Hi Praveen, Great news about multi-state cooperative.
I have a couple of questions. I could have sent you a direct message, but similar questions might be relevant to others on the list. Is money (a share price of 1000) the only criterion to become a member? Have you explored Matrix (such as element.io over XMPP) at all? Thanks Yogesh On Wed, Apr 5, 2023 at 6:39 PM Pirate Praveen via plug-mail < plug-mail@plug.org.in> wrote: > Hi, > > We specifically need your help to register a multi state cooperative > society, which needs 50 members each from two states and we have 50+ > from Kerala and 26 from Maharashtra. If some of you joins and helps > find some more members we can register this soon. > Read more below > Unpopular policies > In January 2021, popular messaging app WhatsApp changed their privacy > policy to combine all the data it gets with Facebook, giving users only > two choices: accept the new privacy policy, or leave WhatsApp > altogether. > > In a world where using WhatsApp has become a norm, that wasn’t really > a choice. > > There were many users who did not like this new privacy policy. They > tried to leave WhatsApp for other messaging apps, like Telegram and > Signal. A sizable amount of users disagreed with the push by WhatsApp, > but leaving a popular app like WhatsApp comes with its own > costs—losing touch with contacts on WhatsApp. That meant, unless they > were willing to be cut out from a lot of their contacts, people had to > still leave one foot in the WhatsApp door. > > How different the situation is with phone numbers! If you had similar > disagreements with a phone company A, you could have easily switch to > any other phone company B and still be able to talk to other contacts > by calls and SMS. Your contacts need not switch to company B to > communicate with you. (In fact, the reason phone companies don’t make > decisions like this is because they know customers will immediately > leave them for a better provider. The ability for users to leave keeps > phone companies under control). > > A solution: XMPP > Imagine if all messaging apps were like phone and email, where users of > any app can contact with users of other apps. In the above example, > people would have a real choice to leave WhatsApp and just use any > other service. > > This is exactly what we need. > > XMPP is a protocol that lets this happen. For the uninitiated, you can > think of XMPP as a superpowered SMS, which works over the Internet and > allows modern features like calls and image-sharing. It’s not a > single company like WhatsApp but a standard that different companies > can provide for. > > Messaging apps and services that that use XMPP can talk to each other. > Examples of such apps are: Blabber, Snikket, Siskin, and more (think of > these like Google SMS, Samsung SMS, Silence, and any other SMS app). > Examples of XMPP service providers include disroot.org, poddery.com, > monocles.de, and a whole bunch more (think of these as different > service providers, like BSNL, Vi, or Airtel). > > To drive home the point: any user registered on any XMPP service can > talk to other users of any other XMPP service. (disroot.org users and > poddery.com users can send each other messages, just like BSNL users > can exchange SMSes and calls with people on Airtel). This gives users > choice of service providers: a single company does not control > everything, and we won’t be forced to accept arbitrary terms by > services like WhatsApp to be in touch with others. > > Ease of adoption > Unfortunately, the current onboarding process on most XMPP services is > not user friendly at all compared to WhatsApp. This issue, combined > with the lack of awareness about XMPP services among common people, has > made mass adoption difficult. > > Things don’t have to be this way, and Quicksy is a leading example of > this. Like WhatsApp, Quicksy allows users to register in a few taps by > entering their phone number and receiving an OTP. But because it’s an > XMPP service, Quicksy users can talk to users on other XMPP services. > > We are developing the Prav app to complement Quicksy by providing a > compatible app (Prav users can talk with Quicksy users) and offering > more choice to users. People can easily sign up for Prav in the same > way they do for Quicksy, but now they have more than one alternative to > choose from. Before, the choice only existed for people willing to > figure out the complex setup process on other XMPP providers; with Prav > they now have another easy-to-set-up alternative. > > Respects users’ freedom > Our app is ‘free software’, which means users get freedom to run, > study, modify, share and share the modified versions. When we say > ‘free’, we mean ‘freedom’ and not ‘free-of-cost’. To avoid > ambiguity of the word ‘free’, we also call it swatantra software. > Examples of free software are VLC Media Player, Firefox, Debian, > Quicksy, Prav etc. You can learn more about Free Software and why it is > important here 1. > > This means that the original source code behind a swatantra app is > freely available for anyone to inspect; people can conduct independent > security audits instead of having to trust a company’s word about > what data they are or are not collecting. Such an auditing can also > verify whether the app sends messages in end-to-end encrypted form or > not. > > In contrast, WhatsApp does not provide source code for their app and we > can never verify independently whether the app encrypts messages as > they claim. > > Running as a cooperative > Choice aside, Quicksy is run by a single person, which has its own > drawbacks—most significantly, having a single point of failure if > something goes wrong. We want to offer Prav as a cooperative, adding > more resilience by managing the service as a group, having a democratic > decision making structure. > > In India, cooperative societies can be registered under state > cooperative laws or under central laws. Only people from the same state > can become members if we register under any state cooperative laws. So, > we prefer registering as a Multi State Cooperative Society to allow > people from different states to join as members. Members elect the > leadership team of a cooperative for a specific term and there will be > regular elections to elect the leadership team giving members > democratic control over the cooperative. > > Every member will have one vote irrespective of the number of shares > they hold in the cooperative, making it impossible for big companies to > aquire the cooperative and take control of decisions. Acquisition by > big companies is an issue as it can compromise the service: as an > example, WhatsApp was an independent company, but it was eventually > bought up by Facebook, which compromised the service in may ways, such > as by weakening its privacy policy over the years. > > Next steps > For this project to be successful, we need more people to join as > members of the Multi State Cooperative Society. By law, we need at > least 50 members each from two Indian states before we can do the > registration. > > At the moment, we have 50+ members from Kerala, 26 members from > Maharashtra, and a few from various other states. Details are at > https://prav.app/become-a-member 2. > > By registering as a member of the Prav Multi State Cooperative Society, > you can help us with your experience, knowledge and the amount that you > give for buying shares will help us in funding for the app and running > the service. Plus, your membership will help us cover the legal > requirements for becoming a cooperative society. > > In case, we fail to reach 50 members from a second state by June 15 > this year, we plan to register as a cooperative in Kerala. This is an > intermediate measure: we will still work to meet the necessary > requirements in other states, and once that’s done, we will register > as a Multi State Cooperative Society as originally planned. > > How you can help > If we don’t get enough members by June 15th 2023, we will have to go > through a two-step process to get members. To prevent this, we’re > trying to onboard members as soon as possible—and we need your help! > > You can register as a member and spread the word to your friends to > register as well, by visiting https://prav.app/become-a-member/ > > Read more > https://azadmaidan.in/t/prav-app-reclaiming-choice-of-service-providers/83 > > > _______________________________________________ > plug-mail mailing list > plug-mail@plug.org.in > http://list.plug.org.in/listinfo/plug-mail > -- Thank You Yogesh Powar https://yogeshpowar.github.io/blog/
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