A bit of context
The CHATONS collective started in 2016 after a very successful campaign in France lead by Framasoft, a non-profit organisation. The campaign, called De-google-ify Internet, promoted Free/Libre Software alternatives to proprietary services through implemention. They implemented many services and made them freely accessible to the public. For the more tech savy/ motivated, they also provided installation documentation so that others could benefit from their time and effort and get things installed and running in no time. Like many others, we implemented some of those services into our infrastructure following the documentation provided by Framasoft.
Framasoft is a very small association and happy to be so. Unwilling to become another Internet fat cat, they decided to initiate CHATONS as the natural next step to prolong and spread the campaign beyond the frontiers of Framasoft.
The CHATONS collective brings together small independent associations, companies and private individuals sharing the same vision of how IT structures should be dealing with people’s data. All chatons members attach fundamental importance to individual and social freedoms and believe in the superioty of FOSS over locked-down / proprietary solutions.
The acronym CHATONS was created playfully to form the word ‘chatons’ (kittens) while describing the core values of the entity:
- Collective
- Hosting
- Association
- Transparent
- Open
- Neutral
- Solidarity
The bond
Earlier this year, as all required components of our infrastrure had been put together, we decided to apply for CHATONS membership. This made a lot of sense to us, as we strongly share the values that the collective holds dearest. Also the more people / associations / companies join the movement, the better we are likely to succeed in providing a visible and respected alternative to Web giants.
Last week the CHATONS voted for the 5th round of candidates, and NOMAGIC was among the happy bunch of newly official members of the collective!
Coming next
We are currently looking into giving the final push for a first minimal version of the chatons.org website. It should be ready within the next few days/ weeks.
