Taking Lichess to the next level

https://lichess.org/blog/Y1wpBhEAAB8AwbeG/taking-lichess-to-the-next-level

by akbarnama • 4 years ago

426 96 4 years ago

yewenjie3• 4 years ago

I have said this countless times, and I will say it again - it is just marvelous how Lichess provides so much value being completely free (both libre and gratis).

I would love to see more publicity of Lichess though - and seems like this move will help in that regard.

I don't know for sure, but is there any other chess organization in the world of this scope that is truly non-profit? Sure, FIDE itself is non-profit, but profit-motives of its commercial counterparts and allies are controversial, to say the least.

perihelions2• 4 years ago

FIDE's finances are the sort of finances where your Swiss bank terminates all of your accounts in response to OFAC sanctions against terrorist states [0].

I don't think they belong on this list, even if they technically are a nonprofit!

[0] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-43053626

MonkeyClub• 4 years ago

after a statement on it's website said he had resigned.

Sort of insane how the BBC missed the correct form of the possessive.

usednet• 4 years ago

Imagine if those sanctions had been successful and the “moderate rebels” had taken over Syria. It’s incredulous how atrocious Western foreign policy has become.

ulpoker• 4 years ago

Ownership and influence of chess companies and FIDE sponsoring is not very transparent. This article for instance claims that Mark Scheinberg has a chess.com stake.

https://www.uktech.news/news/this-european-vc-wants-to-inves...

The Scheinberg family also sponsors FIDE:

https://www.fide.com/news/1694

stevage• 4 years ago

There is or was FICS, the free internet chess server. It never really had a web interface afaik.

perihelions2• 4 years ago

Related thread from not too long ago, discussing Lichess' operating budget:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29955204 ("It takes $420k per year to run Lichess")

https://lichess.org/costs (a spreadsheet)

pocketarc• 4 years ago

Main Developer Salary: $52,747.25

Damn. That's nothing, especially for someone doing such important work.

Jamie9912• 4 years ago

standard european salary

yewenjie3• 4 years ago

In a 2021 /r/Chess AMA Thibault responded to this.

https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/mpasyl/comment/gu9az...

noxvilleza• 4 years ago

I'm interested what costs $0.38 on the Google Cloud in that spreadsheet!

lukhas• 4 years ago

Keeping a template image containing enough code to start fishnet (https://github.com/lichess-org/fishnet/) so that we can boot up quick and (relatively) cheap fishnet instances should the need arise.

Barrin92• 4 years ago

I think it's incredibly responsible that they take governance seriously at a small organization like this. It'd be easy to take donations in some informal or crowdfunded way but going down the route of registering as a charity and having proper accounting and paperwork in place goes a long way to make sure people can be certain that their money is used well. In particular if the people running it ever change.

texasbigdata2• 4 years ago

Being on the board of an American charity is kinda stressful imho. Even when you have D&O insurance if you’re on the board. Having buttoned up financials and processes and controls is a HUGE sign of relief for anyone on the outside considering partnering / joining / advising.

Razengan• 4 years ago

I read that as "lichness" and was amused for a second, expecting some kind of immortality project for the aging elite.

sundarurfriend• 4 years ago

tl; dr:

We’ve also been looking into options to set up a charitable presence in the United States, by either partnering with an existing charity or helping to set up a new independent 501(c)(3) organisation to support free open source software/technology in chess.
We know that we’ll need to talk to awesome accountants and lovely lawyers, especially for the 501(c)(3) initiative.
As we grow, we’re going to need more help from our community, and especially from skilled professionals who aren’t necessarily developers. Would you like to help? Do you have experience or skills in finance/accounting, law, nonprofit administration, communications, or something else that we could use? If so, we invite you to complete this short survey: https://forms.gle/TAAja3MqnbJRGgea9 (closes at 2359 CEST on Sunday 13 November).

pabs32• 4 years ago

If partnering with an existing org, Software Freedom Conservancy would seem like the right one.

https://sfconservancy.org/

knocte• 4 years ago

Or OpenCollective.

atdrummond• 4 years ago

They should definitely use a fiscal sponsor first and do the 501c(3) as they figure out precisely what they want to accomplish with the organization. You get the tax deduction ability from day one but with way less of the onerous regulatory headaches.

sidcool2• 4 years ago

Pleasantly surprised to see the title image generated by Stable Diffusion.

