Organisation Structure

UniFOSS has a highly decentralised structure. Our main goal as an organisation is to improve and consolidate individuals passionate about FOSS throughout the country. Thus, our organisation aims to intervene as little as possible in the activities of an individual or Units.

Individuals

UniFOSS obviously is comprised of individuals – who may or may not be a part of any Unit or SIG (see below). An individual can always choose to join a Unit or SIG which interests them, or form a group to start their own Unit.

Unit

What is a Unit?

A Unit can be any FOSS community, or a group of individuals with a specific goal or cause. It can either be a FOSS project, or an existing college club.

What is the scope of a Unit?

A Unit is in no way subordinate to UniFOSS. They are completely autonomous and can be organised in any way they prefer, they can have their own logos, branding, etc. Do what's best for your Unit. The only requirement for a Unit is they need to adopt a clear Code of Conduct¹ that is reliably enforced.

UniFOSS will disaffiliate with any Unit that fails to keep a high standard of behaviour. Harrassment of any kind is not tolerated.

What would a Unit look like?

There are no expectations here for what a Unit could look like as long as it's related to FOSS in some form. Go nuts, get as creative as you'd like:

• An existing college club
• A Unit of people interested in open hardware
• A Unit of people working on a FOSS project of their own
  • Could even be a group of people maintaining an open source cookbook!
• A Unit of people interested in the Open Source aspect of art and design

If you are starting your own Unit, and need some pointers for how they can be organised, have a look at our guide.

How would a Unit be formed?

As mentioned, the only requirement of a Unit is that they need to adopt a clear Code of Conduct¹ that is reliably enforced. If you're all set to create your Unit, please refer to our guide to see how you can create your Unit.

Special Interest Group

What is a SIG?

A Special Interest Group, or a SIG, is a group that is created around goals that UniFOSS wants to achieve as an organization and exists solely for the purposes of giving UniFOSS a minimal governance structure. In other words, SIGs operate at an organizational level. Their primary is to ensure that UniFOSS as a movement is doing well.

What is the scope of a SIG?

A SIG, in most cases will not interfere with the functioning and running of a Unit, if a SIG were to interfere with the functioning of a Unit, it would solely be in cases that threaten to violate standards that UniFOSS sets as an organization: examples being failure of a Unit to enforce their Code of Conduct or the deviation of a Unit's goals to something that does not align with the values of UniFOSS.

It's highly important that the goals of a SIG are well defined so as to prevent overlapping responsibilites between SIGs as much as possible.

What would a SIG look like?

A few great examples of SIGs would be:

• Contributor Experience (ContribEx): ContribEx is responsible for improving the overall contributing experience of existing members of UniFOSS, as well as people getting started with not just UniFOSS, but FOSS in general. If, for example, a Unit needs help with forming/enforcing a Code of Conduct or would need help with improving one of their projects in terms of making contributing easier (provided said Unit owns projects), ContribEx would be the SIG that would provide these Units with the nescessary tools and assistance with doing so.

• Logistics: Logistics could handle the organizational aspect of events, if a Unit wants to conduct an event, Logistics is the group that would help them out and provide necessary assistance.

How would a SIG be formed?

A SIG can broadly be formed under the following two scenarios:

1. If there is a clear need for help in the community for a specific area, across multiple Units, a SIG would be created for that area.
2. If a Unit either grows in strength or scope such that the 'assets' (knowledge, ability to assist with issues of a specific nature, etc) of such a Unit can be beneficial to UniFOSS as a community and not just the members of that Unit, then such a Unit would be asked if they would like to be 'graduated' to a SIG to help better serve the needs of the community, if the Unit is not comfortable doing so, that is completely okay as well.