OpenGather Manifesto
The principles behind OpenGather — what it is, who it is for, and what we believe about community software.
What OpenGather Is
OpenGather is open community software for real groups of people.
It gives any community a place to gather online on its own terms. A family, a neighborhood, a sports team, a workplace, a school group, a volunteer network, a club, a movement, or a circle of friends should all be able to use OpenGather in a way that fits their needs.
OpenGather is not built around extraction, lock-in, or artificial engagement. It is built around belonging, coordination, conversation, and shared ownership.
Who It Is For
OpenGather is for people who need a shared space more than they need a platform.
It should be friendly enough for ordinary people to use, and open enough for technical people to host, extend, and adapt.
- families and friend groups
- local neighborhoods and mutual-aid networks
- clubs, teams, and hobby groups
- workplaces and project communities
- schools, classes, and study circles
- associations, nonprofits, and civic groups
- any community that wants a digital home it can control
The Basic Understanding
The basic idea behind OpenGather is simple:
- communities should own their own space
- users should own their own data
- the software should be open to inspect, modify, and run
- self-hosting should always be possible
- privacy should be understandable and controllable
- leaving should be possible, including exporting and transferring data
- there should be no ads and no surveillance business model
- the goal is connection, not attention capture
License And Commercial Boundary
OpenGather should be available in source form so anyone can study it, modify it, install it, and run it for their own community.
That includes personal use, internal use, community use, organizational use, and self-hosted use. The boundary is not ordinary use. The boundary is competing hosted resale.
The OpenGather business model is that the code should be broadly usable, but third parties should not be able to take it and turn it into a competing hosted OpenGather service. Managed cloud OpenGather through the hub is the commercial surface we keep.
The Role Of The Hub
Each OpenGather instance can stand on its own.
The hub exists to simplify connection between communities made with OpenGather. It can help with identity, discovery, linking communities, and reducing technical friction between separate instances.
The hub is a bridge, not the owner of every community. Communities remain their own communities. The hub should make things easier without taking away autonomy from the instance or its users.
Data Ownership
What a person creates belongs to that person.
If a user writes posts, uploads images, shares videos, or builds up years of history in a community, that data should remain accessible to them. OpenGather should make it normal for users to download, export, and move their data when they want. Portability is not a premium feature. It is part of the philosophy of the platform.
Agentic First
OpenGather should be agentic first.
People should be able to create their own agents inside their own OpenGather communities. Those agents should have clear APIs and safe system boundaries so they can help moderate, organize, summarize, notify, assist, automate workflows, and support community life in useful ways.
The point is not to replace human communities with automation. The point is to give communities tools they control.
OpenGather should be a place not only for people to gather, but also for trustworthy community-owned agents to live and work alongside them.
- communities can create and run their own agents
- agents should work through clear APIs and permissioned system interfaces
- agents should be configurable for local community needs
- automation should serve people, not manipulate them
- communities should be able to inspect, restrict, replace, or remove agents
- agent actions should be transparent and accountable
- users should know when they are interacting with an agent
What We Are Building
We are building software that gives communities their own place on the internet again.
Not rented attention. Not ad-driven dependency. Not closed systems that trap people and their history.
OpenGather should be simple to start, open to modify, friendly to use, and respectful of the people who depend on it.
That is the standard.