Hey all,

Today, I’m writing to share our intention to join Fedecan, a Canadian not-for-profit organization committed to supporting the Fediverse. We believe this partnership will foster collaboration among like-minded individuals who share a common goal: to create a safe, welcoming space where people can connect freely.

Together we will help deliver a fast, reliable, and consistent experience for all and continue to be free from corporate influence and guided by the values of openness, community, and trust.

Who is Fedecan

Fedecan is a registered non-profit organization based in Canada, with the goal to provide a safe and welcoming space for people to connect with each other on the Fediverse. More information can be found here.

You may also know them by their Canadian lemmy instance lemmy.ca.

What does this mean for sh.itjust.works?

From the outside everything will stay much the same, especially with the admin team. Internally, we will collaborate on tasks related to non-profit compliance, policies, banking and common infrastructure elements such as backup/disaster recovery infrastructure. We will continue to operate separate equipment and instances in geographically isolated locations under different names. We will work towards aligning on safety and security practices in order to ensure that data is secure.

From an organizational structure, sh.itjust.works will fall under the Fedecan umbrella and will share common bylaws, policies, methodologies on best practices, security and legal considerations.

Where do donations go?

Donations to sh.itjust.works will continue to support our mission and objectives exclusively. However, users will also have the option to donate directly to Fedecan, which will allocate funds amongst its projects including sh.itjust.works. Operational costs related to running the non-profit will be shared among projects and these expenses will be transparently disclosed in annual reports published on the Fedecan website.

Option to withdrawal

sh.itjust.works will have the right to withdraw from the Fedecan umbrella should our mutual goals no longer be aligned. In such a case, a predefined provision and action plan will be in place to ensure a smooth transition back to independence.

Why Now?

As the Fediverse continues to grow, we believe it’s important to collaborate more closely with others who share our values. Joining Fedecan allows us to do just that, strengthening our operation through a non-profit while staying true to our mission.

Timeline / Next Steps

Over the coming weeks, we’ll begin the process of integrating with Fedecan on the organization side. You won’t notice many changes but we’ll keep you informed throughout the process.

Looking Ahead

We’re excited about this next chapter and the opportunities it brings. By joining forces, we’re reinforcing our commitment to the Fediverse and to the principles that brought us all together in the first place—openness, community, transparency, and trust.

Our core mission remains unchanged. We’re still independent in spirit and practice and we remain committed to being a space that’s not driven by profit, but by people.

I invite your questions or concerns on this thread or on our https://matrix.to/#/#sh.itjust.works:matrix.org)

Stay connected,

–The sh.itjust.works and Fedecan Team

  • prodigalsorcerer@lemmy.caEnglish
    18·
    9 days ago

    I’m not inherently against this, but what benefit does this bring users of either instance (or Fedecan)? It seems like teaming up in this way (sort of) goes against the whole decentralized nature of the fediverse.

    As a extreme example that hopefully never happens, a decade or so from now, every federated Lemmy instance could be under the umbrella of Fedecan, and it could leverage its power and not federate with new instances at all, making it no better or different than Reddit, and making it difficult for any new Lemmy server to gain traction.

    • Shadow@lemmy.caEnglish
      281·
      9 days ago

      I don’t expect users to notice much. This mostly just helps SJW avoid duplication of effort that we’ve already done, things like setting up proper banking / donation systems, etc. They’re also welcome to leave at any time, if they feel we’re no longer going in the same direction.

      We’re not merging sites / stacks or anything like that but we will likely collaborate more, simply to save each other time and energy. Since we are all just volunteers, that’s really helpful.

  • SwizzleStick@lemmy.zipEnglish
    15·
    9 days ago

    Seems like a no-brainer & an all-round win-win, given that you already align closely on many fronts.

    These two statements could use some hair-splitting though (emphasis mine):

    Donations to sh.itjust.works will continue to support our mission and objectives exclusively.

