The Official Ubuntu Book: Ubuntu Foundation Documents
- Apr 18, 2008
This chapter is from the book
The Canonical Ltd. location for each of these documents is the Ubuntu Web site, and any updated versions can be found there. These documents are presented verbatim except where wording or presentation assumed a Web-based reading. The appendix contains the following documents:
- Code of Conduct
- Ubuntu Philosophy
- Description of Ubuntu Components
- Ubuntu License Policy
Code of Conduct
Ubuntu is an African concept of "humanity toward others." It's "the belief in a universal bond of sharing that connects all humanity." The same ideas are central to the way the Ubuntu community collaborates. Members of the Ubuntu community need to work together effectively, and this Code of Conduct lays down the "ground rules" for our cooperation.
Introduction
Desmond Tutu described Ubuntu in the following way:
A person with Ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole.
–Archbishop Desmond Tutu, in No Future Without Forgiveness
We chose the name Ubuntu for this distribution because we think it captures perfectly the spirit of sharing and cooperation that is at the heart of the Open Source movement. In the free software world, we collaborate freely on a volunteer basis to build software for everyone's benefit. We improve on the work of others, which we have been given freely, and then share our improvements on the same basis.
That collaboration depends on good relationships between developers. To this end, we've agreed on the following Code of Conduct to help define the ways that we think collaboration and cooperation should work.
