I didn't want to be break this story over here but since no one else seems to be posting about it here I am sharing a screenshot from the other side with @scan's post.
-
RE: https://social.wake.st/@liaizon/116206925371202010
I didn't want to be break this story over here but since no one else seems to be posting about it here I am sharing a screenshot from the other side with @scan's post.
-
RE: https://social.wake.st/@liaizon/116206925371202010
I didn't want to be break this story over here but since no one else seems to be posting about it here I am sharing a screenshot from the other side with @scan's post.
-
-
@liaizon @jowek @ukrudt @tak @ruben @magnus
Another issue is the whole governance issue - their 2022 stated goal for "Exit to Community" has resulted in:
"That vision became reality in 2024, when stewardship of the platform transitioned to a new nonprofit: the Open Finance Consortium Inc. (OFiCo), a U.S. 501(c)(6) association created by and for the fiscal hosts and communities who rely on it.
OFiCo now governs the platform collectively, while its subsidiary OFi Technologies (OFiTech) operates the platform. Together, they continue the original Open Collective mission: enabling transparent, collaborative finance for communities everywhere."
What does "govern the platform collectively" mean?
The OFi Consortium site says they are "community governed", and then later, that they are formed by 5 organisations including Open Collective Europe and Open Source Collective, that "represent thousands of Collectives and guide our strategic direction".
I'm in several collectives that are fiscally hosted by Open Collective Europe, and I have never been asked to "guide their strategic direction" in any real governance sense. And looking through their (OCE) site - there is nothing I can find about hosted collectives having governance. For me "exit to community" means that the community, in this case, the collectives, have governance - but I don't see it.
Am I missing something?
This is probably next-step stuff. But it is a lingering question I have had for a while. I have a good relationship with OCE, and I believe they are well-meaning. My worry is that if there is no real community governance, then it becomes "community-washing" instead of "community-governance".
@abekonge @jowek @ukrudt @tak @ruben @magnus just to follow up on this thread: they dropped Persona! There are a lot of good points brought up here, and they didn't really address many of them. I would love it if they made a more decisive statement then then did and engaged a bit more with the community here other then defensiveness. But I am very glad to see they at least cut ties
-
@nextgraph @liaizon @OpenSourceCollective On infrastructure: yes, we run primarily on Heroku, which relies on AWS. This is a legacy decision the engineering team inherited, and moving away from it is non-trivial at our scale. Here again, the work we're doing around decentralization will hopefully help us spin up separate instances in Europe and progressively migrate what needs to be migrated.
@Betree @liaizon @OpenSourceCollective Thank you Benjamin for your detailed answers. And sorry if I spread inaccurate information about your software. I am glad to read you do encrypt some sensitive data. maybe this is a new feature that didn't exist last time I looked. In general, I think what you do is very useful, and your large userbase attests to that. Glad also you are improving decentralization and self hosting. i cant find the answer I got back then from someone of your team about GDPR.
-
@Betree @liaizon @OpenSourceCollective Thank you Benjamin for your detailed answers. And sorry if I spread inaccurate information about your software. I am glad to read you do encrypt some sensitive data. maybe this is a new feature that didn't exist last time I looked. In general, I think what you do is very useful, and your large userbase attests to that. Glad also you are improving decentralization and self hosting. i cant find the answer I got back then from someone of your team about GDPR.
@Betree @liaizon @OpenSourceCollective was it by email, mastodon, or github issue, i searched and cannot find it. but i remember it was: we are US based and we dont need to store data in Europe. I since few years later, you can understand now in 2026 why this is an important detail. GDPR does not mandate storing europeans' data in Europe,but it would help if you would do that. it would improve trust and safety. i will certainly not use your service until the data is stored in Europe. Good work!
-
-
RE: https://social.wake.st/@liaizon/116206925371202010
I didn't want to be break this story over here but since no one else seems to be posting about it here I am sharing a screenshot from the other side with @scan's post.
OpenCollective responded to our collective concerns about identity verification and halted their use of Persona. I'm really happy to see this reaction by @opencollective -
https://opencollective.com/opensource/updates/on-kyc-checks-and-personaThanks to @liaizon to raise the alarm bells and so many who spoke up in this rather sensitive matter - people do need the money for their communities, but we need to have more control over the process. OpenCollective and @Liberapay are important actors here for the ecosystem.
Of course much concern remains for the reliance on US law (OpenCollective) and all credit card payment providers are under US control. Recall what happened to the ICC judges? So we need to work towards more reliable systems under our control.
To be continued. The @fkinstitute and the DemocraticTech.Fund will be working with these concerns in mind.
-
OpenCollective responded to our collective concerns about identity verification and halted their use of Persona. I'm really happy to see this reaction by @opencollective -
https://opencollective.com/opensource/updates/on-kyc-checks-and-personaThanks to @liaizon to raise the alarm bells and so many who spoke up in this rather sensitive matter - people do need the money for their communities, but we need to have more control over the process. OpenCollective and @Liberapay are important actors here for the ecosystem.
Of course much concern remains for the reliance on US law (OpenCollective) and all credit card payment providers are under US control. Recall what happened to the ICC judges? So we need to work towards more reliable systems under our control.
To be continued. The @fkinstitute and the DemocraticTech.Fund will be working with these concerns in mind.
@Wtebbens @opencollective @liaizon @Liberapay @fkinstitute It would also be nice if there were a branch for euro currency, because every conversion incurs extra costs..
-
J jwcph@helvede.net shared this topic
