Buoy is built by amazing people and powered by strong core values.

The reason why Buoy exists is that everyone involved in this project wants to help make the world a better place. We want to build community capacity for mutual aid, so that nobody is ever in a situation where they need help and feel like they have nowhere to turn except to people they don’t trust.

Like our software, our philosophy is a work in progress, and we are still learning to apply it ourselves. Still, by working on these core principles, we want to contribute to making the world a better place, and we want Buoy to be part of this future.

Empowerment

We think that technology should be accessible to all people. Technology can make people’s lives better when it is designed with their needs in mind, when they’re able to participate in the process of solving the problems they’re facing, and when it helps augment tools and strategies they are already using. This is why it matters to us to make software accessible and comprehensible for a wide range of people and so enable them to solve their problems and realize their own ideas. We want to build technology that serves people and empowers them.

Diversity

We believe that the future should be built by everyone, and that anything which is built on and for the web should involve and include a diverse group of people. We’re convinced that this is the only way to do it, because diversity matters. Software development is an act of representation. We urgently need a wide range of ideas, customs, and wisdom to solve problems and build future technologies. We think that not only programmers should be involved in software development — we also need the skills of people like designers, writers, people with skills in organizing, activists, shelter advocates, and many more. We also think that building the web is still mainly a question of privilege these days, and that the “meritocratic” structures of Open Source are highly problematic, and we’re trying all we can to find ways to do better.

Independence

At the moment, social technology infrastructure is dominated by large companies. Although Free Software still has its stand there, we want to work on establishing a culture and structure of independent technology. We need technology that makes people independent in its best sense: technology that gives people and communities the tools they need to be independent from outside companies, from centralized infrastructure, even from fast and stable Internet connections, so they can do whatever they want to, wherever they want.

Decentralization

Centralization has been pushed forward extremely in the past decades, and we have to stop it. The technology we have today is still far too complicated for many people, and it’s still very far from being accessible. We need to make it easy, convincing and enjoyable for users to manage their own social technologies, to fully control and customize them to the unique needs of their communities. This means that decentralization needs to be a fundamental part of the technology and platforms we build, so it can be chosen by people because it offers clear benefits for those who use it.

Freedom

Buoy believes in and is built for freedom. It is and will remain Free, Libre and Open Source Software. Anyone of you and anyone else who wants can use it, study it, adjust it, extend it to your needs, and freely redistribute to anyone you wish.