# Community Charter

The Community Charter of the Rocky Enterprise Software Foundation

### Preamble

Enterprise organizations are becoming concerned with using open source software
due to recent events where projects have changed licensing or pivoted to limit
usage due to competition, business models, conflicts of interest, or other
motivation.

We do not assume the open source mindset lightly. It is not a marketing tool, or
a business endeavor. Open source is a development model designed to engage and
foster collaboration and usage. It is a decision which should be carefully
considered, as it should be expected that others, including competitors, will
make use of the technologies that are created by it.

The Rocky Enterprise Software Foundation (RESF) has been created to organize a
community around enterprise, research, academia, individuals, and other
institutions to collaborate on building and maintaining the open source tools
that these organizations need.

Our mission is to provide the confidence and stability necessary to build on
open source projects. Together, we can create a stable foundation of open source
software that companies can use internally, or as the basis for their commercial
needs.

### Purpose

The purpose of this document is to define the vision, mission, principles, and
values of the Rocky Enterprise Software Foundation. We stand together,
voluntarily accountable to this charter by our peers and the enterprise
community at large.

### Vision

A community of individuals and organizations, committed to working together to
provide a stable foundation of open source software within the enterprise.

### Mission

- Build a community of individuals and organizations to develop and foster
enterprise-grade, open source solutions.  - Work together to provide for the
needs of the enterprise community.  - The security, stability, and integrity of
our projects are paramount.  - Enable knowledge sharing, inclusiveness,
collaboration, and open communication.  - Coordinate with the commercial,
research, academic, and public sectors to help bring their products,
technologies, and support into enterprise environments.  - Always make decisions
in the best interest of the enterprise community while being beholden to no
specific organization(s)

### Principles

Principles are fundamental truths, immutable, and they guide the decisions we
make and the goals that we set. No action can be made by us that is contrary to
the following principles:

- Community responsibility. The Rocky Enterprise Software Foundation is
responsible and accountable only to the community that consumes its projects.
RESF shall be structured and governed in a way that ensures that no single
entity, organization, corporation, association, etc. will be permitted to have a
controlling influence over the RESF or its projects. 

- Our projects are free and open source. With few exceptions (branding, legal,
etc.), the work generated by the RESF and its community will be released under
an existing OSI permissive open source license (non-copyleft).

- Trust is paramount. While decisions may sometimes need to be made that balance
opposing perspectives, at all times we strive toward building and maintaining
the overall trust such that the community feels confident in leveraging and
standardizing on the resulting work of this organization for both commercial and
internal usage.  - Remain transparent. To the degree that we are reasonably able,
the RESF will remain transparent to the community as defined by our data security
policy: https://forums.rockylinux.org/t/rfc-data-classification-policy/1513

- Equality of Opportunity: The RESF will strive to build and maintain a
collaborative and respectful environment that provides equal access to
opportunities and resources for everyone within the community.

### Values

We derive our values from our principles. It is with these values in mind that
we make decisions, always striving to make the best decision possible with the
data we have at hand.

- Be practical. As open source advocates, our inclination toward solving
problems is to use tools that are themselves permissible open source, but the
best practical solution to a problem may preclude that. We use the right tool
for the right job.

- Be reasonable. Respect is given and trust is earned. Input from all
contributors are valued, and all perspectives are sought after and considered.
Knowledge and righteousness does not follow seniority.

- Team ahead of self. Sycophants are not valuable to an organization, but
neither are contrarians. We respectfully vocalize our concerns but pull
together to drive forward once a decision has been reached.
- Enable the enterprise community.  While we are starting with creating a stable
downstream enterprise distribution of Linux, our goals are much broader,
including attention to the needs of special interests, project hosting,
education, collaboration, workshops, meetups, and individuals.

- Consider the human. Rocky Linux is developed and supported by a wide group of
diverse individuals from all walks of life. We are strictly apolitical and will
always assume the best intentions of others.

### Get Involved

We welcome feedback for this charter, and we encourage participation and
engagement from the community. As always, you can get in touch with us for this
or other matters on our website (https://rockylinux.org), forums
(https://forums.rockylinux.org), or through chat (https://chat.rockylinux.org).

