# Code of Conduct
Dear OpenBIOS project members and other interested parties,

For the ease of development and for information on what can be expected
from this project we want to set down the following ground rules in
order to achieve a high quality implementation of our project
objectives.

1. The objective of this project is to develop a free, open source,
architecture independant firmware implementation following, if possible,
the IEEE Standard for Boot (Initialization Configuration) Firmware (IEEE
1275-1994). Including not only the implementation of the standard itself
but also the required toolkit consisting of a C to FCode compiler, an
FCode tokenizer and an FCode detokenizer. This toolkit will simplify
driver and API development implementing ANSI C as the development
language instead of implementing Forth/FCode directly as suggested by
the IEEE standard.

2. We cannot allow _any_ discussion or use of _any_ copyrighted,
patented, or otherwise protected Firmware or BIOS implementations
without an OSI approved license in this project or on the mailing list
associated with this project. All members of this project and/or the
according mailing lists agree to not disclose or use any copyrighted,
patented, or otherwise protected information, ideas or concepts.

3. We do not intend to implement any of the ideas or concepts expressed
in the current Intel 32bit architechture, except when these are
necessary to insure the compatability with existing hardware. Such ideas
and concepts will only be used if such use is not restricted by _any_
laws, copyrights or patents.

4. In order to assure truly universal implementation and/or optimize
the functionality and performance it is our expressed wish to work in
conjunction with other open source (firmware) projects, such as coreboot
or U-Boot.

5. Cooperation with hardware vendors is necessary to implement this
project on an architecture-independent basis. In certain cases this may
include signing non-disclosure agreements with the aforementioned
hardware vendors in an attempt to acquire hardware specific information
or support that may not otherwise be available although the results of
such cooperation must be freely redistributable.

6. Cooperation with any university, research project, or organization
is desired except in such cases where the resulting information is
restricted in use or redistributability.

If, for whatever reasons, any of the above statements are unacceptable
or seem to be incorrect or unclear in _any_ way please do not hesitate
to discuss this matter on the mailing list, we are open for suggestions.
This is simply an attempt to assure the legal status of this project,
protecting those involved from legal prosecution as well as to state the
general objectives of the project.

OpenBIOS development team.
