Values

Our core values guide our decisions

Transparency

Transparency means we believe our reasoning, decisions, and official actions should be accessible to the general community. Although the FPA (and all organizations) need to keep some secrets (passwords, bank account numbers, etc), and we occasionally need to keep things confidential that affect partners or individuals, we strive to make as much information as possible available to the community.

Likewise, to get the most honest deliberation and feedback on proposals, members need to feel comfortable to speak their minds. Therefore our discussions themselves often take place in private venues, with only summary information provided about the deliberations and their results.

However, we strive to conduct our official actions in public view.

Reputation

We recognize that different participants in a discussion and in the decision-making process have different reputations, and their input is valued comensurately with that reputation. Their “reputation” is linked to their “identity”.

Many people feel uncomfortable using their real names on the internet, and prefer to use an alias. This project respects the desire for people to maintain privacy.

However, we make a distinction between “Identity” and “Reputation”.

Identity

The identity is the identifier by which a person is known online. This can be their real-world name or an alias. It can even be multiple aliases if the person takes steps to clearly identify that all aliases refer to the same person. This is quite common since a preferred nick or screenname may not be available on all platforms.

Identity can take three forms:

Anonymous

The identity has no identifying information, does not correllate with other platforms, and has no history.

Pseudo-anonymity

The identity is not publicly linked with a real world person. It does have a discernible history either on the FreeCAD platforms or other platforms like Github.

Non-Anonymous

The identity is publicly linked to a real-world person. They can be found on other platforms like linkedIN. They may use a headshot for an avatar picture. They may have populated other personal information in their profile.

Reputation

Reputation is related to identity, but is a separate concept. A good reputation takes a long time to establish and can be easily destroyed, so people are careful to protect their reputation.

An anonymous account has no associated reputation, and its owner has nothing to lose. They are still a human being and should be respected as such. But unacceptable behavior should be swiftly addressed.

A pseudoanonymous account with a positive reputation should be recognized and respected commensurately. However, a pseudoanonymous person can still walk away without damaging their real-world reputation.

A non-anonymous person with a long history and solid reputation should be recognized as such. They have tied their real-world reputation to their online activity.