The Code of Sovereignty

Every repository I maintain carries a file called CODE_OF_SOVEREIGNTY.org where other projects carry a Code of Conduct. It is not a compromise with one. It is a philosophically distinct instrument, and it is the founding document of this room.

The premise is the one free software was born from: the user and the developer are sovereign over the machines they operate and the code they write. That sovereignty is not granted by institutions — it is inherent. The same principle that protects the four freedoms also protects the freedom of conscience of every contributor and maintainer. No governance document may legitimately require ideological conformity as a condition of participation, any more than a license may restrict the field of endeavour in which software is used.

From that premise, eight articles:

1. Merit as the sole criterion. Contributions are evaluated on technical merit alone. Code has no identity. Patches have no politics.
2. Freedom of conscience. No participant is required to affirm any belief system as a condition of participation, and compelled speech in any form is off the table.
3. Right of association and refusal. The maintainer defines the project’s scope and boundaries; no external body imposes governance without consent. The right to fork is sacred and honoured without reservation.
4. Rejection of ideological capture. A boundary is defended: between a technical project and a political project. This is the former.
5. Conduct within the project. Everything stays relevant to the technical mission. Personal attacks and harassment are out — not because an external document mandates it, but because they are incompatible with productive collaboration and basic decency.
6. The maintainer’s vocation. Free software is a gift economy. I give freely of my labour; in return I owe nothing — not responsiveness, not accommodation, not ideological compliance. Burnout in the service of others’ demands is not virtue.
7. Licensing prevails. No governance document, including this one, may restrict the freedoms a free software license grants. Downstream forks govern however they choose — by design.
8. Amendments are the maintainer’s alone, version-controlled and documented in commit history.

The lineage is stated in the document itself: the GNU Manifesto and the Free Software Definition, Roberto Rosario’s Code of Merit, the principle that software freedom includes freedom of conscience, and the hacker tradition of meritocracy, sovereignty, and refusal.

The full document is offered under CC-BY-SA 4.0 — adopt it, adapt it, fork it for your own projects. Read the canonical source: GitHub · GitLab.

The right to refuse is the right that makes all other rights possible.