greyman3• 4 years ago

How do you know?

sidcool2• 4 years ago

It's mentioned at the end of the article.

jletienne• 4 years ago

my favorite takeaway as well. this thing is everywhere already!

sour-taste• 4 years ago

Good for them, seems like a good move. I always get nervous when I see one of these titles from a well respected charity: I assume that it'll be the announcement of a new direction for the organization, or the establishment of a for-profit arm. This is just lichess growing to give better benefits for donors, among other things. They deserve it.

sdfjkl2• 4 years ago

I always read lichess as female lich. Then I get confused when I click on it and see chess boards. Probably played too many fantasy games.

jdthedisciple• 4 years ago

what the hell is lich if i may ask and yes I know google exists

sdfjkl2• 4 years ago

A necromancer who voluntarily became undead: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lich

moffkalast2• 4 years ago

Therefore, in 2016, Lichess was formally registered under French law as an association loi 1901. This type of association applies to groups with clearly defined purposes that benefit the public, similar to charities. However, it’s quite easy to form one - the total number in France is over 1.5 million!

It is surprising that Lichess is a French charity, much like VLC. France also has a very low entry barrier for forming an LLC, so it seems to be a rather good approach all things considered.

once we become an association of general interest, our French donors will be able to make tax-deductible donations, meaning they can reduce their individual tax burden through supporting us. In theory, this should also apply to donors who are citizens of other EU countries, but the last bit of legislation supporting EU-wide application was passed in 2009 and we’re still waiting for it to be cleanly implemented. Classic EU.

It really is a running theme that EU member state governments have to be dragged kicking and screaming to implement beneficial EU directives as local laws while they at the same time blame the EU for everything unpopular they do themselves. If that's not a clear indicator that the Parliament should have more authority to assert itself I don't know what is. At least we get the "project funded by the EU" signs on random buildings to not make the good stuff completely invisible on the local level.

mhb2• 4 years ago

France also has a very low entry barrier for forming an LLC

In what places is this difficult? It's essentially trivial in the US.

moffkalast2• 4 years ago

Most of Europe requires you to put up several thousand in starting capital for an LLC equivalent entity. 7.5k for where I live, and Germany would be highest I think at over 12k. It's an extreme barrier for entry to say the least.

Not sure what the requirements are for a non-profit though, but I assume it's the same with just a different tax classification.

probably_wrong• 4 years ago

If you want to have whatever the opposite of fun is, try to find information about how to form a startup in Germany. Bonus point if you can explain why you may want (or not) a mini GmbH.

batmansmk2• 4 years ago

Created 2 companies in US, 3 in France - in US forming an LLC is not sufficient for you to be compliant and do business. You need statuses, a bank account, cap table, proof of capital deposit, registration in your state, city, a healthcare and dental provider, 401k, worker's compensation, payroll provider, insurance, accountant / attorney.

In France, I do it alone, in 1 afternoon. 184 euros filing fee. A couple of online forms. I can fill my sales tax declaration, and payroll when it's just me and partners. Healthcare, worker's compensation are built in the tax system, so declaring your revenue is sufficient to get all of that. My professional bank offer includes a basic insurance that is sufficient to rent and run the business. I find it way more fluid in France.

arlort• 4 years ago

should have more authority to assert itself

The problem isn't that the EP doesn't have enough power, it's that EU politics doesn't have enough visibility, which means that MEPs are almost always politically subordinate to their national peers which means the EP as a whole has less clout and which leads to them having less influence with the EC than the member states

IshKebab• 4 years ago

but the last bit of legislation supporting EU-wide application was passed in 2009 and we’re still waiting for it to be cleanly implemented. Classic EU.

Careful what you complain about...

mlac• 4 years ago

While I think a US non-profit makes a lot of sense, I would exercise caution with the non-profit board.

The board’s job is to provide oversight and to appoint a director [1]. In this case it would clearly be Thibault, but what happens in a few years when Thibault is ready to go? Does he have say in his replacement? Does the French organization take precedent over the US nonprofit when it comes to leadership and governance?

I say this because Lichess is extremely valuable (even as a non-profit) and that will attract the wrong kind of people. Thibault should take every precaution to make sure he retains control of the org, with good people around him. I’m not sure if there is a non-profit equivalent of retaining voting rights, but I’d want to be sure he retains control until it’s well established as a non-profit and a succession plan is in place.

