Muni Town
Values
All product ventures incubated in the Muni collective are designed first and foremost to Do Good by means of radical openness.
This document is a continuation of the first draft that appeared in ‘Spicy Lobster (Open Gamedev) Company’, another Muni community venture.
Good Systems Development
What gives systems development a quality of goodness? There are as many answers to that as there are systems developers, but here’s the Muni way:
We practice the craft of Good Systems Development in being ever-curious, open-minded and kind-hearted. That’s how we do the work.
Curiosity
Without curiosity there is no urge to explore the unknown, wherein we find answers to our most difficult questions.
Openness
Without the openness required to receive new knowledge we cannot learn how to improve our selves and our systems.
Kindness
Without intentional kindness our systems will be neutral, and neutral systems are indifferent to suffering. Systems of kindness are designed to alleviate suffering.
As for the where, when, who and how of the work to be done:
Where: Distributed
Geographical locality is of little importance.
When: Asynchronously
Our communications are async-by-default.
Who: Pseudonymously
We don’t need to know your real name, age, gender or nationality, though many of us do exchange many such details freely and sometimes by necessity, e.g. for the purpose of monetary transactions.
How: No fake urgency
‘sprint’ and ‘crunch time’ are not part of our common vocabulary. The urgency of any given work is decided by the workers.
Lastly, what do we work for, and why:
What: We work cooperatively to enrich The Commons, in service of the global community.
Why: The Commons[1][2] is what sustains us and our communities, so enriching it is to enrich our selves and those in our localities (digital or otherwise) in an ecologically sustainable manner.
Our beliefs about systems of technology:
Technology is not values-neutral
Every new creation (for work, art, pleasure...) is necessarily based in previous knowledge, paradigms and tools — which in turn are the result of the political and social constructions of our time.
The scope of "what is possible" is necessarily defined and determined by how our field has evolved in a cultural, economic and political context; any intention to transform it is necessarily engaged in all of the above.
By acknowledging this, we recognize that neutrality is not an option for us as a values-driven company and participant in the open source movement.
Technology confers power
Who wields what technology matters. Inequitable distribution of technological innovation leads to unstable distributions of power.
Good Technology is non-extractive
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4037070
Non-extractive organizations pursue systemic health by setting objectives that contribute to the communities in which they operate. They are conscious of the various ways they impact upon people and the planet and make this explicit in their weighing of interests.
Good Technology enables human agency
We are strong proponents of web agency.
Addendum
We agree in principle with the following documents.
Declaration of Digital Autonomy
Our penchant for agency-enabling technology is shared by many longtime advocates, like the drafters of techautonomy.org.
Empowering individual and collective digital action
Technology needs to be designed for communities, as well as the individuals using it. These communities can be those intentionally built around a piece of technology, geographic in nature, or united by another shared purpose. When people discover that their technology is not functioning in their interest, or that the trade offs to use it have become too burdensome, they must have the ability to change what they are using, including the ability to replace the software on a device that they have purchased if it is not serving their interests and to use the technology while not being connected to a centralized network or choose a different service. The technology should be interoperable with other services and software. Empowering action includes having the ability and right to organize to repair the technology and to migrate essential data to other solutions. Control of essential data must belong to the communities generating the data and relying on it.
DWeb Primciples
01. Technology for Human Agency
We stand for technology that enables the primacy of people as beneficiaries of the technology, by upholding their security, privacy and self-determination.
We urge coexistence and interoperability, and discourage walled gardens.
We value open source code as a fundamental building block of an open and inclusive Web.
We aim for peer-to-peer relationships, rather than hierarchical control and power imbalance.
Our technologies must minimize surveillance and manipulation of people's behavior, and optimize for social benefits and empower individuals to determine how and why their data is used.
We believe that multiple technical means will be more effective than a single technical solution to achieve ethical and people-centric outcomes.
Mozilla Manifesto
We are committed to an internet that catalyzes collaboration among diverse communities working together for the common good.
We are inextricably linked to the Mozilla Foundation through our deep involvement with Rust. We respect the Mozilla foundation’s legacy and we commit ourselves to upholding the 10 principles set forth in their Manifesto. Especially relevant to us are principles 5-9:
Principle 5
Individuals must have the ability to shape the internet and their own experiences on it.
Principle 6
The effectiveness of the internet as a public resource depends upon interoperability (protocols, data formats, content), innovation and decentralized participation worldwide.
Principle 7
Free and open source software promotes the development of the internet as a public resource.
Principle 8
Transparent community-based processes promote participation, accountability and trust.
Principle 9
Commercial involvement in the development of the internet brings many benefits; a balance between commercial profit and public benefit is critical.
Contract for The Web
We endorse the Contract for The Web. Most relevant to us are its Company Principles (addendum in [brackets]):
Principle 4
Make [essential technology on] the internet affordable and accessible to everyone
Principle 5
Respect and protect people’s privacy and personal data to build online trust
Principle 6
Develop technologies that support the best in humanity and challenge the worst
Open Organization
We adopt the Open Organization Definition by Red Hat in its entirety: (hyperlinks tba)
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Transparency
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Inclusivity
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Adaptability
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Collaboration
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Community
UN Sustainable Development Goals
As a distributed, internet-based project, it can feel like we are one step removed from the “real world” and our impact on it. But as technology becomes ever more pervasive in our economy, infrastructure and communities, our actions have very real and immediate consequences.
We acknowledge our place in the interconnected world, and in our own small way we are committed to its betterment. None of our activities should have adverse effects on the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and we'll do what we can to advance Goals 8, 9 and 10 (addendum in [brackets]):
Goal 8
Decent Work and Economic Growth; Sustainable economic growth will require societies to create the conditions that allow people to have quality jobs.
Goal 9
Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure; Investments in [technological, open source] infrastructure are crucial to achieving sustainable development
Goal 10
Reduced Inequalities; To reduce inequalities, policies should be universal in principle, paying attention to the needs of disadvantaged and marginalized populations.