Open Source Solution Providers' Code of Ethics

Some dozen years ago I was a brash, but experienced technologist fresh with a traditional engineering education. Over those years, my professionalism matured. But one thing has never changed. It has been my Code of Ethics. Not rules. Not laws. Not anything I wished to enforce on anyone else, but the Code of Ethics that has driven my every consideration and, most importantly, the rock solid integrity I have. It is my name. It is what I share with select, other peers of the same value and integrity in approach, in drive, in truth.

In early February, I realized and documented my approach to clients in the The Open Source Solution Providers' Mission Statement. Now I wish to document The Open Source Solutions Providers' Code of Ethics. This is the Code of Ethics professionals apply to one another as much as their clients and customers, as it is directly reflected in their approach to life as much as profession.

Ethic One: Ethics Are Not Rules, They Are Obvious
- There are no rules, no violations, no reprimands, no politics

Rules are for politics. Rules are subjective and, when wielded from someone in a position of authority, they may be unobjective. Although due process does often solve some of this, many smaller groups also break down into singularities and cults of personality.

Without rules, there are no violations. Without violations there are no reprimands. This removes any formal enforcement, which is often driven by politics more than people, let alone ethics. Ethics are obvious. Ethics are not governed by politics. Rules can be used to excuse agendas. Ethics cannot. Rules can be used to violate ethics. Ethics are obvious. With no rules, this removes agendas and politics, and unethical behavior cannot be excused by them.

Ethics thus become about peer professionals pointing their peers to the obviousness of the truth, when they are overlooked. Peer professionals need not and should never expose statements or actions against ethics publicly, they can merely do so privately. Ethic One then become about the self-responsibility of one recognizing the care and consideration of fellow peer professionals to do this privately, one's responsibility to one's name and integrity, one's responsibility to put forth the Ethics in not merely statement but action forward, for one's own integrity.

Ethic Two: Know Oneself, Limitations and Harmony
- No professional is more dangerous to others, especially oneself, than one not self-aware

We are all inexperienced, unaware, ignorant and naive of many things. Our experiences drive our knowledge, approach, theory and practice. The second ethic is the responsibility to know when to admit fault, to admit ignorance, to admit naivety, to admit wrong.

Most of all, this responsibility is to oneself. No one likes to be told they are at fault, they are ignorant, they are inexperienced, they are naive. This begins with the ethic to oneself, to contribute experience, not marketing, not hearsay, not assumption. Because when someone is told they are wrong, it begins with oneself, not the messenger -- because it is up to them to accept their limits, for only then can they move beyond them. Otherwise they will run into their same, own, self-imposed limit and issue again and again.

There are no less than seventeen (17) dead astronaunts, and more scheduled, due to lack of self-awareness, self-admission, self-respect to know when it is time to admit, time to disclose, time to move on, for even just oneself, first and foremost. No one was unable to feed their family because they said "I do not know" to a question or "I am not an expert on this subject matter" to a prospective client.

Unfortunately, there have been many people put out of work, or put six feet under, because professionals did put forth, "I know" or "I am an expert on this subject matter" or, far worse, did not stop themselves when they thought they knew, but did not -- when they claimed first-hand, customer or client applied experiences, but they had not.

[2007-Aug-27] Clarification: There is a fine line between "marketing" and "misrepresentation." With peer professionals, marketing is often misrepresentation, let your experience under a specific context or subject matter do your marketing.

Ethic Three: Do Not Market, Respect the Context of Experience
- Share only what you know and only what you have experienced first-hand at customers and clients

Customers and clients have always been best served by those who have had first-hand experience at clients, and not those who wish to challenge themselves with something they have never done before or outside of a customer or client, but market themselves to the customer or client as otherwise.

Likewise, peer professionals have an ethical responsibility in shared knowledge to approach their peers with respect, courtesy and equality. Equality is about respect of first-hand, customer and client applied experience, mentoring and valuing differences in experience. The context of experience is key. The context of a customer or client application drives the solution. Solutions will there differ between different applications.

There is no one solution for all situations, so peer professionals of different experiences of different contexts will differ. The only unwelcome context of experience is that is not from first-hand experience at a customer or client, but projected to be otherwise. This is obvious to a peer professional with experience, while it takes far more time to earn the trust -- not mere respect -- of other peer professionals that one provides sound, repeatable solutions with experience.

Ethic Summation: Peer Trust is Years of Sound, Helpful Experience
- Credentials are nothing. Respect is not trust. Trust is absolute. Trust takes years.

While lack of experience is obvious, and because experience is varied and differing under different context, it takes years to gain the trust of peer professionals that you are experienced, and only in and under the context of that subject matter. And this trust is earned over years of repeat, sound, helpful experience to other peer professionals.

Credentials cannot be trusted. Many credentials easy to earn or, worse yet, do not reflect experience well. Credentials may be required to conduct or merely enter business with certain entities or gain approval by a department or organization, but peer professionals know they are nothing on their own.

Trust that a professional addresses Ethic Three, by not marketing, not soliciting, by only sharing their experience under a specific context, for the solutions they have delivered. Trust that what the peer professional shares is genuine, actual, implemented and completed, not merely devised, designed and never actually attempted.

Trust that a professional addresses Ethic Two, by knowing their limitations in the context of the experience they share, any limitations in experiences they have run into and possible stepped back and admitted their shortcomings, consulted other professionals, and learned from. Trust that the peer professional will separate experience that is applicable to the context and not to another.

Trust that a professional addresses Ethic One, providing peer professionals experience and considerations that is based on a strong attention to these Ethics. A peer professional you would conduct business with, be able to hold accountable, be able to rely on for deliverables, to entrust with your co-professional livelihood. A peer professional who will tell you when they are outside their first-hand, customer and client implemented experience, and not leave you alone with a customer, or privately consulting a lawyer in order to secure and leave you as the sole liability in a project.

Ethic Reality: Transgressions Against Others Begin By Excusing Ethics
- No one can read the minds of others, much less know where everyone else comes from

Nearly all alleged transgressions begin as misunderstandings or annoyances. Transgressions and counter-transgressions become true transgressions when they cross Ethics. There is no excuse to ever cross Ethics, ever, and only undoes the values of and against oneself.

No one can read the minds of others. No one can understand where everyone else comes from. Everyone has quirks. Everyone has been taught differing values. Everyone has opinions on what matters and what does not. Transgressions begin with these and other differences, from misunderstandings to annoyances.

In group organizations and assemblies, even as a common group, the audience varies at the individual. One person's direct answer is not enough information for another. One person's verbosity and completeness is another's talking down to their experience. Equality is key, equality in peer consideration, equality in peer tolerance. Petty are those who do not find tolerances in the variety of audience as individuals.

The ultimate transgression is of oneself, envy. Envy goes against every Ethic above -- Knowing oneself and harmony, sharing experiences not marketing and recognizing the context of varying, differing experiences, and the summation of the trust that should be earned between peer professionals for their experiences of varying application and context. Envy leads to marketing, statements of falsehood, the general lie that you can state more than you are, which is tiny compared to the collective knowledge around you.

If we are all peer professionals with our varying experiences, we will never cross each others' experiences, but complement them. We will never be at odds in learning, but only augmenting our knowledge with each others' experiences -- including tapping one another for projects and contracts, so one can gain first-hand, customer and client experience from another. And most of all, we will be putting forth the ethic that serves ourselves, individually, as a support group of peer professionals of equality, of peer professional Ethic.

Transgressions against others begin by excusing statements or actions going against these Ethics, which are against ourself and merely spread to others -- undoing their summation and value, undoing the reality of that value.