The wrong board could evaluate his performance (which right now he says he works at his leisure and loves what he does) and say “we need more fundraising and appearances in the US at tournaments” and he could balk / want to focus on the product. They could then look to appoint a US director of the nonprofit and things could get awkward and extremely costly.

It’s incredible what has been built and maintained with a small team. I think they will see extreme diminishing returns after they hit a certain level of governance. Whether that’s going international with a nonprofit status in the US or at another point is beyond my level of expertise.

If someone more knowledgeable that I am can correct what I’ve written above and point out that my concerns are overblown, I’d be happy. I’d also ask that person to volunteer and help Lichess establish a presence in the US.

[1] https://www.councilofnonprofits.org/tools-resources/board-ro...

bombcar• 4 years ago

There’s an entire industry built around milking non-profits, and fighting them off is a major part of the job.

themoonisachees• 4 years ago

I'm not sure about the precedence of us vs french law, but possibly the US nonprofit could be set up as dependant on the whims of the french one. French law has a few safeguards in place about Association hijacking, namely the fact that officially changing an association's "statuts" (its written missions) cannot be done unilaterally, and must include named trustees (which could be Thibault) in the vote.

eruci2• 4 years ago

I moved from Yahoo Chess, to Chess.com then to Lichess, and I haven't looked back since. I hope they continue to make it work as good as it does now - however they do it.

greyman3• 4 years ago

Yes, let's mention that chess.com is still very ok-ish service, haven't had any problem with them, nor with paid version, nor with free version.

eruci2• 4 years ago

Yes, chess.com is fine too

naveen993• 4 years ago

can lichess or chess.com add go please ?

umanwizard• 4 years ago

Not sure why you’ve been downvoted. It’s not an unreasonable suggestion; chess.com already has loads of weird variants like Duck Chess.

naveen993• 4 years ago

Thanks. I love chess as well. But go is under marketed in the west and has potential in the rest of the world (non chinese).

dsjoerg• 4 years ago

What do you think of the existing go offerings online?

naveen993• 4 years ago

Not as good as chess.com

Go world is mostly on websites only (not mobile native apps). Also the largest servers are In Chinese with minimal English translation (fox).

No standard equivalent of stockfish engine integration (while we are here, stockfish please add go support).

On baduk subreddit, top recommendation is goquest, which is like flappybird compared to super Mario brothers.

No 9x9 ladder climbs on YouTube to learn from like chess rating climbs by GM’s like levy and Aman.

strenholme• 4 years ago

It would probably be a separate site like https://lishogi.org or https://lidraughts.org (both based on the Lichess engine). Or, it might be added to https://playstrategy.org/ (which is the Lichess engine with a bunch of other abstract games added)

sunsetSamurai• 4 years ago

have you tried https://online-go.com/? it looks very featureful

nomilk• 4 years ago

TL;DR Lichess is a growing not-for-profit, it's awesome, and (last paragraph):

you might be just the sort of person we’re looking for – someone who’s clearly passionate about all things Lichess, even the minutiae. As we grow, we’re going to need more help from our community, and especially from skilled professionals who aren’t necessarily developers. Would you like to help? Do you have experience or skills in finance/accounting, law, nonprofit administration, communications, or something else that we could use? If so, we invite you to complete this short survey: https://forms.gle/TAAja3MqnbJRGgea9

NickC253• 4 years ago

Can Lichess please add Crazyhouse 960? They already have Chess 960 and Crazyhouse!

greyman3• 4 years ago

Is this a thing? I don't like 960, but with crazyhouse it could be fun.

NickC253• 4 years ago

It is indeed a thing! Check it out on Pychess.org

I enjoy 960, and I enjoy Crazyhouse. Crazy960 is chess at its purest - no lines to memorize, no endgames to push for, just pure tactics.

runarberg• 4 years ago

At the moment, there are no plans to add any more variants ever.

https://github.com/lichess-org/lila/issues/11660#issuecommen...

NickC253• 4 years ago

Adding new variants like DuckChess, yeah, that makes sense. Adding a 960 option to Crazyhouse is a few lines of code. If PyChess.org can do it, so can LiChess.

dromedariusCase• 4 years ago

1. c4

Taking Lichess to the next level

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