matrix-spec/specification/proposal_etiquette.rst

.. title:: Proposal Etiquette

Proposal Etiquette
------------------

Proposals **must** act to the greater benefit of the entire Matrix ecosystem,
rather than benefiting or privileging any single player or subset of players
- and must not contain any patent encumbered IP.  The Matrix core team pledges
to act as a neutral custodian for Matrix on behalf of the whole ecosystem,
just as it has since Matrix's inception in May 2014.

For clarity: the Matrix ecosystem is anyone who uses the Matrix protocol. That
includes client users, server admins, client developers, bot developers,
bridge and AS developers, users and admins who are indirectly using Matrix via
3rd party networks which happen to be bridged, server developers, room
moderators and admins, companies/projects building products or services on
Matrix, spec contributors, translators, and the core team who created it in
the first place.

"Greater benefit" could include maximising:

* the number of end-users reachable on the open Matrix network
* the number of regular users on the Matrix network (e.g. 30-day retained
  federated users)
* the number of online servers in the open federation
* the number of developers building on Matrix
* the number of independent implementations which use Matrix
* the quality and utility of the Matrix spec

The guiding principles of the overall project are being worked on as part of
the upcoming governance proposal, but could be something like:

* Supporting the whole long-term ecosystem rather than individual stakeholder gain
* Openness rather than proprietariness
* Collaboration rather than competition
* Accessibility rather than elitism
* Transparency rather than stealth
* Empathy rather than contrariness
* Pragmatism rather than perfection
* Proof rather than conjecture

Return to the `proposals page <proposals.html>`_.