this post was submitted on 11 Apr 2025
436 points (98.4% liked)

Announcements

118 readers
1 users here now

founded 7 months ago
MODERATORS
 

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

(page 2) 40 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 month ago

This is excellent! Sharing business infrastructure while maintaining server and moderation independence seems like the right way to go.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago

This is awesome news!

This way you can do much more with the teams as you’re no longer held back with duplicate organizational paperwork freeing up potential resources in kickstarting potential Canadian Piefed, Friendica, Peertube and Matrix instances 🥳

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago (6 children)

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?

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 month 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.

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

Beautiful Dude

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I’m a happy sh.it just.works user, thank you for your efforts!

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I'm a happy lemmy.ca user, welcome to the family server cousin!

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 46 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 month ago

Elbows up! May Lemmy.ca (BC) and SJW (Quebec) build up a better future for all Canadians!

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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 :)

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (7 children)

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~~ expenses to some extent, but not other Fedecan projects.

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

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

This is how i understood it as well

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago (1 children)

They will also save money in bulk buying hardware, server spaces and recruiting experts.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (5 replies)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago

Sounds cool. Thanks for letting us know.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 month ago (3 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 54 points 1 month 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.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago
[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 month 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.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago

This is an interesting development, a federation of federated instances. Welcome!

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago (5 children)

Not for profit < non profit.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 month 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.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month 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.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago (2 children)

As a non native english speaker: what's the difference?

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago

It's a US term. Typically referring to IRC 501(c)(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.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month 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)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

This is important. The post states not for profit the website says non profit.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago (3 children)

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

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Their info page says they're actually a non-profit. Not sure why the dude mixed the two terms together.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The terms mean the same thing in Canada. The distinction is US-only.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (6 children)

These Canadian lawyers disagree but they don't do a good job of explaining what the difference is.

load more comments (6 replies)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Many don't know they are different.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

They aren't in Canada apparently

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

They seem to use the term interchangeably, but legally, they're registered as a not-for-profit corporation.

@[email protected] : Can you provide some clarity, and can you get the fedecan website updated to use the correct terminology?

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 month ago

We are registered as a corporation under the Canada Not-for-profit Corporations Act. We have no plans or desire to make money from this. All donations today go strictly towards infrastructure costs, and not to any reimbursement of time.

Hopefully that's clear, but happy to answer any questions.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments
view more: ‹ prev next ›