Hostsharing eG
 | |
| Cooperative | |
| ISIN | 🆔 |
| Founded 📆 | 6. Dezember 2000 |
| Founder 👔 | |
| Headquarters 🏙️ | , |
Area served 🗺️ | |
| Members | |
Number of employees | |
| 🌐 Website | www.hostsharing.net |
| 📇 Address | |
| 📞 telephone | |
The Hostsharing eG is a German Web hosting service organized as a Cooperative. Any (also legal entity) can become a member. Hostsharing was founded on December 6th, 2000 and is dedicated to the use and support of Debian GNU/Linux and Open-Source software and offers web hosting on dedicated and shared web servers with particularly high quality standards. The servers are managed by some members of the cooperative themselves. As a monthly membership fee is charged in addition to the cooperative share, even a small webspace package is no longer included in the low-cost hosting. Many members of Hostsharing rent webspace as Reseller.
Hostsharing is based on the active participation and co-development of the offer by the members. The cooperative has been growing steadily since the year 2000. In the meantime (status 2009) the cooperative has grown to about 200 members, who together host about 5000 domains.
History, Foundation History and Concepts[edit]
While in the early days of the Internet the users were also the makers of the Internet, it changed from around the mid-1990s onwards towards increasing commercialization. One consequence was that users and doers diverged. At the end of the 90s, the market for web hosting, i. e. the technical provision of "web space" in Germany, was dominated by a few companies. The technical possibilities of these providers were relatively narrow. The market leader at that time suffered a series of long-lasting technical breakdowns, which, coupled with a lack of transparency and communication, at least caused considerable problems for the professional users of the provider - up to the endangerment of their business operations. Since the problems could not be solved despite the formation of a community of interests, some of the affected people decided to do better together.
Thus, the idea of a collaborative web host was born, which should transfer the open source idea of transparency, co-determination and participation to the web hosting. An association had also been considered for realisation, the decision was then made in favour of a cooperative, so that the members could use the services of the cooperative without any restrictions, e. g. through resale. The members of the cooperative can make a contribution through their co-determination rights as well as through paid or honorary involvement.
Hostsharing eG is to a large extent an "ideal" cooperative - with regard to the basic cooperative principles - which offers its services almost exclusively to its members. The only exception is the possibility of temporary use on trial basis prior to the beginning of a membership.
The Virtual General Assembly[edit]
Hostsharing wrote legal history, because for the first time a virtual general assembly was to be held here. On the other hand, for a longer period of time there was the existing cooperative law, which stipulated the physical presence of the members at the General Assembly. [1] The article § 43 of the Cooperative Society Act, which was amended in 2006 on the basis of a scientific study on Hostsharing [2], among other things, now also allows the possibility "that resolutions of the members can be passed in writing or in electronic form". Hostsharing was the first cooperative to incorporate such a formula in its statutes, and hostsharing was the first cooperative to hold a virtual general assembly of members over the Internet. As a "virtual company" in cooperative form, Hostsharing also became interesting for economic science.
References[edit]
Sources[edit]
- Reference in the book „Genossenschaftsrecht“ from Marcus Geschwandtner, Marcus Helios
- Archived 2013-12-02 at the Wayback Machine (PDF-file; 1,70 MB)
- Hostsharing e.G. – eine Fallstudie (PDF-file; 599 kB)
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