TextRefs is now an association
Today we sat down in Zürich, signed the statutes, and founded TextRefs as an association (Verein) under Art. 60 ff. of the Swiss Civil Code.
Three months ago we open-sourced the project and described ourselves as “an association in formation”. That qualifier is gone. TextRefs is a legal entity now, and we are genuinely delighted about it.
What happened today
Section titled “What happened today”The founding assembly adopted the statutes, and they took effect immediately (Art. 22). Moritz Mähr signed as president, Luz Christopher Seiberth as recording officer. We sent the signed statutes and the founding minutes to the Cantonal Tax Office of Zürich the same day.
Every founding document is public and has been for a while — the statutes, the mission, the governance regulation, and the expense regulation. The German texts are the legally binding ones; the English versions are convenience translations. You can read all of them from the association overview or the German original.
The tax office has said yes — almost
Section titled “The tax office has said yes — almost”On 27 August 2026 the Cantonal Tax Office of Zürich assured us of tax exemption on grounds of public benefit (Gemeinnützigkeit), on condition that we founded the association exactly as we had presented it. We did, and we have told them so.
An assurance is not yet a legally binding decision. So here is the honest version: the hard part is behind us, one formal step is still ahead. Donations are not tax-deductible yet. They become deductible once the decision arrives, and we will say so here when it does.
What we changed along the way
Section titled “What we changed along the way”The tax office read our Art. 15 closely and found it broader than the governance model we had described. As written, it left room to pay board members for special or operational services. That was a fair objection, so we amended it. Board members now serve in an honorary capacity and may claim only their actual expenses and cash outlays — nothing else (Art. 15).
Because a regulation may not contradict the statutes, the expense regulation and the governance regulation moved with it.
We are happy with where that landed. It is a good day when the tax office and your own principles push in the same direction.
What this changes for you
Section titled “What this changes for you”Not much yet — and that is deliberate.
The registry, the standard, and the API are still pre-1.0. Every record is still status: draft, and no identifier carries a persistence promise until expert review promotes it. TextRefs stays bootstrap-funded, non-commercial, and committed to the Principles of Open Scholarly Infrastructure.
What is new is the organisation behind all of it. There is now an entity that can hold funds, accept donations and grants, sign agreements with libraries and institutions, and — this is the part that matters most to us — outlive any one of its founders. Stable identifiers are a promise about the future. Making that promise as two people with a GitHub account was never quite enough.
Come and help
Section titled “Come and help”We are looking for board members who bring the disciplines that live on canonical references: theology, law and legal history, classical philology, philosophy, mediaeval studies, digital editions, and library and information science. If that is your field, see the open call and write to us via the contact page.
And if you maintain a citation system, build a tool that needs stable passage identifiers, or simply enjoy reading a specification closely — the registry is open and the standard is still soft enough to change.
More soon.