What We Do

The Ethical Stack

The fundamental premise of our work is that working for justice and equity in tech starts "at home," within creator communities, and radiates outward from there: to collaborators, adopters, users, all the way down to the people who are most affected by these technologies.

This is the philosophy behind the Ethical Stack, a comprehensive, layered approach to centering ethics in open technologies. By adopting and adapting layers, such as codes of conduct, transparent governance, social contracts, and ethical licenses, open source communities can center and support their shared values in all the work they do.

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  Contributor Covenant

  The first and most popular code of conduct for open source communities, created to address barriers to participation in open source by women, BIPOC, and LGBTQ contributors.

  Visit the Contributor Covenant website
• 

  Hippocratic License 3.0

  The leading ethical source license, HL3 features a modular structure that lets open source communities customize the license to reflect their particular values and challenges.

  Visit the Hippocratic License website
• 

  Ethical Licensure Incubator

  OES is uniquely positioned to foster innovation by supporting the development of new ethical source licenses.

  Learn more

How We Work

We are proud of our innovative way of working:

• Our projects are carried out through special-purpose working groups.
• Members can propose, lead, and participate in working groups according to their interest or expertise.
• Working groups are volunteer-led, with support from one or more Board sponsors.
• Working groups can request funds for expert consultations.
• We work ethically, collaboratively, iteratively, and openly.

We strive to center the Ethical Source Principles in all of the work we do.