The Artiol Charter | Artiol Technology

Front matterHow to read it

About This Charter

Purpose, principles, and plan of Artiol Technology. Version 1.0, revised 4 November 2026 to bring the Canon inside the Charter.

This Charter is the master statement of what Artiol Technology is for, what it promises, and how it will keep those promises. Every other public statement the company makes is derived from it, and none may say more than it says.

How to read it. Articles III through XI open with Findings, the evidence and reasoning behind it, with author-and-year references to the Sources at the end. Provisions follow; they are the commitments themselves. Findings explain. Provisions bind.

Words of obligation. "Shall" states a duty. "May" states a permission. "Aims to" states a direction we are working toward and have not yet reached; Schedule A reports how far we have come.

Size. This Charter is written to hold whether the company is two people or two thousand. Where a commitment needs resources we do not yet have, Schedule A states what we do today and the measurable condition that triggers the next step. We do not claim to do what we are not yet doing.

The three layers of the Charter
Layer	What it holds	How it changes
The Articles (I–XI)	Purpose, rights, duties, and governance. The permanent core.	Only through the amendment process in Article XI. Rights already given to users may be expanded, never reduced, for products already sold.
The Schedules (A–C)	The working plan: what we do now, what comes next, and how anyone can check. The product test. The objections we have weighed.	Reviewed at least once a year. Every change is published with the reason for it.
The Canon (Schedules D and E)	Every sentence the Company publishes about itself, each with a permanent identifier that the website, stores, and print reproduce by reference; and the Charter in plain words.	Re-derived within 60 days of any amendment. May compress or simplify; may never add a claim.

PreambleThe founding text

Preamble

We make software and hardware. It is a modest trade, and it matters more than it seems.

The tools people carry and keep shape how they spend their hours, what they notice, whom they trust, what they own, and what they eventually throw away. Over the past two decades, a large part of the technology industry has learned to earn its money from the people who use its products in ways those people did not choose. It watches them and sells what it learns. It designs for the next scroll rather than the person scrolling. It rents people what they thought they had bought, makes repair difficult so that replacement is easy, and sends the costs of energy, mined materials, and discarded devices to people and places that never see the profits.

None of this happened by accident, and none of it was inevitable. Each practice was a decision, made by people, inside companies, for reasons that looked sensible on a balance sheet. Different decisions are available. Companies large and small have made them before, and they have worked. This Charter records ours.

We are not a charity, and we do not pretend to stand outside the economy we live in. We sell things, and we need to earn a living. But we believe a company can earn its living by being useful rather than extractive, and that the difference shows up in ordinary, checkable choices: where your data lives, whether a device opens with a screwdriver, what happens to a product when its maker moves on, who gets paid and how fairly, and whether the electricity behind the work comes from a cleaner source each year than the last.

So this is not a document of predictions. We do not know how large we will become, and we do not claim that one small company will reform an industry. It is a document of commitments: to the people who use what we make, to the people who make it with us, to the communities we work in, and to the living world all of us depend on. We have tried to make each commitment specific enough to check and modest enough to keep. Where we are not yet doing something we intend to do, we say so, and we say what will change it.

Many people did this work before us. Engineers designed for repair. Cooperatives shared ownership with the people who did the work. Researchers measured the real costs of computing. Neighbors gathered in libraries and church basements to fix one another's lamps and laptops. We have borrowed from all of them, and we name them at the end.

What we add is a promise to do these things together, in public, for as long as we exist, and to make that promise hard to break, even for us.

Therefore, the Members of Artiol Technology adopt this Charter, and bind the Company and its successors to it.

Plain words§ E.PWhy we wrote this

We make software and hardware. Over the past twenty years, much of the technology industry learned to make money from people in ways they didn't choose: watching them, keeping them scrolling, renting them what they thought they'd bought, and making repair hard so they buy again. None of that was inevitable. This Charter records the different choices we have made. We're not a charity, and we don't claim we'll fix the industry. We promise to run one company this way, in public, and to make that promise hard to break, even for us.

Article I§ 1.1–1.8

Name, Nature, and Purpose

Artiol Technology exists to make technology that answers to the people who use it. This Article names the Company, states its purpose, and sets out the Five Commitments that organize everything after it.

§ 1.1Name

Artiol Technology (the "Company") is the technology studio of Dynamic Arts, LLC, a Maryland limited liability company, and operates under the Artiol name. This Charter binds any successor, affiliate, or division that carries that name or takes over its products.

§ 1.2Nature

The Company designs, makes, sells, and maintains software and hardware. It may also teach, fabricate, and offer services that serve its purpose. It earns its living by selling useful things at fair prices. It is not a charity and shall not describe itself as one.

