What We Do

The Ethical Stack

The fundamental premise of our work is that promoting just and equitable outcomes in tech starts "at home", inside our open source communities, and radiates outward: to collaborators, adopters, users, all the way down to the people who are directly or indirectly impacted by the technologies we bring into the world.

This is the philosophy behind the Ethical Stack.

The Ethical Stack is a layered approach to centering ethics in open source. By combining layers, open source communities can adopt the tools that best suit their needs and reflect their shared values-- tools that meet them where they are.

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