Proton is transitioning towards a non-profit structure (proton.me)
from ForgottenFlux@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world on 17 Jun 13:18
https://lemmy.world/post/16626474

#technology

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youju@lemmy.ml on 17 Jun 13:42 next collapse

Nice to hear.

Vent@lemm.ee on 17 Jun 13:47 next collapse

So they’re adopting a similar structure to OpenAI, a for-profit company majority controlled by a non-profit organization.

ilinamorato@lemmy.world on 17 Jun 13:51 next collapse

Also Mozilla.

NOT_RICK@lemmy.world on 17 Jun 14:16 collapse

Doesn’t Ikea do something like this too?

fayoh@sopuli.xyz on 17 Jun 14:44 collapse

That’s just for tax evasion

probableprotogen@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 17 Jun 15:19 collapse

The Ikea Foundation of Furniture Lovers

Jimbabwe@lemmy.world on 17 Jun 14:16 next collapse

Similar structure, yes, but this is the important part:

Swiss foundations and their board of trustees are legally obligated to act in accordance with the purpose for which they were established

So, just like the Louvre museum in Paris and the Luxor casino in Las Vegas have similar structures, pointing this out doesn’t really contribute much to the discussion.

For all I know, OpenAI’s purpose is to create Skynet and kill all humans. But Proton’s is:

Our legally binding purpose is to further the advancement of privacy, freedom, and democracy around the world.

sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works on 17 Jun 15:13 collapse

And this might actually get me to use Proton. I’m currently with Tuta, and the experience there is… just okay. I went with them because they claim to have even less access to my stuff vs Proton, and Proton being private didn’t get me to trust them enough to use them instead (I’ve used them in the past though). But this structural change might convince me that they’re trustworthy enough to switch to.

We’ll see how it turns out. I’m still giving Tuta a shot because I like the idea of not bundling everything together, but once I get my NextCloud setup working, I’ll decide how much of Proton I’ll actually need, compare prices, etc.

asdfasdfasdf@lemmy.world on 17 Jun 18:44 collapse

How is it possible to have less data on your than Proton? I’m not aware of anything Proton has which isn’t fundamentally required.

sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works on 17 Jun 18:58 collapse

Proton stores email subject lines unencrypted to facilitate search, Tuta does search client-side so everything can be completely encrypted. Both have access to unencrypted email when they receive it, so it’s not a huge difference, but given the cost difference, I figured I’d give Tuta a try first.

AProfessional@lemmy.world on 17 Jun 20:12 next collapse

While it does help with search it was required to be compatible with OpenPGP.

sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works on 17 Jun 20:15 collapse

I don’t think that’s true. They can always do PGP on the client after decrypting the email (so double-encrypt). It’s also not particularly interesting because almost nobody uses PGP. It’s a design decision that I’m not a big fan of, but if they’re legally obligated to maintain my privacy, maybe I’m okay with it. I’ll give it some time and see how that pans out.

AProfessional@lemmy.world on 17 Jun 23:08 collapse

OpenPGP is actively supported by dozens of clients, they cannot and do not encrypt subjects, so Proton chose to be compatible with that. I think dismissing cross-compatibility because of a hand wave “nobody uses it” isn’t very productive either.

sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works on 17 Jun 23:17 collapse

AFAIK, PGP is only automatically used in emails to other Proton users, you need to do it manually if you want to communicate with someone else with PGP (or use the secure email thing, which does it on Proton’s servers). So the PGP is largely just an implementation detail in how they store it, unless you’re communicating with a lot of other Proton users.

Then again, it’s been a couple years since I used Proton, so I don’t know if things have changed. But since nobody I contact uses Proton or Tuta, it’s irrelevant that Proton uses PGP. If I use PGP, I’d do it myself regardless.

Wispy2891@lemmy.world on 17 Jun 21:15 collapse

i wonder how is the experience of searching between millions of emails client side

sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works on 17 Jun 21:15 collapse

Not great. I have a couple hundred or so, and it’s already a bit slow on my phone.

fruitycoder@sh.itjust.works on 17 Jun 19:35 collapse

And Mozilla/Firefox

Its pretty common.

Emoba@discuss.tchncs.de on 17 Jun 13:51 next collapse

I really thought this was about the DirectX compatibility layer for Linux and was hopelessly lost until a dozen sentences in.

trollblox_@programming.dev on 17 Jun 14:53 next collapse

what is it about?

can@sh.itjust.works on 17 Jun 14:57 next collapse

The privacy focused email (among other things) provider

jqubed@lemmy.world on 17 Jun 15:04 next collapse

The privacy-focused Swiss email provider

cymor@midwest.social on 18 Jun 04:07 collapse

I thought it was about the fork of the Atom editor project.

RootBeerGuy@discuss.tchncs.de on 17 Jun 16:14 next collapse

See, I have the same issue the other way around. Hearing about Proton supporting games on Linux makes me always wonder how I can play games via my webmail account.

UncommonBagOfLoot@lemmy.world on 17 Jun 18:19 collapse

By emailing your input? Kinda like chess by post.

Or text based adventures

FinalRemix@lemmy.world on 17 Jun 21:40 collapse

Frozen Synapse allows multiplayer by email.

Beaver@lemmy.ca on 17 Jun 17:06 collapse

Well, proton mail and proton compatibility are both awesome tools.

kitnaht@lemmy.world on 17 Jun 14:06 next collapse

Really wish they transitioned to a “Not-for-profit” structure, rather than non-profit. Non-profits can still be profit driven, sadly.

Infynis@midwest.social on 17 Jun 14:30 collapse

They specifically chose non-profit because it allows them to remain profit driven, and continue to run the company as they have. The non-profit is the main shareholder now, and required by law to act in the interest of its founding principles. They basically did this for PR, because now, working in their customers’ best interests is mandatory, and they are protected against hostile takeovers

lemmyvore@feddit.nl on 17 Jun 16:02 collapse

Weren’t they protected before? Afaik their major shareholder was the Swiss government.

macstainless@discuss.tchncs.de on 17 Jun 14:27 collapse

Will be interesting to see how this goes in a year or two.