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Put your best beak forward
ASK-Solutions is the public-facing name of the IRADIS Foundation, an independent research and development institute organised as a Dutch non-profit foundation.
The foundation pursues public-benefit objectives rooted in questions concerning knowledge, freedom, responsibility, human development, cooperation, and the relationships between people, organisations and society. These questions are not confined to any one discipline and form the basis for research, experimental development, knowledge sharing and practical applications.
Our philosophical and societal principles give rise to themes that guide our research, development and practical applications. These include shared knowledge, cooperation, social connection, learning and participation, practical freedom, repairability, privacy and self-reliance. From these themes emerge projects in which we explore questions, develop knowledge and put ideas into practice.
Our projects put the foundation's research, development and knowledge sharing into practice in different ways. Some produce software, hardware or documentation, while others bring together people, knowledge and practical activities or investigate societal questions. Below, we highlight a selection of our projects. For the full overview, see Projects.
ongoing research project
Repair and Ownership is an ongoing ASK-Solutions research project examining the practical meaning of ownership and the control people retain over products and digital systems. It investigates how technical architectures, documentation, interoperability, contracts, licences and legislation affect use, maintenance, repair, modification and continued accessibility. The later emergence of the Right to Repair movement brought wider attention to some of these broader research questions.
Lees meer over het Repair-and-Ownership-project…
current free software development project
Nocterra is a general-purpose free-software CMS for developing, publishing and maintaining websites over the long term. It supports pages, resources and flexibly structured publications without prescribing application-specific content types or presentation. Performance and efficient use of computing, networks and hardware, accessibility in a broad sense, and multilingual publishing with regional and script variants are central design concerns. Its source-based model supports privacy, portability and site-owner control.
Lees meer over het Nocterra-project…
Bezoek de Nocterra-website…
not currently active research and educational project
IslamicScience was an ASK-Solutions research and educational project on science, engineering and knowledge transmission in and around Islamic civilisation. It compared historical writings, translations and technical accounts with later histories in which earlier contributions were sometimes omitted or attributed differently. The research covered mathematics, medicine, cartography and mechanics, with attention to conflicting sources, dating and the origins of discoveries. Findings informed publications and educational material.
Lees meer over het IslamicScience-project…
not currently active educational development project
The Cosmicus A340 simulator was an early educational and social project by ASK-Solutions with Stichting Cosmicus in Amsterdam, funded by the then Dutch Ministry of Education. Building a real flight simulator gave children from different backgrounds, including those with fewer opportunities, a shared goal they could be excited about. For ASK-Solutions, bringing the children together as a group was central: they got to know one another through their contributions. Investigating, designing, building and testing supported technical learning, cooperation and growing confidence.
Lees meer over het Cosmicus-project…
ongoing free software development project
Bookkeeping is a free-software administration platform developed by ASK-Solutions for multiple entities, financial records, relations, projects, inventory and technical processes. Standard accounting packages did not readily offer the required combination of functions and integrations; bespoke ERP and CRM solutions were costly at the time and made further development dependent on suppliers. ASK-Solutions therefore designed an extensible Java client/server system with reporting, API integrations and automation, released under the AGPLv3.
Lees meer over het Bookkeeping-project…
ongoing research, development and educational project
The Owl’s Nest is an ASK-Solutions research, development and educational project centred on a shareable model for practical learning, cooperation and knowledge transfer. It explores how knowledge and ways of working can be shared and safeguarded beyond the scope of copyright, how activities and environments relate to learning and participation, and how encounters give rise to wider social questions. The Howard Public Licence supports the model’s continuity and transferability, allowing independent operators to apply and develop it locally.
Lees meer over het The-Owl’s-Nest-project…
Bezoek de The-Owl’s-Nest-website…
Read our latest and recently updated articles on technology, society and our own projects, alongside announcements from ASK-Solutions.
Two critical PHP flaws required action on 21 October 2026. All affected environments under our management have been patched. On parallel PHP versions, backports and checking the code that is actually running.
A game you own should not become unusable when its original console fails. On ownership, lasting playability and the freedom to use your collection on other hardware.
Multi-factor authentication is useful security, but it can become a privacy problem when companies collect more personal data than needed and treat security data as profile data.
Synology MailPlus Server 4.1.0-21778 contains two regressions affecting DKIM-only configurations: Rspamd is not started when only per-domain DKIM signing requires it, and changes to the DKIM signing Allow List do not regenerate the Rspamd signing network map. We analyse both problems and provide patches.
The Trump administration's effort to obtain phone records of New York Times journalists and relatives in the Air Force One leak investigation shows why source protection is not a professional perk, but a First Amendment safeguard.
ASK-Solutions works on free software, documentation, hosting, web service support, repair, digital autonomy and the sharing of practical technical knowledge. Much of this work happens online, or is documented in a way that can also be useful beyond Haarlem and the Netherlands.
Holiday greetings from ASK-Solutions for 2024, reflecting on a challenging year and why privacy, freedom, ownership and Right to Repair matter more than ever.
Our ISP is migrating to a new technology. During the next few days you may experience slightly reduced availability when contacting us.
A major power grid outage in Haarlem impacted our data center and internet links, causing partial downtime. We provide live updates as services are restored.
Holiday greetings from ASK-Solutions: thank you for your support in 2022. We’ll keep defending privacy and the right to repair in 2023, plus a New Year referral promotion.
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