Principle 5: Contributor Ethics within COSS-branded Projects
“Contributors to a COSS-branded Project must not intentionally add, modify, or remove code or functional data in a way that subverts Principles 1-4, or for purposes of sabotage, DRM-like restrictions, or to introduce politically or religiously motivated alterations that undermine the neutrality or factual basis expected of the Project’s standard version. For the purpose of this principle, a ‘Contributor’ is any individual or entity making contributions (e.g., code, documentation, core data modifications) directly to the designated codebase, official documentation, or core functional datasets of that specific COSS-branded Project.”
Rationale: Why Contributor Ethics are Essential
This principle underscores the importance of trust and integrity in the development of Contriboss (COSS) branded projects. While open collaboration is encouraged, it must be guided by a shared commitment to uphold the core values that the COSS Mark represents. Malicious or subversive contributions can undermine a project’s neutrality, functionality, and the trust placed in it by its users and the wider community.
Key reasons for this principle include:
- Maintaining Project Integrity and Neutrality: COSS projects aim to be reliable and neutral. This principle helps protect them from intentional actions that would compromise these qualities.
- Building and Preserving Trust: Users and other contributors must be able to trust that the project is being developed in good faith and that its core functionality or data isn’t being manipulated for ulterior motives.
- Preventing Harm: Prohibiting sabotage, DRM-like restrictions, or biased alterations helps prevent direct harm to users or the ecosystem.
- Ensuring Adherence to COSS Values: This principle reinforces that all participants in the development of a COSS-branded project share a responsibility to uphold the overarching COSS standards (Principles 1-4).
- Supporting Factual Basis (where applicable): For projects that deal with data or information intended to be factual (e.g., map data, scientific datasets), this principle guards against ideologically motivated distortions.
What This Principle Means in Practice for Contributors to COSS-Branded Projects
- No Intentional Subversion of COSS Principles: Contributions should not be designed to secretly or overtly undermine Universal Access (Principle 1), create vendor lock-in (Principle 2), violate dependency rules (Principle 3), or fragment a project’s modular scope inappropriately (Principle 4).
Prohibition of Malicious Code
- Sabotage: Intentionally introducing bugs, vulnerabilities, or code that degrades performance or functionality.
- DRM-like Restrictions: Adding code that imposes Digital Rights Management or similar access control mechanisms in the core, standard offering, contrary to the project’s open nature and Principle 1.
- Harmful Telemetry: Introducing covert telemetry designed for anti-competitive intelligence, user tracking without consent for unrelated purposes, or other activities that violate user trust or project neutrality.
No Ideologically Motivated Alterations that Undermine Neutrality/Factuality
- Data Integrity: For projects involving datasets (e.g., geographical maps, historical records, scientific data), contributors must not intentionally alter, add, or remove data for political or religious reasons in a way that compromises the expected neutrality or factual basis of the project’s standard offering. For example, unilaterally removing or adding disputed territories on a map for political reasons without following an established neutral project policy would be a violation.
- Functional Neutrality: Code should not be modified to introduce biases in its operation based on political or religious viewpoints if such biases compromise the project’s stated purpose or neutrality.
Scope of “Contributor”
This principle applies to any individual or entity making direct contributions to the project’s official codebase, documentation, or core functional datasets. This includes pull requests, direct commits (by maintainers), updates to official wiki pages, modifications to core datasets bundled with the project, etc.
Transparency and Discussion
If a proposed change might be controversial or touch upon sensitive areas related to this principle, contributors are encouraged to discuss it openly with the project maintainers and community, explaining the rationale and potential impacts.
Examples
- Violation (Sabotage): A contributor intentionally introduces a subtle bug that causes the software to crash when used with a competitor’s product.
- Violation (DRM): A contributor adds code to a COSS-branded media player that prevents users from playing legally acquired media files unless they connect to a specific online service for validation, without this being an explicit, optional, and clearly documented feature.
- Violation (Ideological Alteration of Data): In a COSS-branded educational project presenting historical facts, a contributor systematically removes references to certain historical events or figures based on personal political beliefs, thereby undermining the project’s intended factual neutrality.
- Compliant (Policy-Based Data Update): A COSS-branded mapping project has a clearly defined, neutral policy for representing disputed territories (e.g., using official UN designations or showing all claims). A contributor updates map data according to this existing, transparent policy.
- Not a Violation (External Opinion): A contributor expresses personal political or religious views on their personal blog or social media. This principle does not govern personal expression outside of direct contributions to the COSS-branded project itself.
Fostering a Trustworthy Development Environment
Principle 5 is vital for ensuring that COSS-branded projects are not only well-architected according to Principles 1-4 but are also developed and maintained in an environment of trust and good faith. It calls upon all contributors to act as responsible stewards of the project’s integrity and its commitment to the COSS values.