You provided very good questions.
Most of the answers can be found in this video:
I will stop here.
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Hello,
I think this is an interesting conversation and I would like to re-iterate the demands for some answers that donāt seem clear. That the Saudi government is guilty of oppression, abusing power, extrajudicial killings and violating human rights is incontestable. But at the same time this is not the topic of discussion, the discussion is whether a Saudi āsemi-governmentalā company is the right partner and for what reason.
How much influence does the Saudi government have on Tamkeen? Even if itās not semi governmental company, the Saudi government can shut it down extrajudicially or even legally if it wants to, and so we can assume if the government wants to do something it will. One need only look at the amount of censorship that happened on Twitter when they opened a branch in the UAE and how a lot of voices were shut down, and thatās not even partnership.
Why go into a partnership with Tamkeen in the first place? Money of course. On a technological front, what Tamkeen is trying to do by providing open source solutions to enterprises is by Saudi standards a radical and brave step, because the market relies on corporate closed source technologies, but on the other hand, ignoring the political question of how the Saudi government technology violates human rights not just by fueling wars but by abusing digital technologies falls short of the minimum acceptable level for the NC community. (Not to mention they jailed and tortured the women activists who called for the right of women to drive in Saudi, I only say that because it was mentioned)
Clearly NextCloud needs to provide assurances as to how, no matter what Tamkeen wants, the nextcloud code base and infrastructure will be safe from Saudi government requests and interventions but at the same time provide an explanation as to why out of all the āsemi governmentalā organizations or companies out there, Tamkeen, dedicated to serve the Saudi government was chosen.
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I wish Tamkeen all the best not just in serving the Saudi market but also in Arabizing Nextcloud for the benefit of the whole region. A huge market of over 20 Arabic language speaking countries and a population of over 400 Million are awaiting for Nextcloud to speak in their language.