It’s all about politics.

Free, Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) is part of “the commons”, a shared stewardship of resources that are owned collectively by people. When you release a piece of software under a FLOSS license you are making a statement about what you want the future of that software to be. You are saying: here, have this, we hope this will be useful to you too. This software is then a shared resource, and if it’s useful enough to enough people, a community will form around it to take care of it. Like a garden in a common area, or a well that an entire village drinks from. It stays healthy and useful if enough people care for it. If someone takes too much without giving back, the shared resource is exahusted and everybody losses out, this is known as the Tragedy of the Commons.

We are a non-profit because we are part of an ecosystem that can only survive if you give back. As a non-profit we can make sure that everybody gets paid a fair and competitive wage, while any profit can be invested back in the community that produces all the amazing software we use every day.

We also think that UX and so-called “user oriented” design has been polluted by a startup mentality that even some FLOSS projects have adopted uncritically. With how we name things, our approach and our non-profit character we want to give shape to another kind of UX design, one that is humble and has a public duty in heart and mind.