From 46e549e0ac4adba5c38045e0f09ead60245fd31c Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: =?UTF-8?q?Moritz=20M=C3=A4hr?= <14755525+maehr@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Wed, 2 Sep 2026 23:11:30 +0200 Subject: [PATCH] docs(blog): announce the founding of the association MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit The association was founded on 2 September 2026. Publish the announcement, because the founding documents landed without a public notice. State the assured tax exemption of 27 August 2026 and its condition. State that donations become deductible only after the legally binding decision. An assurance is not a rechtskräftige Verfügung. Closes the last content item before the v0.1.0 tag (#68). Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_0169tbUcxNz5AenNc8idkPTB --- .../docs/blog/2026/09/association-founded.md | 47 +++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 47 insertions(+) create mode 100644 src/content/docs/blog/2026/09/association-founded.md diff --git a/src/content/docs/blog/2026/09/association-founded.md b/src/content/docs/blog/2026/09/association-founded.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1c5463f --- /dev/null +++ b/src/content/docs/blog/2026/09/association-founded.md @@ -0,0 +1,47 @@ +--- +title: 'TextRefs is now an association' +date: 2026-09-02 +authors: [moritz, luz] +excerpt: We founded TextRefs as a Swiss association in Zürich on 2 September 2026. The cantonal tax office has assured us of tax exemption on grounds of public benefit — one formal decision is still outstanding. +tags: [announcement] +--- + +Today we sat down in Zürich, signed the statutes, and founded **TextRefs** as an association (_Verein_) under Art. 60 ff. of the Swiss Civil Code. + +Three months ago we [open-sourced the project](/blog/2026/06/hello-world/) and described ourselves as "an association in formation". That qualifier is gone. TextRefs is a legal entity now, and we are genuinely delighted about it. + +## What happened today + +The founding assembly adopted the statutes, and they took effect immediately ([Art. 22](/association/statutes/#art-22-entry-into-force)). Moritz Mähr signed as president, Luz Christopher Seiberth as recording officer. We sent the signed statutes and the founding minutes to the Cantonal Tax Office of Zürich the same day. + +Every founding document is public and has been for a while — the [statutes](/association/statutes/), the [mission](/association/mission/), the [governance regulation](/association/governance/), and the [expense regulation](/association/expenses/). The German texts are the legally binding ones; the English versions are convenience translations. You can read all of them from the [association overview](/association/) or the [German original](/de/association/). + +## The tax office has said yes — almost + +On 27 August 2026 the Cantonal Tax Office of Zürich **assured** us of tax exemption on grounds of public benefit (_Gemeinnützigkeit_), on condition that we founded the association exactly as we had presented it. We did, and we have told them so. + +An assurance is not yet a legally binding decision. So here is the honest version: the hard part is behind us, one formal step is still ahead. **Donations are not tax-deductible yet.** They become deductible once the decision arrives, and we will say so here when it does. + +## What we changed along the way + +The tax office read our Art. 15 closely and found it broader than the governance model we had described. As written, it left room to pay board members for special or operational services. That was a fair objection, so we amended it. Board members now serve in an honorary capacity and may claim only their actual expenses and cash outlays — nothing else ([Art. 15](/association/statutes/#art-15-volunteer-service-expenses-and-compensation)). + +Because a regulation may not contradict the statutes, the expense regulation and the governance regulation moved with it. + +We are happy with where that landed. It is a good day when the tax office and your own principles push in the same direction. + +## What this changes for you + +Not much yet — and that is deliberate. + +The registry, the standard, and the API are still pre-1.0. Every record is still `status: draft`, and no identifier carries a persistence promise until expert review promotes it. TextRefs stays bootstrap-funded, non-commercial, and committed to the [Principles of Open Scholarly Infrastructure](/association/posi/). + +What is new is the organisation behind all of it. There is now an entity that can hold funds, accept donations and grants, sign agreements with libraries and institutions, and — this is the part that matters most to us — outlive any one of its founders. Stable identifiers are a promise about the future. Making that promise as two people with a GitHub account was never quite enough. + +## Come and help + +We are looking for board members who bring the disciplines that live on canonical references: theology, law and legal history, classical philology, philosophy, mediaeval studies, digital editions, and library and information science. If that is your field, see the [open call](/association/board/) and write to us via the [contact page](/association/contact/). + +And if you maintain a citation system, build a tool that needs stable passage identifiers, or simply enjoy reading a specification closely — the [registry](/reg/) is open and the [standard](/standard/) is still soft enough to change. + +More soon.