it, and (2) if the alternative is letting torservers.net die, then helping out there is the best way I could use that time. I don't think I could do everything, nor would it be desirable for so much to depend on one person. However, I am sure that there are a lot of things that need to be done which are also within my capabilities.
My dream would be to celebrate this with a fresh board at Zwiebelfreunde that has taken over the association, and another group that coordinates the international platform that torservers.net was meant to be(come).
It would be great to see something like this happen. Who else would like to take part? Where else could we look for interested people? "grarpamp" suggested:
So be sure to seek through CCC / WauH networks too.
On 05/12/2019 12:17 PM, Chris Kerr wrote:
On Saturday, 4 May 2019 11:57:24 CEST Moritz Bartl wrote:
<SNIP>
This is a call for help!
<SNIP>
I don't think I could do everything, nor would it be desirable for so much to depend on one person. However, I am sure that there are a lot of things that need to be done which are also within my capabilities.
My dream would be to celebrate this with a fresh board at Zwiebelfreunde that has taken over the association, and another group that coordinates the international platform that torservers.net was meant to be(come).
It would be great to see something like this happen. Who else would like to take part? Where else could we look for interested people? "grarpamp" suggested:
So be sure to seek through CCC / WauH networks too.
I'd love to help, but I'm probably about as old as Moritz is. And far less dependable. However, I could handle some short-term tasks.
Hi! Thanks for this update about torservers. I have been around when it has started, but then got busy myself with other things. But these days I am playing with an idea that https://opencollective.com/ might be something which would allow one to duplicate and replicate what torservers have done without having to struggle through all the bureaucracy of making your own association, bank accounts and so on. Mitar On Sat, May 4, 2019 at 2:58 AM Moritz Bartl <moritz@torservers.net> wrote:
tl;dr: torservers.net needs a new home!
I started torservers.net after a random chat at a local bar some time early 2010. I wore a Tor shirt, and the guy next to me asked if that was "The Onion", the satire magazine. He became pretty excited about Tor after I told him what it was about, opened his wallet and gave me a 100€ bill "to put towards the network". Eventually it turned out that he was an Oracle software developer, so it's kind of funny to think about this as "one of the few good things Oracle has ever done".
I thought about it for a bit, and then decided to take the money, which cemented the idea that I have had for quite some time: to get a more beefy machine to "properly" run a Tor exit, sharing the costs with others.
Only a few days after I announced this idea on or-talk [1] in May 2010, some crazy Swede wired me another 1000€ (Thanks!). So, bad luck, I really had to do this now!
I am still surprised at how successful the fundraising was. In fact, when we finally created a legal envelope of protection around me by starting the Zwiebelfreunde association in 2011, it was already clear that we needed to find others to do the same, instead of growing larger ourselves. The network was a lot different then, and some people tell me we had 80% of the overall exit capacity for quite some time after Olaf shut down his fast Blutmagie exit. So I went on a tour to inspire others.
So, here we are, almost 10 years later, with 23 partner organizations in 15 countries. [2]
After I got a "real job" in 2013 (that quickly grew into "more than full-time"), and at the same time the first grant money for torservers.net, we tried in many different ways to "recruit" others to "take over". Looking back, of course a lot of things happened and it was a crazy (and fun!) time, but long story short, until now nobody stepped up to take over the core role of a "coordinator" of activities. There are many many offers for help, and even more ideas of what torservers.net could do and be, but all people involved heavily at the beginning (Thanks!) don't have time to coordinate all the wonderful help, and do a proper handover. We tried a couple of times, only to spend a lot of time "training" a poor person to get them somewhat up to speed, but eventually everyone decided they had better things to do than to become frustrated at trying to walk blindly without much guidance. This is not an easy role to step into.
If we take the May 2010 announcement as "launch date", the 10 years anniversary will be on May 10th, 2020. My dream would be to celebrate this with a fresh board at Zwiebelfreunde that has taken over the association, and another group that coordinates the international platform that torservers.net was meant to be(come).
Of course we will not simply give away the domains and the legal entity and all our exit relays to just anyone. But, hm, yeah, truth is, probably almost anyone! ;-)
For some years now, we've talked about the idea of a "relaunch". The most promising idea is to organize a proper Tor Relay Operators Retreat, maybe 50 people or so, with all the great people who have dedicated their lives to this project at some point, and all the great new folks who are as excited as all of us were back then about contributing to the Tor network. It would likely to be possible to convince Open Technology Fund or some other money source to sponsor travel and venue. I've always imagined this to happen in a nice "holiday" setting. At some point, I *will* go with a group of people to this fine venue [3], as an example of how this could look like.
