This is a follow-up to the TSI Coop launch post.
It’s fair to be sceptical of anything new in tech today. Modern IT grew around centralised, license and subscription-based models because that’s how large software gets funded. But the side effect is what we all live with now: high entry costs, vendor lock-in, and a lot of complexity nobody asked for. So when someone offers foundational tools openly, it’s reasonable to wonder how it actually works.
The short answer is that TSI Coop is built to be a permanent, transparent resource. We’re a Section 8 non-profit with 80G/12AB status, which means our structure is locked in by law. We can’t distribute profits or pivot into a commercial entity later, even if we wanted to. To be clear, we don’t provide full enterprise solutions; we provide the enablers, the foundational building blocks that organisations and service providers can build on. Since we’re not trying to make a profit, we can focus on something more useful: keeping money in the local economy. What your organisation saves on software and compliance stays with you, and independent engineers and local providers can use our blueprints to start their own service businesses, customising the foundation to fit what their clients actually need.
The idea is a shared system that benefits the network, not a handful of providers. When local providers, businesses, and developers build on a public infrastructure, the benefits compound across the network. Companies cut overhead, young professionals gain real skills, and the money stays within the domestic supply chain.
This is a shared utility, not a walled garden. Open and decentralised infrastructure tends to be more resilient and cheaper in the long run anyway. By lowering the cost and complexity of securing data and meeting compliance, we’re trying to give you a stable base to work from. The code is all on our public repositories, available for anyone who wants to take a closer look.