Partners

Ranging from small national companies to international knowledge institutions, and from non-profit organisations to maker spaces, our partners span five continents and multiple sectors. Each focus on achieving sustainable change in different ways. In short, each partnership is unique. We focus on creating long-lasting relationships with our partners so that we can support them at every step of their journey in the best way possible.

Organisations we support:

These organizations have our support. We stand by their goals and support them through word of mouth, attribution, and supporting them materially or financially.

Bits of Freedom

Bits of Freedom is the leading digital rights organization in the Netherlands, focusing on privacy and freedom of communication online. Working at the cutting edge of technology and law, Bits of Freedom strives to influence legislation and self-regulation, and empower citizens and users by advancing the awareness, use, and development of freedom-enhancing technologies.

EDRi

EDRi is the biggest European network defending rights and freedoms online. The EDRi network is a dynamic and resilient collective of 44 NGOs, as well as experts, advocates and academics working to defend and advance digital rights across Europe and beyond.

Free Software Foundation

Founded in 1985, the FSF defends and promotes computer users' right to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer programs. The FSF promotes the development and use of free (as in freedom) software -- particularly the GNU operating system and its GNU/Linux variants -- and free documentation for free software.

Repair Preservation Group

Right to Repair is the concept that you should be able to choose who repairs the device you own. We believe you should not be stuck going back to the manufacturer or dealer because parts, chips, manuals or tools are restricted by the manufacturer. This is a foundational issue that affects any industry using any form of technology. From medicine to the military, everybody should have the right to repair what they bought.

Companies who we endorse:

The following are companies whose philosophy and products we endorse.

Trabiss International

Trabiss International sells measuring equipment, digital readouts for lathes and milling machines, and laser cutters and engravers. They offer an extensive range for entrepreneurs, companies and private individuals. You have the choise of installing the equipment yourself or have it installed. They are willing to work with you to modernise your existing equipment instead of pushing you into new equipment. Both quality, safety and low cost are important to Trabiss International.

Prusa Research

Prusa Research, is not a 3D printer manufacturer as their name reveals. They are a company that is constantly innovating and does not simply want to sell you a product. They provide pre-build printers, kits to build your own printer and upgrade kits if you have an older model. All their printer designs are open sourced and you are encouraged to modify and improve their design. They have started their own filament production, with both quality and sustainability.

Rossmann Repair Group

The Rossmann Repair Group is not just another iPhone repair shop. It's propieter, Louis Rossmann, is one of the lead figures in the Right to Repair movement. He has grown his repair bussines to one of the most renowed repair places in the world, not by doing phenominal repair work, but by showing his repairs including the hurdles he has to take. He has been the source of knowledge and the push in the right direction for many people to start their own repair service and improve their life in many ways. He's an insiration for many.

Fillamentum

Fillamentum is a Czech manufacturer of 3D printing filament. The company sets itself apart from others, not only by their production quality and number of colors. They offer a wide range of biodegradable and eco friendly polymers. They're one of the few manufacturers that offer such a wide range of technical filements, such as various co-polimers, polypropylene, and vinyl. A very unique product is their random transition spool. A filament that is not made from a single pure source material, but from a random selection of hgh quality materials, reducing production waste. Prints have a unique estatic can be used for non visible parts. Besides the regular 'small' spools, Fillamentum offers larger 2.5 kg spools, further reducing waste.

Damen CNC

A Dutch company specialized in manufacturing CNC machine parts. Like ASK-Solutions, Damen CNC has it's roots in Aerospace technologies. The company focusses on customer build CNC machines and providing parts for CNC conversions. Besides selling many high quality parts, Damen CNC machines it's own parts in-house. Ranging from precisely machining and grinding ballscrews to complicated parts such as 3D probes. Damen CNC is both a solid source for parts, but also offers good design, building and installation of custom CNC machines.

Dalibor Farny

Dalibor Farney has resurrected nixie tubes and is the only current maker of nixie tubes. Dalibor Farny works from a factory in a castle in the Czech Republic, with a team of three. Nixie tubes were one of the few ways to display digital data in the 1950s. Nixie tubes displayed data vital to NASA’s landing on the moon, lit up critical metrics for controlling nuclear power plants, and indicated the rise and fall of share prices on Wall Street stock exchanges, among thousands of other uses, such as (restoring) digital clocks, which is the current most used application for nixie tubes.