So far, I've tried to talk to individuals about it in smaller groups, and never announced it to the broader community in the way I do now. However, I still believe that this can only really be moved forward _in person_. I will do my best to ignore all mails you write to me or in this thread. Please write, coordinate, do everything that you think would be good to do to move this forward, but I don't really have the capacity to lead a good discussion. The only capacity I can offer is that we *need* someone to step up, and grab me at some event in meatspace. Ideally at that point that person is willing to have the A record pointed at some new place under their control, and we can begin the transition. Otherwise we will probably simply kill it for the 10 years anniversary, and finally make room for something new altogether.
This is a call for help!
Thanks. :-)
Moritz
P.S.: I will at some point soon post another mail about what I was up to the past years, and what I will be up to in the next few years. Don't worry, I'll still be around.
[1] http://archives.seul.org/or/talk/May-2010/msg00058.html [2] https://torservers.net/partners.html [3] For a real Tor Relay Retreat, we would need something larger, but I think this gives you a pretty good idea of how I imagine it to look like: https://www.homeaway.co.uk/p868562 _______________________________________________ tor-relays mailing list tor-relays@lists.torproject.org https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-relays
They want 10% ONLY for money transfer. This must be a joke. You can get a bank account for free in 5 minutes in Germany.
On 2. Aug 2019, at 03:35, Mitar <mmitar@gmail.com> wrote:
But these days I am playing with an idea that https://opencollective.com/ might be something which would allow one to duplicate and replicate what torservers have done without having to struggle through all the bureaucracy of making your own association, bank accounts and so on.
Mitar
Hi! Yes, running a non-profit for you is not free (accounting costs, at least). I think costs are explained well here: https://docs.opencollective.com/help/about/pricing You can install Open Collective software on your own server and having your own fiscal host, and then there are no costs (see the last example in "Examples" table). So if torservers already has a non-profit, we could just install as software on our own servers. But I think the question is: do we have volunteers to step up and do work so that we can have no or little overhead, or if not, we can use a cloud service, but it costs us then 10%. I was trying to show an option for the second approach. But if there are already people stepping up, feel free to ignore me. Of course anyone else can host an instance with less platform overhead. Or you can create an association in Germany and then become a sponsor for Open Collective projects, but not require any fee, lowering the overhead to 5% SaaS fee only. Mitar On Fri, Aug 2, 2019 at 4:49 AM niftybunny <abuse-contact@to-surf-and-protect.net> wrote:
They want 10% ONLY for money transfer. This must be a joke. You can get a bank account for free in 5 minutes in Germany.
On 2. Aug 2019, at 03:35, Mitar <mmitar@gmail.com> wrote:
But these days I am playing with an idea that https://opencollective.com/ might be something which would allow one to duplicate and replicate what torservers have done without having to struggle through all the bureaucracy of making your own association, bank accounts and so on.
Mitar
_______________________________________________ tor-relays mailing list tor-relays@lists.torproject.org https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-relays
Hi We don't need a funding platform. We need someone who * maintains the social contacts * gives interviews * does the tax declaration * ... and so on ... Tim Am Freitag, den 02.08.2019, 08:44 -0700 schrieb Mitar: Hi! Yes, running a non-profit for you is not free (accounting costs, at least). I think costs are explained well here: https://docs.opencollective.com/help/about/pricing You can install Open Collective software on your own server and having your own fiscal host, and then there are no costs (see the last example in "Examples" table). So if torservers already has a non-profit, we could just install as software on our own servers. But I think the question is: do we have volunteers to step up and do work so that we can have no or little overhead, or if not, we can use a cloud service, but it costs us then 10%. I was trying to show an option for the second approach. But if there are already people stepping up, feel free to ignore me. Of course anyone else can host an instance with less platform overhead. Or you can create an association in Germany and then become a sponsor for Open Collective projects, but not require any fee, lowering the overhead to 5% SaaS fee only. Mitar On Fri, Aug 2, 2019 at 4:49 AM niftybunny < abuse-contact@to-surf-and-protect.net> wrote: They want 10% ONLY for money transfer. This must be a joke. You can get a bank account for free in 5 minutes in Germany. On 2. Aug 2019, at 03:35, Mitar < mmitar@gmail.com> wrote: But these days I am playing with an idea that https://opencollective.com/ might be something which would allow one to duplicate and replicate what torservers have done without having to struggle through all the bureaucracy of making your own association, bank accounts and so on. Mitar _______________________________________________ tor-relays mailing list tor-relays@lists.torproject.org https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-relays
The problem (I think) is not the financial side. For a German non profit (eingetragener gemeinnütziger Verein) you need at least 7 people, lots of paperwork, going to your tax office, yearly mandatory meetings etc. And that’s only to fund a non profit. To run this you need a lot of labor to keep it going. A bank account and some shiny virtual medals for donors is the least of my problems.
