Values

Community driven development and community ownership

Direct, frequent, and ongoing participation of the community in setting priorities and development schedules; in making design, implementation, and other development decisions; in deciding on project processes; in deciding on project organization and management.

Openness of project processes, management, code and information

Insofar as possible, documentation of processes, code and management; organization of project information into useful forms and metrics; easy-to-find access to project information by the broad community; access to development repositories; clear processes for participating in development and making code contributions; broad announcement of and open access to reviews and other development events.

Correctness

Commitment to fix, report, and appropriately document any problems found in software, documents or processes as they are encountered; accountability for problems found; commitment to making code, communications and documents clear, complete and accurate.

Commitment to a globally distributed and diverse development and customer base

Establishment of processes and mechanisms that enable distributed day-to-day development, minimize the need for either time or space locality of developers and customers, minimize the need for any special environments or tools in order to fully participate in the project, and scale to a large number of participants.

Simplicity

As few documents and tools as possible; straightforward processes; preference for universal tools such as email, telephone, and web browser.

Efficiency

As little redundant recording of information as possible; preference for automation over manual processes.

Public storage of project records and other information

As much project information as possible is generated and archived in the public domain; as little project information as possible is understood, archived and accessed by a single members of the project or by single institutions in the project.

Engagement

Use of every opportunity to inform users and collaborators how they can further participate in the project; commitment to keeping communication barriers low by conveying information in the most convenient, concise, immediately visible, and easiest-to-respond-to way.