    Operational costs related to running the non-profit will be shared among projects and these expenses will be transparently disclosed in annual reports published on the Fedecan website.

    Would donations to sh.itjust.works support the instance exclusively as per the first quote? Or as a Fedecan project, would those donations to sh.itjust.works backfeed into Fedecan in some way as per the second quote?

    Will you make public the action plan for withdrawal when it is prepared?

    I’m not a user here (nor a contributor) - just looking for clarification :)

    • Tlaloc_Temporal@lemmy.caEnglish
      2·
      9 days ago

      I think Fedecan donations go toward shared infrastructure expenses and projects, while sh.itjust.works donations go toward SJW expenses exclusively.

      sh.itjust.works donations would go toward shared experiences to some extent, but not other Fedecan projects.

      I’m not part of the project though, that’s just my interpretation.

  • merc@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    13·
    9 days ago

    Seems like a smart idea. In the UK the Online Safety Act is catching a lot of small websites that can’t afford to comply with rules that should just be targeting the big companies. Stuff like that could easily happen in Canada.

    A group like this should make it easier to make everyone’s voice heard to say ideas like that are bad. When, inevitably, they do end up passing, it makes it possible to share legal or insurance costs when they become necessary.

  • egerlach@lemmy.caEnglish
    81·
    9 days ago

    I’m an @lemmy.ca user and subbed to multiple @sh.itjust.works communities. I didn’t know you were hosted in Canada. I’m all for Canadian unity, and glad to see us all working togther for a stronger Canadian Fediverse based on mutual, continuous consent and agreement.

    • Picasso@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      8·
      9 days ago

      Legally it looks like they fall under the Canada Not-for-profit Corporations Act I didn’t check to see what exactly that means. Whether not-for-profit or non-profit… isn’t that 1000 times better than being a for profit corporation?

      I feel that this development is interesting and a positive one.

      • egerlach@lemmy.caEnglish
        5·
        9 days ago

        It’s a US term. Typically referring to IRC 501©(3) non-profit corporations. The advantage in the US is tax-exemption, and donations to such an organization would be deductible from one’s income tax. Not-for-profit corporations in Canada do not enjoy such a status.

        In Canada, the corresponing category to the US “non-profit” is “charity”. There is no distinction between not-for-profit and non-profit. Both imply the former.

        It is much more difficult to found a charity in Canada because our definition of charitable aims is much more strict than in the US.

        Source: Have served on more than one not-for-profit board and founded one not-for-profit corporation. The question of “why can’t I get a tax deduction for donating” always comes up.

      • Tar_Alcaran@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        5·
        9 days ago

        It’s mostly a US legal thing, many countries don’t have a distinction. A non-profit has some really strict public disclosure requirements and a broad goal (like the Red Cross). A not-fot-profit can be something “Bob’s Soup Kitchen for people between Main Street and 7th avenue in Nothingtown”, and they have less strict disclosure requirements, but do often pay some taxes (like VAT).

        Canada doesn’t seem to make a difference at first glance (but I’m not a lawyer, not Canadian and DEFINITELY not a Canadian legal expert)

    • egerlach@lemmy.caEnglish
      6·
      9 days ago

      In Canada: Not-for-profit == non-profit.

      There is only a distinction in the US. In Canada, the distinction is not-for-profit/non-profit vs. charity.

      • egerlach@lemmy.caEnglish
        5·
        9 days ago

        In Canada, the terms are interchangeable. The disctinction is only a US one.

  • ImmersiveMatthew@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    3·
    9 days ago

    This does feel like thing are getting a little centralized and it makes me nervous as anything centralized overtime is a sitting duck waiting for bad actors to infiltrate and take over. Do others share this concern and if not why not?

    • southsamurai@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      1·
      9 days ago

      Eh, it’s more like a co-op.

      They’re just pooling resources to make some things easier, it isn’t a merger.

      Even if every instance joined in, all it would mean is that someone leaving might make things a little bumpier for few days, it doesn’t change anything for the individual instances in terms of independence.