Transparency in the foundation
This page describes how we want to show our work: what we record about decisions, gifts and mistakes, how we protect these records from silent changes and what of this already works today. Money itself is covered on The foundation's money page.
A foundation that asks people for trust should allow them to check how it makes decisions, how it fixes mistakes and how it changes its own rules. We want it to be possible to understand who makes decisions, what resources they have at their disposal, where their authority comes from and how to assess their actions.
As of 31 October 2026. Of the public registers, one is operating: the statute change register. The other five are an intention; below we describe what they will contain.
More: Foundation Principles whitepaper, chapter 12 and manifesto, section 7.1.
Six registers#
| Register | What it contains | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Register of contributions and expenses | Every contribution and every expense with a date, amount and description | operating |
| Register of benefits | Benefits and connections of the people who manage the foundation, decide on its expenses or represent it | to be created |
| Decision log | Important decisions: the goal, variants, basis and budget, and later their result | to be created |
| Register of mistakes and lessons learned | Significant mistakes, their effects and what we have learned from them | to be created |
| Statute change register | Versions of the statute and planned changes with justification | operating |
| Append-only register | Fingerprints (short checksums) of the other registers, which reveal any silent change | to be created |
The categories of costs, the terms of larger contracts, decisions and their justifications are to be public. At the same time we protect personal data and access credentials: in the register of contributions and expenses we do not publish the reference text of transfers, we prepare the description of each entry ourselves, and we correct an erroneous entry openly.
More: Foundation Principles whitepaper, chapter 4 and chapter 12.
The register of benefits in plain words#
The register will cover the people who manage the foundation, decide on its expenses and procurement, or represent it, only to the extent of these roles. Private income and relationships unconnected with the role remain private. We record benefits received in connection with a role: for example a flight or accommodation for a conference paid for by a company, gifts, and support through patronage platforms and direct payments. We show support from private individuals in aggregate, and support from companies and institutions by name. An aggregate description does not exempt anyone from an assessment of conflicts of interest, that is, situations in which someone decides on a matter concerning a person or company from whom they themselves have received something: if a patron applies for a contract from the foundation, we disclose that connection.
What about gifts?
- Small gifts, such as a pen or a giveaway from a meeting, can be accepted personally; we record them too, and small items from a single event together.
- More valuable gifts, such as a graphics card, a server or a prototype device, we accept on behalf of the foundation: they become part of its assets and serve shared tasks.
- Where the line lies is first assessed by the recipient; we do not set it with a fixed amount.
We do not accept benefits conditional on promotion, a recommendation, privileged access to the team or a concession in decisions. A person connected with a given matter does not take part in deciding it. A benefit must be registered no later than 30 days after it is received, and a connection with a planned decision must be disclosed before that decision; we will prepare a simple way of reporting, including with the help of an assistant.
The register serves oversight, not promotion: entries have the same matter-of-fact form, without logos or advertising links, and an entry in itself does not mean a recommendation or a partnership. Objections are considered by people connected neither with the giver nor with the recipient.
More: Foundation Principles whitepaper, chapter 7 and manifesto, section 7.1.
Every decision with a justification#
For every important decision we want to record in the decision log:
- the goal;
- the variants and sources considered;
- whom the effects will affect;
- the basis of the mandate: the result of a vote or a decision of the board in the agile phase;
- who will carry out the decision, with what budget and how we will review it.
After it is carried out, we add the result, the experiences of the people the decision concerned and the corrections made. Every expense is to be traceable to the decision that led to it.
More: Foundation Principles whitepaper, section 12.1.
A history that cannot be quietly changed#
Records are credible only if they cannot be quietly corrected after the fact. That is why we want to keep the history of important records in a public append-only register, that is, one in which new entries are added at the end, while old ones may not be changed or deleted. Each new entry will contain a fingerprint of the previous ones (a short checksum: change a single letter in a file and the fingerprint will be different), so changing or deleting an old entry will become visible. Successive states of the register are to be confirmed with a signature by independent witnesses: people or institutions outside the foundation.
The first things to go into it will be the fingerprints of software releases, by which anyone can check that a downloaded program is exactly the one we published. We will not place in it any private content or identifiers from which people's data could be inferred.
More: Foundation Principles whitepaper, section 12.2.
We will record our mistakes#
We commit to keeping a public register of significant mistakes and lessons learned. We will describe what happened, what the effects were, what we know about the causes and what still needs to be clarified, as well as how it is being fixed, who is responsible for further action and when we will check whether it has worked. We will preserve dissenting voices and the accounts of people affected by the problem, with the possibility of challenging our assessment. Admitting a mistake is meant to open the way to repair and learning.
More: manifesto, section 8.1 and Foundation Principles whitepaper, section 12.1.
Disputes and objections#
Eventually, a dispute about a decision is to be considered by a person or body independent of whoever made the decision and is carrying it out. As long as the foundation has only a board, we publish every objection together with the board's public response, and when the board has more than one member, the one whom the matter concerns recuses themselves from deciding it. The ruling can be appealed. Protecting privacy may limit the details of the public record, but it does not exempt anyone from accountability.
More: Foundation Principles whitepaper, section 12.3.
How we change documents#
The manifesto and the whitepapers are living documents. The current version presents the foundation's current position, while the history of earlier versions and the reasons for corrections remains available. We want to submit them to public review in Omniforum, the shared space for conversation, understanding and decisions that we are building, breaking their theses down into molecules, that is, individual statements and arguments that can be checked.
We develop organizational rules openly: together with a proposed change, we show its scope, justification and consequences for participants. We change the statute only when the change is needed for the next step. We are also considering writing the conditions for funding the further pillars into the statute (proposal Z6 in the statute change register, for the founder to decide), so that they do not depend on the board's goodwill alone.
Today we show the history of changes in two places: in the statute change register, including versions that did not take effect, and in the site change log, where we record changes to the site and the documents, including those made after readers' comments.
More: Foundation Principles whitepaper, section 12.4 and manifesto, chapter 9.
Read and tell us what you think#
You will find the full description of the transparency rules in the Foundation Principles whitepaper, chapter 12, and the commitments to people in the manifesto, section 7.1 and section 8.1. If something puzzles you or seems wrong, highlight that passage in the document and use the “I have a comment” button, or write to salve@novusignis.org.