On Wednesday, October 30, 2013 10:03:48 AM UTC+1, John Galloway wrote:
Are you saying that the description on the OLC website is not a
true representation of their organisation?

What you read there has nothing to do with what I wrote.

The OLC is "owned" by the Segelflugszene gGmbH, a company owned by Reiner Rose (source: www.bundesanzeiger.de). The donations however go to Segelflugszene e.V., a charitable club. Even though the base name is the same, they are completely different legal entities. I suppose this was made to trick people into thinking the OLC is a charity.

Much of the OLC is organized by people who work without pay for Reiner Rose's company. Those people are listed on the link you provided.

Apart from that, the OLC gets a lot of money from advertisers (called "sponsors"). Plus, many national organizations pay money to the OLC. For example, the German Aeroclub pays 5-figure each year to the OLC (i.e. Segelflugszene gGmbH) so the OLC provides the technical platform for the DMSt.

The company has more than enough money to pay for server hosting. I mean, how much does server hosting cost? Maybe a few thousand bucks per year. But certainly in the five figure range.

Where does the rest of the money go? Why does the OLC beg its users for more money, in spite of earning already more than enough through commercial contracts?