# OpenSUTD Culture Document
## What is OpenSUTD?
In a sentence: OpenSUTD is a collective of SUTD students dedicated to fostering the collaborative, transparent, community-driven culture inherent to Open Source projects.

OpenSUTD aims to cultivate efforts that rely on, or promote the type of communication present in many open source projects.

As an organisation, it is a collection of individuals who see value in these beliefs (collaboration, transparency, inclusiveness, community) and wish to see it in the common culture of the school.
For projects which wish to adopt this culture, OpenSUTD aims to provide advice regarding management of these projects.
For projects that promote this culture, OpenSUTD functions both as a repository of experience and a platform to showcase the benefits of this culture. There are repositories containing personal projects that others may reuse, data on the school (e.g. mappings of room names to X.XXX codes), policies for the management of spaces.

## Who is in OpenSUTD?
ENthusiastic students that take personal initiative to make things happen. As an open organisation, anyone who wishes to contribute may do so. We only emphasise on having the initiative to make things happen and have the courage to reach out and share.

**What you can do**
1. Use what we have
1. Contribute a repository
1. Work on our documents
1. Organise an event
1. Advocate for a cause

## Our Values
### Collaboration

`One who travels fastest, travels alone. One who travels farthest, travels together`

It is rare for someone to create something significant by themselves. To create create meaningful impact, one often needs to work in teams. OpenSUTD wishes to continue this culture of working together to achieve long-term goals. Individuals who host projects or tutorials on OpenSUTD enable others to skip the tedious work and begin work more quickly.

Specifically, in the SUTD context, it is to provide a mechanism for greater sustainability in projects beyond just a single group or year. To ensure continuity across the years and beyond generation, one must lower the barriers to collaboration and OpenSUTD provides that first step through a common, managed platform.

**Anyone can make an issue**
All you need is a Github account. If there are any suggestions, make an [issue](https://help.github.com/en/articles/creating-an-issue).

**But we don't owe you our time**
Having an idea does not warrant immediate collaboration from members of the organisation. You will need to put in your own time to convince the community to collaborate with you too.

### Transparency
`Truth never damages a cause that is just.`

Transparency ensures that all individuals involved in any process are on the same page. This ensures that expectations are met and that people are satisfied by the results of their actions. Witholding or obscuring information only creates mistrust. Mistrust leads to miscommunication or dissatisfaction. Hosting policies publicly on OpenSUTD, where issues can be raised, or amendments can be traced, ensures that this does not happen. Transparency in information/data lowers barriers to innovation.

We acknowledge that this is an aspirational goal.

**Anyone can make a [Pull Request](https://help.github.com/en/articles/about-pull-requests)**
All changes are kept open as people who propose them through [creating pull requests](https://help.github.com/en/articles/creating-a-pull-request).
When pull requests are approved, the people who approve it will explain and deliberate them before approving. This is to ensure *transparent decision-making*.

**Openly viewable documents**
Key documents that govern how we work must always be kept open, even if they are a work in progress.

**Accountability**
If you say you will do it, make it happen. We expect individuals to take charge of their own time and commitment. Transparency is the foundation for accountability. We are obliged to share what we do and how we do it to the community to ensure that we are truly doing things for our best interests.

### Inclusiveness
`Diversity, or the state of being different, isn't the same as inclusion. One is a description of what is, while the other describes a style of interaction essential to effective teams and organizations.
`

Inclusiveness is embedded in how we work. Any idea can and will be considered fairly. This is because we believe that each of us bring a unique perspective that can improve the effectiveness of our initiatives. This implies a level of maturity in our communication style, to be able to listen with empathy and ask honest questions.

**Technical challenges should not be a barrier to entry**
We commit to do our best to eliminate technical jargon from our conversations. Or, if not possible, we will provide references to explain.

**Respect**
No matter how heated a discussion. Always respect people participating in the conversation. We also respect and recognise the work done by individuals when contributing to our initiatives.

**Positive recognition of differences**
We come from very different backgrounds and have different perspectives. There will be difference in how we prioritise, how we work, literally everything may be up for debate and discussion. However, we recognise that these differences enhance the conversation and encourage expressing them.

### Community
`Democracy is not a spectator sport.`

Creating something assumes the existence of a consumer for the created thing. When a community participates in the planning of solutions that they will use, more often than not, the solution is one which benefits them more than a solution created without partipation from the community. OpenSUTD aims to create a culture of consultation with communities to understand possible effects and alternatives.

**We do not claim aspects of the community for ourselves**
Platforms, tools, and resources created are credited to its respective creators but they do not claim control over them. We create community artefacts and do not seek to profit from them.

**Identity**
We recognise that SUTD's identity is still being formed.

**Building**
[Community Canvas](https://community-canvas.org/)

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# Upcoming initiatives
## Process
1. Call for proposals
2. Invitation for comments
3. Project experimentation

## Initiatives
1. Onboarding - how do we bring our first batch of contributors on board and imbue the right sort of behaviour a project maintainer needs to have?
1. Proposal process - let's use Github issues
2. Framework for choosing projects. We need to be clear what are our goals when choosing projects. Probably, on community impact.
3. Keeping keep things open to lower barriers to entry for people to contribute. Not all tasks are technical in nature, there is also documentation, user feedback, tasks that are part of any project management cycle.