Radically Open Security Donates 1 Million Euro to NLnet
When Dr. Melanie Rieback co-founded Radically Open Security (ROS) in 2014, she decided to make it a nonprofit computer security consultancy company. Ninety percent of ROS's profits go to NLnet, a foundation which contributes to a secure, resilient and open internet. Upon reaching ROS's 10 year anniversary, donations to NLnet have exceeded the incredible sum of 1 million euro. To celebrate this milestone, we talked with Melanie to learn why she decided to give ROS such an unusual business model.
NLnet: Was it challenging to create ROS’s unusual business model? MR: Shortly after I started ROS, I established a foundation and sold the company for 1 euro to that foundation. My goal was to prevent the company from ever being sold and to lock down the mission. My notary pushed back at my giving away the company. He couldn’t understand why I would want to do that. It was also challenging incorporating as a Fiscal Fundraising Institution (FFI): a church-inspired tax label that enforces our donating 90% of our profits to a charitable foundation (ANBI Stichting). The FFI is commonly used for tax evasion, so the tax authorities were eager to make sure we weren’t abusing the system. This required quite some communication and negotiation.
NLnet: Why did you make ROS a nonprofit when you started it ten years ago? MR: I had ideological differences with large players in the commercial cybersecurity industry. That’s why I decided to make ROS a nonprofit, eliminating the financial incentives that drive corporate decisions to externalize costs onto society and the planet. Proprietary software, secrecy of workflow, and vendor lock-in might make sense in the context of for-profit business models, but it isn’t helpful for either cybersecurity or society as a whole. So I wanted to do things differently.
