Empowerment

We believe that relevant parts of the future of the web will be determined by the question who is able to use the web and to build for the web. We think that technology should be accessible to people. Technology can make people’s lives easier when they know how to use it, when they’re able to build even small tools for solving problems they’re facing, and when it helps them automate recurring tasks. This is why it matters to us to make software development simpler and easier for a wide range of people and so enable them to solve their problems and realize their own ideas. We want to build technology that serves people and empowers them.

Diversity

We believe that the future of the web should be built by everyone, and that anything which is built on and for the web should involve and include a diverse group of people. We’re convinced that this is the only way to do it, because diversity matters. Diversity means for us to embrace and involve a wide variety of people into everything we do. This is also reflected in our Code of Conduct.

Software development is an act of representation. We urgently need a wide range of ideas, customs, and wisdom to solve problems and build a future for the web. And we think that not only developers should work on the web — we think that we also need the skills of non-coding people like designers, writers, people with skills in organizing and many more to work on the web.

We also think that building the web is still mainly a question of privilege these days, and that the meritocratic structures of Open Source are highly problematic, and we’re trying all we can to find ways to do better.

Independence

At the moment, many parts of web technology are dominated by large companies. Although Open Source still has its stand there (just think of mail servers, operating systems, big data and many more that are powered by Open Source technology), we want to work on establishing a culture and structure of independent web technology to keep the idea of the web alive.

In addition, everyone of us has their own dependencies: when we build the frontend of web applications, we have to rely on someone who builds the backend and someone who does the system administration. When we can’t code, we have to rely on others to develop the applications we need. When we’re on a train and our internet connection is down, all we can do is hope that our data is still accessible.

We need technology that makes people independent in its best sense: technology that gives people the tools they need to be independent from others, from fast and stable internet connections, from large companies and centralised infrastructure, so they can do whatever they want to, wherever they want.

Decentralisation

Centralisation has been pushed forward extremely in the past decades, and we have to stop it. The technology we have today is still far too complicated for many people, and it’s still very far from being accessible. We need to make it easy, convincing and enjoyable to move our personal data and applications and tools we build away from big players. This means that decentralisation needs to be a fundamental part of the technology and platforms we build, so it can finally be chosen by people because it offers clear benefits for those who use it.

Freedom

Hoodie believes in and is built for freedom. It is and will remain free and Open Source. Anyone of you and anyone else who wants can use it, adjust it and extend it to their needs.