Code of Conduct

Ground rules

This Code of Conduct covers your behaviour as a member of the COSP, in any forum, web site, IRC channel, public meeting or private correspondence. The COSP HQ Team will arbitrate in any dispute over the conduct of a member of the community.

• Be considerate. Your work will be used by other people, and you in turn will depend on the work of others. Any decision you take will affect users and colleagues, and we expect you to take those consequences into account when making decisions.
• Be respectful. The COSP community and its members treat one another with respect. Everyone can make a valuable contribution to COSP. We may not always agree, but disagreement is no excuse for poor behaviour and poor manners. We might all experience some frustration now and then, but we cannot allow that frustration to turn into a personal attack. It's important to remember that a community where people feel uncomfortable or threatened is not a productive one. We expect members of the COSP to be respectful when dealing with other contributors as well as with people outside the COSP Teams.
• Be collaborative. COSP and FOSS are about collaboration and working together. Collaboration reduces redundancy of work done in the FOSS world, and improves the quality of the software produced. You should aim to collaborate with other COSP members. Your work should be done transparently.
• When you disagree, consult others. Disagreements, both political and technical, happen all the time and the COSP Teams are no exception. The important goal is not to avoid disagreements or differing views but to resolve them constructively. You should turn to the community and to the community process to seek advice and to resolve disagreements. We have the COSP HQ Team,which will help to decide the right course for COSP Teams. There are also several Team Leaders, who may be able to help you figure out which direction will be most acceptable.
• When you are unsure, ask for help. Nobody knows everything, and nobody is expected to be perfect in the community. Asking questions avoids many problems down the road, and so questions are encouraged. Those who are asked should be responsive and helpful. However, when asking a question, care must be taken to do so in an appropriate forum. Off-topic questions, such as requests for help on a development mailing list, detract from productive discussion.
• Step down considerately. People on every project come and go and COSP is no different. When you leave or disengage from the COSP, in whole or in part, we ask that you do so in a way that minimises disruption to the COSP. This means you should tell people you are leaving and take the proper steps to ensure that others can pick up where you leave off.

The COSP code of conduct is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 license and derived form the Ubuntu Code of Conduct Located here. You may re-use it for your own project, and modify it as you wish, just please allow others to use your modifications and give credit to the Ubuntu Project!

Web forums

Web forums are an important part of the community platform. This code of conduct applies very much to your behaviour in those forums too. Please follow these guidelines in addition to the general code of conduct:

• Please use a valid email address to which direct responses can be made.
• Please avoid flamewars, trolling, personal attacks, and repetitive arguments. On technical and other matters such as of community governance, the COSP HQ can make a final decision.

Team leaders

In addition to this Code of Conduct, we hold our community leaders (such as IRC operators, Forums staff and team leaders) to an even higher standard which is documented in the Leadership Code of Conduct.