Freedom Internet

Freedom Internet is a Dutch internet service provider. Although being a company, their goal is less about making money, but more towards providing and supporting an open and free internet for all. Like ASK-Solutions, they exists as a company backed up by a foundation called Apple Pie, which ensures ethical and legal protection for their customers and services. This construction was chosen because of XS4All, the first Dutch ISP that offered the countries' first internet access to private individuals and small businesses, was merged against the will of the board of directors with a large ISP. Like XS4All, the Free Software Foundation and Bits of Freedom, Freedom Internet is run by tech enthusiasts which identify as hackers; a person that is creative and innovative in solving problems - playful cleverness. ASK-Solutions and our employees are founding members of Freedom Internet.

BytzVPN and BytzTOR

Rob Braxman is proprietor of BytzVPN and BytzTOR: a stealth VPN service with an option for routing through the TOR Relay, which does not block email and doesn't keep any logs. Also, he is a software architect, cybersecurity expert and privacy evangelist. He makes privacy aware videos, and gives various tools and tips. Rob has also made an open-source social media app: Brax.Me

Companies whose products we recommend to our customers:

Ubiquiti

Ubiquiti is an American technology company which develops performance networking technology for service providers and enterprises. It offers a portfolio of networking products and solutions, which include radios, antennas, software, communications protocols and management tools that are designed to deliver carrier and enterprise class wireless broadband access and other services primarily in the unlicensed radio frequency spectrum.

Mikrotik

Mikrotik is a Latvian network product manufacturing company. They offer a wide range of quality products for an affordable price. Their products are feature rich and the company has a strong focus on network monitoring. They do not only offer end-products but also OEM parts such as RouterBoard printed circuit boards to build your custom solutions around. As one of the few, they provide spare parts and offer assistance in self repairing Mikrotik products. We have replaced Cisco by Miktrotik network products in our own office network and datacenter. By switching over, we've reduced energy conscription, improved performance and security, and eliminated licencing costs.

Netgate

Netgate is the developer of one of the best firewall products on the market. PFSense is released under the Apache 2.0 free software license. Besides developing the software, Netgate offers a wide range of hardware products pre installed and optimised for running PFSense. Their hardware solutions range from small easy to setup and maintain devices for a small network, to larger devices with high availability and 10 gb + firewall routing capability. Netgate devices are our defacto recommendation for any network. It has excellent security and unparalleled features.

Axis

Axis Communications is a Swedish manufacturer of network cameras and physical security products. We highly recommend their products and use them ourselves. They are very unlike other players in the network camera industry like Dahua, Foscam and Hikvision, who create insecure, unmaintained, unservicable IOT devices based on dubious Chinese SOCs (System On a Chip) with Tivoized software onboard. Axis provides long time support with regular security and feature updates. Recently Axis abandoned their entry level Companion line, because of not being able to uphold this level of support due to dependencies created by cost saving hardware used inside. Axis provides the VAPIX API and ACAP platform, enabling third parties to integrate, adapt and develop their own software that can be run directly on the camera hardware.

System 76

System76 is an American computer manufacturer based in Denver, Colorado. System76 is the leading provider of Linux powered laptops, desktops, and servers. The company supports free and open-source software, offering Ubuntu and their own Pop!_OS, as the preinstalled operating system. Their custom-built systems run open source firmware, Coreboot.

Pogo Linux

Pogo Linux is an open-source systems integrator based in Seattle, Washington. Pogo Linux has provided custom Linux servers, workstations, and storage solutions to universities, corporations, and government institutions for over 20 years. With a focus on custom configurations, cutting-edge technologies, and exceptional support, Pogo has been a trusted advisor to the IT and Open Source communities since 1999.

Purism

Purism makes computers and mobile devices that do not track you. Purism products are specifically designed, from the bootloader and motherboard to the operating system and applications, to respect and protect your privacy and security, out of the box. Purism devices feature physical hardware "kill switches" to sever the camera, microphone, data and GPS connections for additional security. Purism hardware is preinstalled with the world's best privacy applications, including QubesOS, the Linux operating system recommended by security experts for ultimate defense against malware, tracking, viruses, spyware, ransomware and other threats.

Star Labs

Star Labs is a UK Based computer manufacturer, who offer a range of laptops designed and built specifically for Linux. All their systems come with a choise of Ubuntu, elementary OS, Linux Mint, Manjaro, MX Linux or Zorin OS pre-installed. A part of the sale price will go to the chosen distribution, to support the development of these distributions. Star Labs notebooks come with a choice of AMI BIOS or the opensource Coreboot BIOS.

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