On 2. Aug 2019, at 17:44, Mitar <mmitar@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi!
Yes, running a non-profit for you is not free (accounting costs, at least). I think costs are explained well here:
https://docs.opencollective.com/help/about/pricing
You can install Open Collective software on your own server and having your own fiscal host, and then there are no costs (see the last example in "Examples" table). So if torservers already has a non-profit, we could just install as software on our own servers. But I think the question is: do we have volunteers to step up and do work so that we can have no or little overhead, or if not, we can use a cloud service, but it costs us then 10%. I was trying to show an option for the second approach. But if there are already people stepping up, feel free to ignore me.
Of course anyone else can host an instance with less platform overhead. Or you can create an association in Germany and then become a sponsor for Open Collective projects, but not require any fee, lowering the overhead to 5% SaaS fee only.
Mitar
On Fri, Aug 2, 2019 at 4:49 AM niftybunny <abuse-contact@to-surf-and-protect.net> wrote:
They want 10% ONLY for money transfer. This must be a joke. You can get a bank account for free in 5 minutes in Germany.
On 2. Aug 2019, at 03:35, Mitar <mmitar@gmail.com> wrote:
But these days I am playing with an idea that https://opencollective.com/ might be something which would allow one to duplicate and replicate what torservers have done without having to struggle through all the bureaucracy of making your own association, bank accounts and so on.
Mitar
_______________________________________________ tor-relays mailing list tor-relays@lists.torproject.org https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-relays
-- http://mitar.tnode.com/ https://twitter.com/mitar_m _______________________________________________ tor-relays mailing list tor-relays@lists.torproject.org https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-relays
Hi! I do not want to repeat myself and I really do not care about Open Collective too much (I am not affiliated with them in any way), but:
For a German non profit (eingetragener gemeinnütziger Verein) you need at least 7 people, lots of paperwork, going to your tax office, yearly mandatory meetings etc.
This is exactly what OpenCollective solves. They have a set of non-profits which act as host organizations and do all this fiscal work for you. You do not have to do any paperwork, any taxes, etc. Those non-profits take 5% for this work, but it does simplify this if the problem is in person-power to otherwise do this.
The problem (I think) is not the financial side.
Great. So then 5% + 5% they take to fix the problem mentioned above could be a reasonable cost for such service. Then the only remaining jobs would be: * maintains the social contacts * gives interviews The running of nodes themselves would continue to be done by other people. This is exactly why I brought Open Collective up. Because I have seen in other projects that people generally like to solve technical things (in this case that would be running fast Tor nodes) but not really do the paper work. And Open Collective seems to solve the latter problem so that you can focus on the former. Mitar -- http://mitar.tnode.com/ https://twitter.com/mitar_m
This is exactly what OpenCollective solves. They have a set of non-profits which act as host organizations and do all this fiscal work for you. You do not have to do any paperwork, any taxes, etc. Those non-profits take 5% for this work, but it does simplify this if the problem is in person-power to otherwise do this.
Okay, I´ll bite. How do they solve this? They have ready made non profits in Germany (eingetragener gemeinnütziger Verein) that I can use and rename and you will take care of it? And the 6 people will be delivered to? So basically slavery with extra steps and a 5% cut ...
Mitar
-- http://mitar.tnode.com/ https://twitter.com/mitar_m _______________________________________________ tor-relays mailing list tor-relays@lists.torproject.org https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-relays
Hi! On Tue, Aug 6, 2019 at 6:30 AM niftybunny <abuse-contact@to-surf-and-protect.net> wrote:
Okay, I´ll bite. How do they solve this?
You can see the list of hosts they have here: https://opencollective.com/hosts
They have ready made non profits in Germany (eingetragener gemeinnütziger Verein) that I can use and rename and you will take care of it?
You do not rename. They are just fiscal sponsor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiscal_sponsorship That process is being abstracted by Open Collective.
And the 6 people will be delivered to?
I do not understand what you mean by this.
So basically slavery with extra steps and a 5% cut ...
