Why Indiecomputing Initiative?
Because modern FOSS movement is not to be trusted.
The goal of Indiecomputing Initiative is to be the spiritual successor of the original Free Software movement and provide truly-libre alternative computing solutions that one can trust. By the phrase "solutions that one can trust" we mean that we hold an absolute-neutral stance on any non-tech issues. To be able to maintain this, Indiecomputing Initiative adopts the Trust Principle.
What is the "Trust Principle"?
The Trust Principle of Indiecomputing Initiative goes as follows:
Rule 1 (Trust Principle). Everyone should be treated in the same way with absolute no regard of their stances on non-tech issues. If you believe someone should be prohibited from taking parts in indiecomputing activities purely for any non-tech reasons, you are not to be trusted.
We firmly believe that changes in any part of the project - let it be the documentation, the maintaining team, the code itself, or any other aspects - that happens purely for non-technological reasons are strictly untrustable.
Do you ban people from participating?
No, because unlike certain modern FOSS projects, we don't believe in oppression of opinions; we operate purely on trusts instead of modulation like most part of the current FOSS movement do.
Rule 2. Indiecomputing Initiative does not have a ban list, and any organisation which claims to be align with the spirit of Indiecomputing should never have one. Rule 3. Any one who violates the Trust Principle is untrusted instead of banned; the actual performed offence should be documented and released and freely available to the public. Rule 4. The contribution from untrusted parties to any Indiecomputing Initiative codebase should go through extra-strict examination and scrutinization; maintainer of said project is allowed to simply reject these contribution if they are not directly related to the tech per se. Rule 5. Whoever's on the untrusted list stays on the untrusted list permanently.
Rule 6. We believe in a strict division of "opinion" and "action"; the former is protected by the Trust Principle and the latter is not protected and subject to being the reason for untrust. For example, assume there is someone not happy with the political stance of a certain project maintainer on a certain topic; if they only went on social media to vent, the project maintainer should not untrust them because of their venting; but if they went on social media to ask their peers to back them up and spam the issue tracker of the project, this should be considered brigading and the project maintainer should untrust all of them and is allowed to reject any contribution from them in the future.
Who is allowed to participate, and who is allowed to start a subgroup?
Rule 7. Anyone - including people who have been listed in the untrusted list in any of the previously-existing group or subgroup before - is allowed to participate, start a subgroup or declare one or many of his project to be a part of Indiecomputing Initiative if and only if they strictly adhere to the Truth Principle and any of the rules mentioned above and below. Rule 8. Any individuals, organizations, projects, groups or subgroups is automatically denounced from being a part of the Indiecomputing Initiative once the Truth Principle or any of the rules mentioned above and below is broken.
Rule 9. Indiecomputing Initiative has no global governing body and has no global representative organisation. Whoever claims to be the definitive representative of Indiecomputing Initiative is to be untrusted.
Rule 10. Subgroups are allowed to share their untrusted list - people who have been untrusted in one group are often people who should've better become untrusted in another group.
All the rules mentioned in this document are designed, drafted and set by Zãaktîn Läm, the first Grand Observer of Indiecomputing Initiative. Rule 11. All new rules in the future must be added in the form of addendum, i.e. the text describing the new rules should be appended after the old text; under no circumstances shall the text describing the previously-established rules be changed. Rule 12. All rules mentioned in this document are absolute: they apply to any self-proclaimed subgroup of Indiecomputing Initiative, and under absolutely no circumstances shall these rules be changed, dismissed or nullified in any way, shape or form, and no new rules in conflict with these rules shall be added.
2024.7.7
Explanation of certain rules
These are originally local addenda restricted to the Root Node; since they are explanations of the text in the Constitution, logically they should also be treated as a part of Constitution and not some kind of local rules, thus the following addenda are moved from the page for local rules to here. -- 2024.10.1
Addendum 1. As stated in the II Constitution, one of the purpose of Indiecomputing Initiative is to have an absolute-neutral stance on all non-tech topics; this means that Indiecomputing Initiative as a whole does not lean towards any side on politics and will not concern itself with the political leaning of any individuals (which is protected by the Trust Principle). (2024.7.7)
Addendum 2 (Explanation of Rule 5). Rule 5 of the II Constitution states that "Whoever's on the untrusted list stays on the untrusted list permanently"; this means that one can decide to delay the addition of certain party to the untrusted list but cannot remove parties that are already on the untrusted list from the untrusted list. (2024.7.7)
Addendum 3 (Explanation of Rule 6). When a party violates the Trust Principle, they are no longer under its protection, thus making listing them in the untrusted list align with the spirit of the II Constitution and not a violation to the Trust Principle itself. (2024.7.7)
Addendum 4 (Explanation of Rule 9). While no one should claim to be the global representative of Indiecomputing Initiative without being untrusted, one do be allowed to claim to be the representative of a certain subgroup. For example, the first Grand Observer of Indiecomputing Initiative is not the global representative of the whole initiative and is prohibited from claiming to be so by Rule 9; but he can still claim to be the representative of the Root Node, which is a subgroup (even if it is the first subgroup) of II. (2024.7.10) (wording fix on 2024.9.12)
Addendum 5 (Explanation of "Trust" in Trust Principle). The "trust" in this case, in an informal sense, refers to the situation where one can trust the one who's being trusted to make informed and senseful technological decisions with absolute no influences from any individual's political stance. (2024.7.8)
Addendum 6 (Explanation of Rule 9 & Addendum 4). No subgroup is allowed to use the word "Indiecomputing" and the name "Indiecomputing Initiative" in any form that would mislead people into thinking that the subgroup that violates this rule is somehow to certain extent a representative of the indiecomputing movement as a whole, including but not limited to adding names of places (e.g. "Indiecomputing Initiative New York" or "Indiecomputing Initiative Southeast Asia"). The Root Node (i.e. the subgroup whose website is this document on) is the only exception to this rule, since it has declared itself not to be any form of representative in the form of wriitng this very rule into the Constitution. (2024.10.1)