My commitment

Not to be a volunteer, just giving a hand CAcert is a great thing. A certificate authority run by volunteers. Unique. Great.

Well over a quarter of a million people participate. That means they are enrolled. But help out? Translate a text? Contribute an update? Test a new function? That's maybe only a dozen people. But CAcert cannot function like that in the long run.

I don't want to take on a task that is too much for me, join a team, meetings, hours to spend! I have a partner, children and a job. I am sorry, I cannot.

How about this: Take a look at our list of most urgent tasks. Do some proofreading in your mother tongue. Try out a new function and then briefly note whether it works or where it's stuck. No obligation for more.

And if it was fun or gave you a good feeling, maybe again next month? Are you in?
Ah, you don't know how to do that? OK, then I'll show you step by step. Without obligation.

Or in other words: Not to become a volunteer, just giving us a hand.

Contents

My commitment
Find your small contribution
1. Where to test
2. How to test
I want more!
1. Can I join a team and help on a regular basis?
Help! I am lost
FAQ
Further readings

Find your small contribution

How to find bugs that needs a review This is our bug tracker. https://bugs.cacert.org/view_all_bug_page.php (you may create an account, if you do not have one already)

Click on the red marked field. Select one of the following choices:

needs review
needs testing
needs review & testing

Apply the filter.

You will now see a number of bugs that have probably already been fixed. However, before we can put this in, we still need someone to check it. Better yet, two people. And they must not be the ones who have programmed it or the ones who will import it. That's why we need you. Because our core team is small.

Where to test

Usually, we test on the test server https://test.cacert.org

Access is easy, just follow this steps: https://wiki.cacert.org/Software/Assessment/TestserverManagementSystem

After your test, please leave a note in the bug tracker (see above): "Add a note" on the bottom of the page. You may write in a few words, what you did and as it worked or what did not work. (e.g. "subscribed with 10 different e-mail addresses; 10 different dates of birth between 1872 and 2036"; "OK, no error message if date is in the future")

How to test

I want more!

Join our mailing lists! That way you can get to know a team. And maybe join in. If it suits you.

Software (coding, ...) https://lists.cacert.org/wws/info/cacert-devel
Infrastructure (maintenance of the infrastructure)
general list https://lists.cacert.org/wws/info/cacert
System administration https://lists.cacert.org/wws/cacert-sysadm-volunteers

Don't be afraid: You don't get thousands of emails a day on our email lists. Or you subscribe for a daily digest (most days there will even be no digest).

Can I join a team and help on a regular basis?

Of course, you can! Just look here https://wiki.cacert.org/comma/Workbench/HelpNeeded to find the team that fits to you and how to get in touch!

Help! I am lost

Oh, no, we want to prevent that. Actually, we should now discuss this with you personally, listen to you, help you.

Unfortunately, that is a bit difficult. Because so few are active. We always have to decide: This or that. If we simply publish an e-mail address here, we need 30% of our volunteers (this is what we experienced a few years ago) to answer within 6 months. That ties up too many resources and takes far too long. So the easiest way is for you to write to the support mailing list. There you will get the fastest answer: mailto:cacert-support@lists.cacert.org

FAQ

I would like to help, but you missed to get into the browsers in the last 18 years.
That statement is wrongly formulated. CAcert is not a service provider or a company, but a community. We are all in the same boat. We can only achieve our goals together, with your cooperation. Even very little help is enough. If each of the 6000 assurers from the assurer directory helps with something small for 10 minutes per month, that is already 1000 hours of work. That would solve (almost) all problems.
Why is CAcert needed if the root certificate is not in the browsers?
We recently asked ourselves the same question. The medium-term trend leads in other directions. This raises the question of whether we should focus our limited energies on an uncertain future.
Where are the strengths of CAcert, if not in the browser?
With personal assurances, we offer great added value. We have several projects that use the strengths of the Web of Trust and personal assurances. In order to be able to start with them, however, a few legacy issues have to be cleaned up first. A first project was presented at Froscon conference in mid 2024.
What are the most important next steps?
(1) First of all, the most annoying problems: Someone has taken their time and solved a problem. But due to lack of reviews, the patch cannot be applied, sometimes for years. We have to change that. Immediately. Hopefully with your commitment.
(2) Our infrastructure is running. We replaced our servers last year in order to reduce energy consumption. Software and hardware need constant maintenance. The work must also be documented. At the moment, one person does this alone, in the evenings when the children are asleep. If you want to learn the ropes and get involved for a longer period of time, you can do great things in a team of three or four people and gain great experience. Humanly and technically.
If I were a fairy, what would you wish for CAcert?
Since Google and Mozilla removed the keygen tag from HTML, creating certificates has become technically too complicated for people "like my grandmother". We have two ready-made ideas on how to solve this. It takes two or three persons to program it and two to test it afterwards.
I work 80 hours a week, sorry, but I can't invest a second of my time. Could money also be used?
Yes, preferably a recurring (monthly or annual) donation. This will cover the running costs (rack rental and electricity consumption). If everyone in the CAcert community donated just one dollar a year, we could employ three computer engineers full-time - and not in India or Ukraine. Unfortunately, at the moment, the annual income is rather less than the operating expenses.
What is CAcert's bank account?
IBAN CH02 0077 4010 3947 4420 0 (CHF, EUR, USD and other currencies)
Graubündner Kantonalbank, Chur
BIC (SWIFT) GRKBCH2270A
for credit cards and similar services, see https://blog.cacert.org/2023/12/donations-%E2%86%90%E2%86%93%E2%86%92-spenden/