I do not understand what you mean by this. It is a service they offer so you do not have to take care of non-profits yourself. If you want to take care, great. But if you have lack of (human) resources to take care, then you can use their service. How is this slavery? It looks pretty voluntary to engage with them (do the degree of business partnerships being voluntary in our society). Mitar -- http://mitar.tnode.com/ https://twitter.com/mitar_m
Hi! One interesting option could be that the existing tor servers non-profit applies as a host organization. And then other tor-based projects could be fiscally sponsored by it. That means other tor-based projects would not have to have/be a non-profit (and could decide to not take any pay cut). But it would not solve the current problem which seems to be the lack of people to run the tor servers non-profit itself. Also, I think it is better if donations would be collected for all projects and distribute that instead of individual projects trying to raise donations. Mitar On Tue, Aug 6, 2019 at 9:56 AM Mitar <mmitar@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi!
On Tue, Aug 6, 2019 at 6:30 AM niftybunny <abuse-contact@to-surf-and-protect.net> wrote:
Okay, I´ll bite. How do they solve this?
You can see the list of hosts they have here:
https://opencollective.com/hosts
They have ready made non profits in Germany (eingetragener gemeinnütziger Verein) that I can use and rename and you will take care of it?
You do not rename. They are just fiscal sponsor:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiscal_sponsorship
That process is being abstracted by Open Collective.
And the 6 people will be delivered to?
I do not understand what you mean by this.
So basically slavery with extra steps and a 5% cut ...
I do not understand what you mean by this. It is a service they offer so you do not have to take care of non-profits yourself. If you want to take care, great. But if you have lack of (human) resources to take care, then you can use their service. How is this slavery? It looks pretty voluntary to engage with them (do the degree of business partnerships being voluntary in our society).
Mitar
Thats complete and utter bullshit. First off, nice to see you are fighting for the good in the world, while having a company in Delaware. Paying 0% taxes. Fuck the working poor, fuck all taxpayers and fuck the government that need these taxes … nice touch . https://docs.opencollective.com/help/about/company <https://docs.opencollective.com/help/about/company> The point of a non profit is that donations to it are tax deductible. Donations from NON EU organisations are NON tax deductible. Paragraph. https://www.steuerberater-haffner.de/wissenswertes/steuertipps-steuertricks/... <https://www.steuerberater-haffner.de/wissenswertes/steuertipps-steuertricks/auslandsspenden/> https://www.expat-news.com/13146/recht-steuern-im-ausland/wann-spenden-ins-a... <https://www.expat-news.com/13146/recht-steuern-im-ausland/wann-spenden-ins-ausland-steuerlich-absetzbar-sind/> https://www.buhl.de/steuernsparen/spenden-ins-ausland-2/ <https://www.buhl.de/steuernsparen/spenden-ins-ausland-2/> https://winheller.com/blog/auslandsspenden-an-stiftung-in-der-eu/ <https://winheller.com/blog/auslandsspenden-an-stiftung-in-der-eu/> You can donate to EU non profits but the DONOR has to PROOF without doubt that these organisations have the same non profits standards as a German one. https://www.esche.de/news/publikationen/compact-2009/compact-spezial-stiftun... <https://www.esche.de/news/publikationen/compact-2009/compact-spezial-stiftungen-022009/spenden-ins-eu-ausland-abzugsfaehig-eugh-entscheidet-in-der-rechtssache-persche/> Non donor will do this. Even if he will try its almost impossible and lots of lots of work. For your 5% cut you offer some shiny badges and things nobody really needs. Getting under an umbrella organisation is extra. https://opencollective.com/hosts You are misleading the donors and everyone with this setup. Avoid like the plague.
On 6. Aug 2019, at 18:56, Mitar <mmitar@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi!
On Tue, Aug 6, 2019 at 6:30 AM niftybunny <abuse-contact@to-surf-and-protect.net> wrote:
Okay, I´ll bite. How do they solve this?
You can see the list of hosts they have here:
https://opencollective.com/hosts
They have ready made non profits in Germany (eingetragener gemeinnütziger Verein) that I can use and rename and you will take care of it?
You do not rename. They are just fiscal sponsor:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiscal_sponsorship
That process is being abstracted by Open Collective.
And the 6 people will be delivered to?
I do not understand what you mean by this.
So basically slavery with extra steps and a 5% cut ...
I do not understand what you mean by this. It is a service they offer so you do not have to take care of non-profits yourself. If you want to take care, great. But if you have lack of (human) resources to take care, then you can use their service. How is this slavery? It looks pretty voluntary to engage with them (do the degree of business partnerships being voluntary in our society).
Mitar
-- http://mitar.tnode.com/ https://twitter.com/mitar_m _______________________________________________ tor-relays mailing list tor-relays@lists.torproject.org https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-relays
Hi niftybunny, Mitar,
On 7 Aug 2019, at 17:37, niftybunny <abuse-contact@to-surf-and-protect.net> wrote:
Thats complete and utter bullshit.
