The FOSSIA Codebook

A note from the organizers

We welcome you to join our events organized by FOSSIA community, Telegram groups, collaborate on GitHub, follow up on social media or e-mail with an intention to learn, connect and explore the free software ecosystem in a respectful and kind manner.

Our objective is to create a supportive environment for people from underrepresented backgrounds (which includes women, people with disabilities (PwDs), racial, ethnic, religious, gender minorities and economically weaker section (EWS)) to get involved in the free software ecosystem. As a women-centric community, we welcome everyone (including men and allies) who supports our values towards inclusion and development of the free software ecosystem. To adhere to our goals of ensuring inclusion and equity, some events and spaces will be reserved exclusively for women and people from underrepresented backgrounds.

To maintain the spirits of the community and inclusive environment, we expect everyone, be it attendees, speakers, sponsors, project contributors, maintainers, members, and volunteers, to adhere to the Code of Conduct.

We expect cooperation from everyone to ensure that our community remains a safe and welcoming place for everyone.

Our Code

FOSSIA is committed to providing a safe, inclusive, and harassment-free environment. We do not tolerate:

  • Harassment of participants, volunteers, mentors, maintainers, contributors, speakers, sponsors, members, or anyone associated with the community.
  • Sexual language or imagery in events, online spaces, or public collaboration groups.
  • Irrelevant or misleading political discussions, considering we want to keep this space relevant to technology and free software ecosystem.

Our community events, public communication and collaboration channels prohibits discrimination and offensive communication, be it verbal or non-verbal based on, but not limited to the following factors:

  • Gender
  • Age
  • Sexual orientation
  • Disability
  • Physical appearance
  • Race or ethnicity
  • Religion or lack thereof
  • Demographics
  • Technological choices
  • Political alignment

Participants violating these rules may be sanctioned or expelled at the discretion of the community.

If you are harassed or feel uncomfortable at any of our events, social, communication and collaboration channels, please report it to the community as specified in the Code of Conduct.

A longer version

Harassment includes but is not limited to offensive verbal or non-verbal comments related to gender, gender identity and expression, age, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, religion, technology choices, sexual images in public spaces, deliberate intimidation, stalking, following, harassing photography or recording, sustained disruption of the event, inappropriate physical contact, unwelcome sexual attention and stereotyping in our event spaces, public communication, collaboration and social forums.

Participants asked to stop any such behaviour are expected to comply immediately. If a participant engages in harassing behaviour despite being asked to stop such behaviour, the FOSSIA team will take an appropriate action, including warning the offender or expulsion from the event or online communication and collaboration spaces to ensure the safety of participants.

The code of conduct and anti-harassment policies apply to everyone participating in the event including attendees, maintainers, contributors, sponsors, speakers, judges, mentors, volunteers, organisers, and FOSSIA members.

Regardless of the event being a virtual or online-only event, we expect participants to adhere to these rules at all avenues, online and offline alike.

Similarly, we expect participants to adhere to the code of conduct in our online collaboration, social and communication forums.

For events that are only for people from underrepresented backgrounds, we limit participation from the same to ensure equity and inclusion. If an attendee has registered for an event but does not belong to an underrepresented background, they will not be permitted to attend the event and are expected to comply with the same.

Reporting Code of Conduct Violations

If you are being harassed, notice that someone else is being harassed, or come across a violation of the code of conduct, please contact a volunteer/organiser immediately. Participants can e-mail coc-fossia@riseup.net for any reports or queries. All reporters will remain anonymous.

Special Incidents

If you are uncomfortable reporting your situation to the volunteers or need to contact a full-time member of the organization in case of an emergency, please reach out to the following contacts:

Credits

Portions of this Code of Conduct are based on the FOSS United's code of conduct, example code of conduct from the MLH policies, created by Major League Hacking, under a Creative Commons attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International Public License