Hi Yosem, On 14.06.2018 21:13, Yosem Companys wrote: > Recently, the decision was made to spin off LT as an independent entity.
Have you considered fiscal sponsorship instead, meaning to partner with an existing non-profit instead of creating your own? I can for example see us at Renewable Freedom Foundation hosting this, both legally and technically. We have our own servers at various data centers, an endowment to ensure continued operation of the foundation, and existing legal infrastructure (registration in Germany, charity status for donations across Europe, readily set up accounting & audits etc.). It would save you from a lot of headaches and bureaucracy. There are other foundations I can connect you to if you're interested in exploring this route. Legally, the primary consideration should be wether you expect grants or donations, and where from. If you're dealing with US funders, it is the easiest for them to give money to 501c3's in the US; if you're dealing with donors from Europe, a European entity might be more useful. "Iceland" and "Switzerland" are mentioned quite often with little actual benefit (their privacy laws nowadays are similarly good or bad as elsewhere), and I would rather base the decision on where you have trusted contacts and someone who speaks the language. The separation of concerns via fiscal sponsorship can give you more flexibility, and more independence: I could see you partnering with a number of different entities, and regardless of their governance structures decide on your own governance model independently. If all you plan for the near future is some structure to host the mailing lists and/or forums, I suggest you reconsider creating yet another legal entity for this (yet). In terms of recommendations for hosters, you should base your decision on where you "place" the legal entity: The best protection you get is having the infrastructure in the same country as the legal entity, as it will not create potentially complex legal issues crossing borders. If you have narrowed down your choices, I can help pick hosting companies. It sounds like you may be interested in managed services, where you trust the hosting company to manage not only the connectivity but also the services itself (mailman and/or discourse). If you're considering the hosted Discourse at discourse.com, you will need to trust them with the data. I have not looked at their policies but usually these managed options do not take good care of reducing IP logging, for example. They are probably also using cloud storage, so the data sharing is even more extensive. By picking a US company you basically pin the jurisdiction, and you do not really want to be a foreign entity using US services like that, so that makes sense only if you're creating or partnering with a US entity. You can, however, find other, privacy-aware companies that offer managed mailman/discourse hosting in other jurisdictions without the "clouded" bit. Moritz -- Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing the moderator at zakwh...@stanford.edu.