§ 1.3Purpose

The purpose of the Company is to make technology that answers to the people who use it: theirs to keep, built to last, light on the living world, fair to everyone it touches, and honest about all of it. Profit is a means to this purpose and a condition of keeping it. It is not the purpose.

§ 1.4The Five Commitments

The purpose rests on five commitments. Each is defined here and made binding in the Articles named beside it.

Plate 1 · § 1.45 entries

Section 1.4: Commitment, What it means, Made binding in
Commitment	What it means	Made binding in
01Yours	The people who use our products stay in control of them, of their data, and of their time.	Articles IV and VIII
02Lasting	We make things to be kept, repaired, and improved, and we keep them working.	Articles IV, V, and X
03Light	We ask as little of the living world as each product's purpose allows, across its whole life, and we measure what we ask.	Article V
04Fair	We keep our costs off other people, pay the people who do the work fairly, and make our work reachable by people who cannot pay full price.	Articles VI, VII, and IX
05Open	We say what we do, show how we do it, and report where we fall short.	Articles VII and XI

§ 1.5Scope

This Charter governs every product, service, policy, contract, and public statement of the Company, at every size, including products the Company acquires from others.

§ 1.6Law as the floor

The Company shall obey the law. Where this Charter asks more than the law, the Company shall meet the Charter. Where a law would require the Company to break a provision of this Charter, the Company shall comply with the law, disclose the conflict publicly where permitted, and choose the lawful path that does the least harm to the people this Charter protects.

§ 1.7Modesty of claims

The Company does not claim that its products will solve large social or environmental problems. It claims only that it will make each product in the way this Charter describes, and that anyone may check whether it has.

§ 1.8One source for every public word

Every statement the Company publishes about itself, on its website, in its Products, in stores, in print, or in the press, is either an Article of this Charter quoted by reference or an entry in Schedule D, the Canon, reproduced by its identifier. Situational text, such as a form's instructions, a date, a price, a person's name, or an individual Product's own description, is exempt, but may not contradict this Charter. Schedule E restates the Charter in plain words for the same purpose.

Plain words§ E.1Who we are

We are Artiol Technology, a small studio in Baltimore that makes apps and physical devices. We sell what we make at fair prices. We think a technology company can earn its living by being useful instead of by taking advantage of people. Five commitments run through everything: Yours, Lasting, Light, Fair, Open. We follow the law, and where this Charter asks more, we do more. We don't claim our products will solve big problems; we claim we'll make each one the way this Charter says, and that anyone can check. Every word we publish about ourselves comes from this document.

Article II§ 2.1–2.2

Definitions

These terms carry the meanings below wherever they are capitalized in this Charter and in every document derived from it.

Article II: Term, Meaning
Term	Meaning
Company	As defined in Section 1.1.
Member	A person who holds ownership and voting rights in the Company under its governing agreement.
Worker	A person who does paid work for the Company, as an employee or a contractor.
Contributor	Anyone who adds work, code, designs, testing, or ideas to the Company's Products, paid or unpaid.
Product	Any software, hardware, service, content, or tool the Company makes, sells, gives away, or operates, with its updates and the systems that support it.
User	A person who uses a Product.
Owner	A person who has bought, been given, or otherwise lawfully holds a Product or a license to use it. "Owner" never refers to the owners of the Company; they are Members.
User Data	Any information created by, about, or for a User through a Product: content, files, settings, records of use, and device information.
Telemetry	Any data a Product sends about its use or its User that the User did not specifically ask to send.
Network Service	Any part of a Product that runs on a computer other than the User's own device, such as an account, sync, or sharing service.
Support Period	The period, stated before purchase or download, during which the Company commits to fix security flaws and serious defects in a Product.
Sunset	The Company's decision to end active development or support of a Product.
Living World	The land, water, air, and climate of the earth and every living thing that depends on them, people included.
Public Record	The permanent section of the Company's website where it publishes what this Charter requires, with every past version kept.
Charter Steward	The person or body responsible for checking the Company's compliance with this Charter, as set out in Article XI.
Known Exception	A place where the Company does not yet meet a provision of this Charter, recorded in Schedule A with a plan and a target to resolve it.
Material Change	Any change to a Product or policy that reduces a User's rights, raises what they pay, or changes how their data is handled.

§ 2.1Reading conventions

The singular includes the plural. "Including" means "including without limitation." Headings and the Findings explain the Provisions; they do not narrow them.

