50 lines
2.7 KiB
ReStructuredText
50 lines
2.7 KiB
ReStructuredText
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Open Community
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The success of open source -as a concept, mindset and way of collaborative
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activities, such as software development-, lies within the community and the
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ecosystem around it.
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This pillar of the Four Opens ensures an open and collaborative environment
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that is welcoming and inclusive to everyone who would like to participate.
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Whether you are one of the contributors or a person who supports a community,
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you need to work on making it a level playing field for everybody regardless
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of gender, race, company affiliation, and so forth. Everybody's actions count.
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Every community that is bigger than a handful of people will form governance
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bodies that are responsible for the smooth and efficient operation of the group
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of people who work on to achieve their common goals and mission. In order to
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make your community an open environment everyone needs to have the opportunity
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to take on a leadership position or become part of any of the governing bodies.
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Processes, such as meritocracy-based leadership, are good examples to practice.
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In order for people to be able to rise to become leaders within the community,
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they need to have access and be able to participate in the design and
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development process. We will discuss these principles in later sections of this
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document.
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To make a community open and diverse, the participants need to define common
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goals and a mission that they will work on together. Goals and mission can
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evolve over time to follow the evolution of the project based on technology
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evolution, users' needs and contributors' ideas and innovations. The open
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environment, where all actors can equally participate, provides the possibility
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to create a feedback loop between those who work on the project and those, who
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are using it - either directly or by creating a service or offering based on
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the project.
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The open and well documented communication channels will help you to establish
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good interaction between all participants. By creating and maintaining an equal
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environment for everyone with open and neutral governance you will encourage
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the community to become diverse as opposed to being controlled by a single
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company or organization.
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In an ideal world users of the project also become contributors to your
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community, as their participation is invaluable to provide feedback and share
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their needs and channalenges the project is trying to solve.
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To build and maintain an open community, everyone who participates and supports
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it needs to have an open and inclusive mindset with which they perform all
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actions and interactions. Furthermore, there are processes and actions to
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support this pillar of the Four Opens, which this document will discuss later.
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