We are revolted by the injustices, indignities and indecencies of the current world, shaped by surveillance capitalism. We wish to contribute to the emancipation of people through our field of action and expertise: the digital and cultural commons. We believe that autonomous, proud, knowledgeable, supportive and sharing humans can make the world a better place for everyone.

In a culture where digital technology is omnipresent, we want to offer user-friendly and emancipating tools that empower people by respecting their integrity and dignity. However, we accept our limitations when we try to realise these ideals: we do our best, and that’s not bad!

Our way of expression is to do. We feel useful in action and believe that our ways of acting reveal our values. We see Framasoft as a prefiguration association: we present our achievements as prototypes that anyone can appropriate to reproduce them on another scale, or adapt them to other constraints.

Having more doubts than certainties, we see what we do as experiments. So we accept failure: to err is human, and so are we! We even find joy in failures, because they can teach us more than a success. But for us, knowledge is more important than efficiency.

We make sure to share recipes, products and lessons learned freely. We elevate our achievements in the Commons. We want everyone to be able to take it and adapt it to their own situation, but also to avoid being in a position of power because of a monopoly on one resource or another.

Neither we nor the association are eternal… and we accept this. We act for the compostability of Framasoft, that is to say that we take care to leave fertile traces, to create useful ruins so that those who will come after us can build with what will remain of our actions.

This statement has its own limitations. We have realised that we cannot take care of a Common, or of others, if we do not take care of ourselves, any more than we can share a flame if we let our own campfire go out.

We believe that everyone (including us!) is on a journey. We therefore seek to deconstruct the purist reflexes that would make us pass moral judgement on the practices and paths of others, whether to legitimise or condemn them. We also take great care not to value our own modes of action to the detriment of those adopted by groups with whom we share values and ideals.

We know that we are only one piece of the puzzle. What we do is bound to be piecemeal and insufficient. This is why we try to maintain solidarity with other collectives, acting in other fields, with their own methods. In our opinion, the diversity of the modes of action is essential to their impact.

We don’t want to look any higher than our foundations. We don’t hesitate to use jokes to relieve the pressure, even if it means offending the serious. If humour is at the heart of our practices, it does not detract from the substance of our actions.