Open Infrastructure

h1. The ungleich survival guide

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h2. Status

This document is *IN PROGRESS*.

h2. Introduction

We live a very freely organised organisation with a lot of degrees of freedom. While this might look chaotic, it is given each and every person the highest degree of freedom.

However with power comes responsibility. To be able to do your work, it is one's own responsibility to

* let others now if you made progress or if you are stuck

* organise the tasks (see [[Ticket Handling]]

* escalate if you are blocked (nobody answering? -> escalate to Nico)

h2. Communication

Most communication happens in the general, private channels. The channels are private to protect everyone from their own mistakes. We all make mistakes and in regular society, mistakes are forgiven. Public information on the Internet is not forgotten.

However, where possible, we communicate openly and publicly.

We are an international team and there is no room for any kind of discrimination in any dimension (gender, race, sexuality, choose-your-attribute).

If you don't communicate, you will be assumed to be *not* working. Don't hack silently alone in your chat room. Communicate often, communicate early.

When you start working, say hello in our main public channel (currently "Town Square"), so others know that you are there.

h2. Working hours

You decide how much and when you work. You are in your own timezone, environment and own personal constraints. However to work together, you need to communicate when and how much you are available. All hours need to be tracked using "ctt":https://www.nico.schottelius.org/software/ctt/ and you need the internal "dot-ctt" repository to store the entries in.

*git push* your ~/.ctt daily.

h2. Assume the technical worst

The more deep you get into it, the more you realise how fragile things can be. For that reason, there are some basic ground rules:

* all important stuff from your machine is backed up daily:

** git: git push prior to stop working

** everything else: upload to https://cloud.ungleich.ch

* Your whole filesystem should be encrypted, not only your home

** programs save temporary data somewhere in the wild of your partitions

** encrypt everything, unlock on boot

* Use different passwords for different services

** use passphrases like "Nicotoldmetouselongpassphrases" (TBD: write password guide)

** Use a password manager, like "pass":http://www.passwordstore.org/

* Your ssh keys should be encrypted

** Even if your root filesystem is encrypted, a backup might be online and accessible

Assume that your primary working device can be stolen or break at any time.

h2. No assumptions

Besides above assumption, don't assume things. Either you know something, or you don't. In other words:

<pre>

s/"I assume A does not work, because of X"/I need to further investigate into A, my first lead is X/

</pre>