Wolf Pack Philosophy

The philosophy of the Funtoo community can best be described using the analogy of a wolf pack.

As a wolf, a member of the Funtoo user community is:

Authentic

Since Funtoo is a source-based meta-distribution and packages are built with Portage, we exist in the living wilderness, among raw creative energy of the wild free software ecosystem. Like a wolf, our connection to the vibrant and sustaining open source wilderness is tangible and real. We avoid the over-developed, sanitized, isolated and boring pre-packaged world where disconnected users simply ‘consume’ what was pre-made for them, preferring the more authentic and connected life where we are in control of our destiny.

Mindful of the Pack

The pack are our fellow users. We support one another and look out for each other by roaming together. As we find challenges, we tackle them as a community. We understand that helping the pack helps us all. We are always actively trying to find common paths that we share, and cultivate these paths together. This is why at every attempt we will use community profile settings and keep our /etc/make.conf free of local customizations. By roaming together, we make the experience better for all.

Selective

Sometimes another Open Source project will drop some turd in our wilderness, and it might be so big that it’s really hard not to step in. When this happens, we will be very careful not to step in it, and we will certainly not eat this poop and make it part of Funtoo! The most obvious example is systemd. We won’t even eat a dead carcass just because some upstream project threw some rotted meat in our path. It may sustain us for a while, but it’s not optimal. Let’s find the optimal solution. We would rather hunt...

Hungry

We are truly satiated only by those solutions that truly reflect our deeply-held values -- we want good technology, and if we can’t find any, we will hunt for it ourselves.. Our hunger is tangible and deep. We’ll automate everything, so we can spend more time in the hunt, developing innovative technology. We hunt to live, and live to hunt. We’ll put in the work to get the good stuff, even if it gets messy and requires investing our time and raw creative energy. If we don’t have time to hunt, we will find a way to make time. Wolves that don’t hunt are domesticated pets.

Territorial

We welcome all, but we are keenly aware of the scope of the territory we patrol. We take ownership of our territory, but we don’t bite off more than we can chew. We know what parts of the Libre forest are fully in our grasp, and what parts we do not have the wolf-power to properly manage. We will claim new territory only as our pack grows, all the while ensuring that the territory we currently hold is kept secure. Continuous improvement -- building our territory thoughtfully without losing ground -- is what we’re all about.

We Howl

We encourage each wolf in our pack to howl and express their personal desires and needs, especially on our bug tracker. Your experience is what we care about, not what some bunny did in some random hole last Thursday. It’s all about sharing your own journey with the pack, so that we can learn from and support each other better.

So remember -- as part of the Funtoo, exhibit these qualities to maximize your experience, and the experience of the pack!

   Note

If you read this far, please notice that the wolf illustration has five legs. Behold, the mighty five-legged wolf!