§ 2.2Terms for the public voice

The Canon is Schedule D: the approved public language of the Company, each entry with a permanent identifier. Situational text is text that depends on the moment or the thing described rather than on the Company: instructions, dates, prices, names, and the descriptions of individual Products and projects.

Article III§ 3.1–3.6

III

What We Mean by Good

The Company calls a product good when it serves its user, lasts, asks little of the earth, keeps its costs off others, and tells the truth. This Article explains where that definition comes from and how it settles conflicts.

People have argued about the nature of goodness for as long as there have been people. This Charter does not settle that argument. It relies on a few ideas that have earned wide agreement across philosophy, law, science, and faith, and that an engineer can turn into decisions.

Respect for persons. People are entitled to make informed choices about their own lives. The Belmont Report made respect for persons, beneficence, and justice the foundation of research ethics in the United States (National Commission 1979). Mill's harm principle adds the limit: each person is sovereign over their own life, and power over them is rightly used only to prevent harm to others (Mill 1859).

Capability. A good arrangement widens what people are actually able to do and to be, not only what they are able to buy (Sen 1999; Nussbaum 2011).

Costs that land on others. When a transaction pushes costs onto people outside it, its price misleads both parties, and the burden falls on those with the least say (Pigou 1920).

Limits. Human activity has pushed the earth past seven of the nine planetary boundaries that keep its systems stable (Richardson et al. 2023; Sakschewski et al. 2025). An economy can fairly be judged by whether it meets everyone's basic needs without overshooting those limits (Raworth 2017).

Fairness. Arrangements are just when their inequalities work to the benefit of the least advantaged (Rawls 1971).

Reciprocity. Indigenous teachings on the Honorable Harvest describe an ethic of taking only what is given and only what is needed, wasting nothing, sharing, and giving something back (Kimmerer 2013).

Provisions

§ 3.1Definition

Something the Company makes or does is good under this Charter when it:

serves the person who uses it, as that person would judge with full knowledge, and supports their flourishing or at the very least does not undermine it;
is made to be kept, repaired, and improved rather than replaced;
asks as little of the Living World as its purpose allows, across its whole life;
keeps its costs off people and places that did not agree to bear them, treats everyone it touches with dignity, and is offered on fair terms, including to people who cannot pay full price; and
is honest about what it is, what it does, and what it costs.

§ 3.2Order of loyalty

When interests conflict, the Company shall rank them in this order:

the User and Owner of the Product;
the other people the Product touches, especially those least able to protect themselves;
the public good, including the Living World;
the wider community of makers, developers, and partners;
the Company itself.

The Company shall never trade a higher interest for a lower one, and shall never trade a User's interest for its own.

§ 3.3The limit of loyalty

A person's sovereignty extends over their own life, not over other people's. Loyalty to the User therefore never requires the Company to help one person harm another, or to push avoidable costs onto people or places that did not agree to bear them. This Section sets the boundary inside which Section 3.2 operates.

§ 3.4When in doubt

Where this Charter does not settle a question, the Company shall choose the option that best protects the person with the least power in the situation, and that it would be willing to explain in public.

§ 3.5Room for joy

Not everything the Company makes must be important. Work that delights, satisfies curiosity, or simply makes a day more pleasant is welcome. The tests in this Article set a floor against harm; they do not demand heroism.

§ 3.6In plainer words

Take only what you need. Make things worth keeping. Treat others as you would want to be treated. Leave things better than you found them where you can, and no worse where you cannot. Nearly every ethical and spiritual tradition we know of teaches some version of these sentences; this Charter is an attempt to practice them in one small trade.

Plain words§ E.3What we mean by good

Something we make is good when it serves the person using it, is made to be kept rather than replaced, asks as little of the earth as it can, keeps its costs off other people, and tells the truth about itself. When interests collide, the person using the product comes first and we come last, with one limit: nobody gets to use our products to harm someone else. Not everything has to be important. Fun counts.

Article IV§ 4.1–4.13

The Rights of Users and Owners

People who use what we make keep control of it, of their data, and of their time, and those rights survive updates, shutdowns, and changes of ownership. This Article states thirteen rights and the duties that secure them.

Much of the consumer technology industry earns money from the attention and personal data of the people who use its products, a model Shoshana Zuboff calls surveillance capitalism (Zuboff 2019). Cory Doctorow has documented how platforms first court their users, then turn the service against them once they are locked in (Doctorow 2025).

Manipulative design is routine. A crawl of about 11,000 shopping websites found deceptive or coercive "dark patterns" on more than one in ten of them (Mathur et al. 2019). The Federal Trade Commission has described the same tactics across the digital economy (FTC 2022).