After thinking about it for a while, I have allowed this email through moderation. I considered rejecting it, because this thread is getting repetitive. And it seems like you're getting frustrated, because you don't agree with each other. Disagreements are ok, but sometimes you need to summarise, then move on. Please stay on topic, provide new, useful information, and stay calm. If that doesn't happen, we might reject or delay future emails on this thread. T
Hi! So I initially just wanted to share a tool/service which I think addresses some of the issues I noticed in projects, when people get burned out because of all the paperwork involved. I replied further to mostly address some, from my perspective, misunderstandings about this tool/service. By providing more information I thought people can decide better if this tool/service is something which could be useful here. I think we are going now in circles and I think that for anyone who cares about this tool/service can read more information by themselves. I do not see much interest in it, so I will not continue this thread. If anyone has more questions about it and would like my ideas how it could be applied to this project, feel free to write to me directly. On Wed, Aug 7, 2019 at 4:45 PM niftybunny <abuse-contact@to-surf-and-protect.net> wrote:
First off, nice to see you are fighting for the good in the world, while having a company in Delaware. Paying 0% taxes.
Not sure if this relates to me personally, but I am not involved with the company. And you are right that we should be mindful about how companies are incorporated, when deciding to deal with them. Not sure if this is the critical factor though, but it is for sure a factor. Thank you for bringing this to my attention. And you are right that closer your non-profit host is to the project, easier it is to donate to your project. But I thought tor servers project is a global project, not a German project, so having fiscal sponsors all around the globe in fact, by your own argument, makes it easier to donate for more people. US people can donate to US based non-profit hosts, EU people can donate to EU based non-profit hosts, if there was a German host, then it would address your concern about German donations as well. You can of course have a network of partners, like tor servers project has now to address the same need. But there is still paperwork will all this. Anyway, this is all from my side. I hope all this energy I have observed just now could be redirected to further push tor servers project into the future. It is always easier to argue against than working towards. Mitar -- http://mitar.tnode.com/ https://twitter.com/mitar_m
It was nothing personal at all. My point was and is: You can’t substitute a German non profit with this organisation. Even if you could, torservers.net are supporting all the others smaller orgs, not the other way around. Thats a lot of work organising orgs and also avoiding unnecessary work in one of the reason most orgs have strict reduced exit policies at place nowadays. You get a few 100 abuse mails a day, you have to take care of the servers, talk to people, organise things, make sure everyone is happy. The yearly paperwork for a non profit doesn’t really matter in the grand pattern of things. Take care!
On 8. Aug 2019, at 06:08, Mitar <mmitar@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi!
So I initially just wanted to share a tool/service which I think addresses some of the issues I noticed in projects, when people get burned out because of all the paperwork involved. I replied further to mostly address some, from my perspective, misunderstandings about this tool/service. By providing more information I thought people can decide better if this tool/service is something which could be useful here.
I think we are going now in circles and I think that for anyone who cares about this tool/service can read more information by themselves. I do not see much interest in it, so I will not continue this thread. If anyone has more questions about it and would like my ideas how it could be applied to this project, feel free to write to me directly.
On Wed, Aug 7, 2019 at 4:45 PM niftybunny <abuse-contact@to-surf-and-protect.net> wrote:
First off, nice to see you are fighting for the good in the world, while having a company in Delaware. Paying 0% taxes.
Not sure if this relates to me personally, but I am not involved with the company. And you are right that we should be mindful about how companies are incorporated, when deciding to deal with them. Not sure if this is the critical factor though, but it is for sure a factor. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.
And you are right that closer your non-profit host is to the project, easier it is to donate to your project. But I thought tor servers project is a global project, not a German project, so having fiscal sponsors all around the globe in fact, by your own argument, makes it easier to donate for more people. US people can donate to US based non-profit hosts, EU people can donate to EU based non-profit hosts, if there was a German host, then it would address your concern about German donations as well.
You can of course have a network of partners, like tor servers project has now to address the same need. But there is still paperwork will all this.
Anyway, this is all from my side. I hope all this energy I have observed just now could be redirected to further push tor servers project into the future. It is always easier to argue against than working towards.
Mitar
-- http://mitar.tnode.com/ https://twitter.com/mitar_m _______________________________________________ tor-relays mailing list tor-relays@lists.torproject.org https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-relays
participants (10)
-
Chris Kerr -
grarpamp -
Mirimir -
Mitar -
Moritz Bartl -
niftybunny -
Ralph Seichter -
teor -
Tim Niemeyer -
Tyler Durden