Being open about our work is vital if our ideas are to take hold for others to replicate them and benefit society. If we can shorten the time it takes a good idea to spread, by living out loud, then the results will speak for themselves.

That is why we insist on open communications, open licenses, open source and open reporting.

Open Source

We  subscribe to and promotes the ethos and philosophy embodied in free and open source software – collaboration and the freedom to use, adapt and share resources.

The Foundation does not directly fund the development of free and open source software, nor does it fund initiatives with the development or advocacy of free and open source software as the primary objective. We rather apply the free and open source philosophy as the underlying principle to our work, collaborating with partners to drive change and using open licences to allow learnings and resources to be used, adapted and shared widely. We also give preference to the use of free and open source software in our own initiatives and encourage the same in our partners.

Open Communications

It is important, as the organisation is geographically dispersed, to have open communication channels. Whilst we do not wish to have a lengthy and time consuming reporting ordeal, we do need to be able to access information and people need to be generally accountable for contractual agreements, both internally and the broader external audience.
To ensure that the lines of communication are as good as possible, we expect:

• Regular blogging and vlogging
• Sharing knowledge freely with partners and stakeholders in open formats

Open reporting

Even though, as a private foundation, we are not legally bound to disclose our accounting information, successes and failures; since 2004, we have been demonstrating our commitment to speak openly about what we have done, our contribution to change, and exactly how much that costs.

To see any of our accounts, please visit the Financials pages.

Open licensing

We believe that open licensing can provide powerful fuel for innovation. We’ve seen this at a large scale in the technology world with open source. We believe that open licensing also has the potential to spark and accelerate social innovation.

Our Statement of Principle outlines our policy on open licensing for materials created or funded by the Shuttleworth Foundation.

Open Resources Statement of Principle

The Foundation is committed to opening intellectual resources created or co-created by the Foundation, in Foundation projects or with Foundation funds (Foundation resources).

Intellectual resources include software, project reports, manuals, research results and the like which are ready to be communicated to the public. Foundation resources shall be open resources as far as reasonably possible. Resources are open resources when they are available for revision, translation, improvement and sharing under open licences, open standards and in open formats, free of technical protection measures.

All agreements entered into by the Foundation which include the creation of resources shall ensure that the resources are open resources, and shall record how the Intellectual Property in the resources is owned and licensed.

The Foundation recognises that there are a number of legitimate reasons when resources may not be made open. When documents are not made open then they may, when suitable, be made available on an open access basis, which permits copying but does not allow any changes. Considerations of privacy, confidentiality, security and utility may preclude making certain documents or information available outside the Foundation.

Open licences

Software created by the Foundation, in Foundation projects or with Foundation funds is released under the GNU General Public Licence, or other suitable Free Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) licence.

Copyright works, other than software, are released under appropriate open licences; Creative Commons Attribution licence (CC_BY) or the GNU Free Documentation licence (GNU FDL), or into the Public Domain.

Trademarks, Universal Resource Locators and artistic or other works which are the logos or form part of the brands of the Foundation or Foundation projects are not placed under open licences, and may be used only as explicitly permitted by the Foundation.

If there is sufficient justification an ‘alternative licence’ other than Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike or the GNU FDL may be used, for example to allow the better integration of a resource into a larger resource pool.

The Foundation prefers Creative Commons licences which do not circumscribe moral rights such as the Creative Commons South Africa 2.5 and Creative Commons Generic (Unported) 3.0 licence, or subsequent versions of those licences.

Exceptions

Whilst we start from a principle of open, the Foundation recognises that at times there are specific compelling reasons for explicit exemptions to these principles in respect of particular resources. The decision to exempt a resource from any open practice and the justification for the exception will be recorded and reported.