Server Covenant

Fedimins is a collective of alternative, transparent, open, neutral, and solidary hosting providers¹. Every member of this collective, hereinafter referred to as “Fedimin”, commits to respecting this charter. Anything not explicitly prohibited by this charter or the law is permitted. The Fedimin can take any legal form: a legal entity or a natural person (an individual, a company, an association, a SCOP, etc.).

It is not necessary to be a Fedimin to participate in communication, as membership is voluntary and only mandatory for certain services. This will then be explicitly mentioned.

Overview Table of Levels

Governance & Enforcement

Admission

• New members self-declare their level (Bronze/Silver/Gold) based on a public self-disclosure (checklist of fulfilled points)
• At least two existing members confirm the admission

Ongoing Review

• Annual public self-disclosure: Each member confirms that they still meet the requirements of their level
• Public register of all members with level and last audit date
• Any member or user can submit a review request if there are reasonable doubts

Escalation for Violations

In the event of violations of the agreement, the following procedure applies:

1. Notice (internal, confidential) with a 30-day deadline for a statement
2. Public request for a statement if no reaction occurs
3. Level downgrade (e.g., Gold → Silver) if no improvement occurs
4. Exclusion from the collective in case of serious or continued violations

Exclusion

• Decision by a 2/3 majority of active members
• The affected member has a right to a hearing before the vote
• Exclusions are documented publicly (with justification, without unnecessary personal details)
• Re-admission is possible after the deficiencies have been corrected

Mediation

• The collective appoints a mediation body (rotating membership) for conflict cases between members or with users

Basic Principles for All Levels

A Fedimin commits to:

• Acting with respect and goodwill towards other members of the collective
• Acting with respect and goodwill towards the users² of their services

Bronze

Operated by one person and used by a small circle. The specifications are already minimum requirements.

Applicable Requirements

Transparency – Moderation Guidelines

• Publication of terms of use and moderation guidelines in a central location in a clear, generally understandable form³

Data Protection

• Compliance with GDPR (Art. 5 and Art. 6)
• No commercial exploitation of data or metadata
• No use of advertising agencies or third-party advertising services
• No tracking of usage behavior beyond statistical, technical, or administrative purposes (e.g. anonymized usage statistics, infrastructure monitoring, error resolution)
• Complying only with legally mandatory authority requests⁴

Moderation

• Respect for Human Rights
• Moderation based on the ECHR and the UN Charter of Human Rights as a minimum standard; furthermore within the framework of the respective applicable national law, provided this does not contradict these fundamental rights.
• Active⁵ moderation by humans (no automated procedures)
• Right of appeal available at any time
• Application of the mildest means to protect other users

Silver

Operated by several people or a group and is publicly accessible.

All Bronze requirements plus:

Basic Obligations – Hosting

• Use of exclusively free distributions (GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, etc.) as the operating system
• Up-to-date software management and fastest possible patching of security vulnerabilities
• Root access for at least two different natural persons
• Public and unambiguous representation of the degree of control over hardware and software
• Clear indication of the physical hosting provider to users
• Implementation of a backup policy with daily backups
• Permanent deletion of all user data upon request (within the framework of legal and technical obligations)

Enhanced Transparency

• Transparent representation of the technical infrastructure (distribution and software used)
  • For security reasons, certain information (e.g., version numbers) may not be made publicly accessible
• Best-effort security measures for the infrastructure
• No ownership rights to content, data, and metadata of users
• Notification of users at least 3 months before services are shut down
• Publication of the backup policy, technical logs, and business reports
• Anonymized usage statistics
• Clear publication of the service offering and prices
• Data protection clause in the terms of use

Data Portability

• Upon request, users receive their personal data in a structured, common, and machine-readable format (according to Art. 20 GDPR)
• Provision occurs within 30 days of the request, free of charge
• Self-service export where technically possible: Users can export their data independently without a support request

Gold

Operated by several people or a group and is publicly accessible.

All Silver requirements plus:

Hosting & Infrastructure

• Full technical control over the entire infrastructure (server, network, software, root access, hypervisor) – regardless of whether the hardware is owned by the Fedimin or rented as a dedicated server (bare metal)
• Only the Fedimin may technically access the data (no access by the hosting provider at the hypervisor or software level, e.g. with VPS/SaaS – such offerings only qualify for Silver)
• For rented hardware: Contractual assurance from the hosting provider not to gain physical access to the data (e.g. storage drives)

Availability & Resilience

• Physical security of the server location (access control, no freely accessible location)
• Uninterruptible power supply (UPS) to mitigate short-term power outages
• Backup storage on a physically separate storage medium, independent of the main system
• Infrastructure monitoring with alerting in case of failures

Openness & FLOSS Commitment

• Exclusive use of FLOSS software for operation

  • All operating systems must be FLOSS distributions
  • All application software must be under FLOSS-compatible licenses
  • Exceptions only in justified cases if no FLOSS alternative exists (with listing on the website)

• Use of exclusively open formats for hosting activities

• Publication of software modifications under a free license

• Listing of all installed packages on the servers upon request

• Contact option without the need to create an account on third-party platforms

• News channel outside of proprietary platforms (e.g., via website)

Enhanced Transparency & Documentation

• Detailed documentation of the technical infrastructure and provided services
• Communication with users about difficulties and problems (support and bug reports)

Independence & Ethics

• Sponsoring/patronage only without passing on personal data to partners
• No a-priori censorship of user content
• Strong encryption of data (min TLS 1.2 during transmission, encryption during storage)
• Warrant Canary and/or transparency reports on authority requests
• Response to authority requests only for legally proper requests

Solidarity & Community

• Economic model based on solidarity
• Appropriate pricing according to implementation costs
• Wage equity rule: Lowest salary ≥ ¼ of the highest salary (full-time equivalent including bonuses/dividends)
• Structural planning for physical meetings and exchange with users
• Accessibility (Web Accessibility Standards)
• Inclusive organizational structure with a focus on diversity and marginalized groups
• No a-priori exclusion of potential subscribers (with referral offers to other Chatons)
• Knowledge sharing publicly and under FLOSS license
• Facilitating user participation in maintenance (with a special focus on non-technicians)
• Promotion of emancipation through educational campaigns (events, workshops, hackathons, documentation)
• Technical, financial, or other contributions to the FLOSS movement

Note: Parts of this agreement are based on the “Charter of CHATONS” by CHATONS and are licensed under the BY-SA 4.0 license.