Preamble

In the OPIN community, participants from all over the world come together to co-innovate. This is made possible by the support, hard work and enthusiasm of all of people, including those who (will) create and use OPIN research, standards and software. This document offers some guidance to ensure OPIN participants can cooperate.

This Code of Conduct is shared by all contributors and users who engage with the OPIN team and its community services.

Overview

This Code of Conduct presents a summary of the shared values and “common sense” thinking in our community. The basic social ingredients that hold our initiative together include:

  • Be considerate
  • Be respectful
  • Be collaborative
  • Be pragmatic
  • Support others in the community
  • Get support from others in the community

Our community is made up of several groups of individuals and organizations which can roughly be divided into two groups:

  • Contributors, or those who add value to the initiative through research, improving OPIN standards, software and its services
  • Users, or those who add value to the initiative through their support as users of OPIN standards and software

This Code of Conduct reflects the agreed standards of behavior for members of the OPIN community, in any forum, mailing list, wiki, website, Slack channel, public meeting or private correspondence within the context of the OPIN team and its services. The community acts according to the standards written down in this Code of Conduct and will defend these standards for the benefit of the community. Leaders of any group, such as moderators of mailing lists, Slack channels, forums, etc., will exercise the right to suspend access to any company or person who persistently breaks our shared Code of Conduct.

Be considerate

Your actions and work will affect and be used by other people and you in turn will depend on the work and actions of others. Any decision you take will affect other community members, and we expect you to take those consequences into account when making decisions.

As a contributor, ensure that you give full credit for the work of others and bear in mind how your changes affect others. It is also expected that you try to follow the relevant schedule and guidelines.

As a user, remember that contributors work hard on their part of OPIN and take great pride in it.

Be respectful

In order for the OPIN community to stay healthy, its members must feel comfortable and accepted. Treating one another with respect is absolutely necessary for this. In a disagreement, in the first instance assume that people mean well.

We do not tolerate personal attacks, racism, sexism or any other form of discrimination. Disagreement is inevitable, from time to time, but respect for the views of others will go a long way to winning respect for your own view. Respecting other people, their work, their contributions and assuming well-meaning motivation will make community members feel comfortable and safe and will result in motivation and productivity.

We expect members of our community to be respectful when dealing with other contributors, users and communities. Remember that OPIN is an international initiative and that you may be unaware of important aspects of other cultures.

Be collaborative

The open standards and opensource software movements depend on collaboration: they help limit duplication of effort while improving the quality of the work produced. In order to avoid misunderstanding, try to be clear and concise when requesting help or giving it. Remember it is easy to misunderstand emails (especially when they are not written in your mother tongue). Ask for clarifications if unsure how something is meant; remember the first rule – assume in the first instance that people mean well.

As a contributor, you should aim to collaborate with other community members, as well as with other communities that are interested in or depend on the work you do. Your work should be transparent and be fed back into the community when available, not just when OPIN publishes or releases. If you wish to work on something new in existing projects, keep those projects informed of your ideas and progress.

It may not always be possible to reach consensus on the implementation of an idea, so don’t feel obliged to achieve this before you begin. However, always ensure that you keep the outside world informed of your work, and publish it in a way that allows outsiders to discuss, test and contribute to your efforts.

Contributors on every project come and go. When you leave or disengage from the project, in whole or in part, you should do so with pride about what you have achieved and by acting responsibly towards others who come after you to continue the project.

As a user, your feedback is important, as is its form. Poorly thought out comments can cause pain and demotivate other community members, but considerate discussion of problems can bring positive results. An encouraging word works wonders.

Be pragmatic

OPIN is a pragmatic community. We value tangible results over having the last word in a discussion. We defend our core values like freedom and respectful collaboration, but we don’t let arguments about minor issues get in the way of achieving more important results. We are open to suggestions and welcome solutions regardless of their origin. When in doubt support a solution which helps getting things done over one which has theoretical merits, but isn’t being worked on. Use the tools and methods which help getting the job done. Let decisions be taken by those who do the work.

Support others in the community

Our community is made strong by mutual respect, collaboration and pragmatic, responsible behavior. Sometimes there are situations where this has to be defended and other community members need help.

If you witness others being attacked, think first about how you can offer them personal support. If you feel that the situation is beyond your ability to help individually, go privately to the victim and ask if some form of official intervention is needed. Similarly you should support anyone who appears to be in danger of burning out, either through work-related stress or personal problems.

When problems do arise, consider respectfully reminding those involved of our shared Code of Conduct as a first action. Leaders are defined by their actions, and can help set a good example by working to resolve issues in the spirit of this Code of Conduct before they escalate.

Get support from others in the community

Disagreements, both political and technical, happen all the time. Our community is no exception to the rule. The goal is not to avoid disagreements or differing views but to resolve them constructively. You should turn to the community to seek advice and to resolve disagreements and where possible consult the team most directly involved.

Think deeply before turning a disagreement into a public dispute. If necessary, request mediation, trying to resolve differences in a less highly-emotional medium. If you do feel that you or your work is being attacked, take your time to breathe through before writing heated replies. Consider a 24 hour moratorium if emotional language is being used – a cooling off period is sometimes all that is needed. If you really want to go a different way, then we encourage you to publish your ideas and your work, so that it can be tried and tested.

The authors of this document would like to thank the OPIN community and those who have worked to create such a dynamic environment to share in and who offered their thoughts and wisdom in the authoring of this document. We would also like to thank the KDE community for being a good example of how to present this document.

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