Ownership can be withdrawn after the sale. In 2024 Spotify switched off every Car Thing it had sold and told owners to dispose of them as e-waste; it offered refunds only after a class action was filed (Perez 2024). In 2025 a bankruptcy court approved the sale of a genetic-testing company's assets, including the DNA data of roughly 13 million customers, over the objections of more than two dozen states (Associated Press 2025).

Repair is often restricted without good reason: the FTC found little evidence to support manufacturers' justifications for repair restrictions (FTC 2021). Lawmakers have begun to respond, from the European Union's Right to Repair Directive (European Union 2024a) to Oregon's 2024 ban on software "parts pairing" (Oregon Legislative Assembly 2024).

Alternatives exist and work. Software can keep people's data on their own devices and still let them collaborate (Kleppmann et al. 2019). When Google released the PebbleOS source code in 2025, years after the smartwatch's maker had closed, a new company built on it and owners kept their watches running (Google Open Source Blog 2025).

Provisions

§ 4.1What you buy stays bought

The Company shall not remove, disable, or degrade any function of a Product after its Owner has acquired it, whether by update, remote command, or the shutdown of a Network Service. The only exception is a security flaw that cannot be fixed another way, and then the Company shall offer the Owner a fair remedy. A feature included at purchase shall never be moved behind a new payment.

§ 4.2Your data lives with you

Products shall store User Data on the User's own devices by default. Where a Network Service is needed, it shall hold the least data for the shortest time its function requires, encrypted so that the Company cannot read it wherever that function allows. Every Product's core functions shall work without a Network Service wherever the nature of the Product allows.

Doing now: Data stays on the deviceNew apps store data locally and work offline
Next: Data stays on the deviceOptional sync only if Users ask for it, end-to-end encrypted
Known exception· A.4.4: Our websites, accounts, email, and payments rely on large commercial cloud providers

§ 4.3No surveillance, no sale

The Company shall not sell, rent, or trade User Data. It shall not show advertising based on User Data, include third-party tracking or advertising code, or profile Users for any purpose other than serving that User at their request. Products shall collect no Telemetry; a User may choose to send a report, such as a crash report, one report at a time.

Doing now: No telemetryNo usage analytics in new apps; see A.4
Next: No telemetryCrash reports sent only when a User chooses to send one
Known exception· A.4.1: Our first mobile app includes a third-party analytics and crash-reporting service, with an opt-out in settings

§ 4.4Your data is not our asset

User Data the Company holds is held in trust for the User. To the fullest extent the law allows, it shall not be sold, transferred, pledged, or offered as collateral in any financing, sale, merger, or insolvency. The first protection comes before all others: the Company shall design its Products so that it holds as little User Data as possible.

§ 4.5The right to leave

Users may take all of their User Data with them at any time, free of charge, in documented open formats, and may delete it from the Company's systems. The Company shall use open standards where they exist, shall not design Products to trap their Users, and shall make cancelling as easy as signing up.

Doing now: Leaving is easyEvery app exports its data in open formats

§ 4.6The right to understand

Before purchase or download, the Company shall describe in plain language what each Product does, what data it handles, what it costs, and what it cannot do. It shall disclose when a feature uses artificial intelligence or automated decision-making. Material Changes require at least 30 days' notice, and where they affect rights already acquired, the User's consent.

§ 4.7Your attention is your own

The Company shall not design Products to maximize time spent, to create compulsion, or to exploit known weaknesses of human attention. This rules out dark patterns, endless feeds, reward schedules designed for retention, manufactured urgency, guilt-based prompts, and engagement targets. Notifications are off by default, except those a User needs to use the Product safely.

§ 4.8The right to repair, modify, and upgrade

For hardware, the Company shall publish repair guides, make replacement parts or the files to produce them available, use standard fasteners, and use no software locks that tie parts to a single device. Opening a Product shall not void its warranty, except for damage the opening itself caused. For software, the Company shall not require updates as a condition of continued use, except to fix security flaws.

§ 4.9Support you can count on

Before purchase or download, the Company shall state each Product's Support Period. Minimum Support Periods are set in Schedule A; they may be lengthened but never shortened for a Product already acquired.

Doing now: Support PeriodsHardware: at least 5 years after its last sale. Paid software: at least 2 years after its last sale or last major release, whichever is later
Next: Support PeriodsLengthen as revenue allows; never shorten
Known exception· A.4.7: Support Periods and sunset plans are not yet published for products already in testing

§ 4.10When we stop, you keep going

Before releasing a Product, the Company shall publish its plan for that Product's Sunset. If the Company Sunsets a Product, it shall give at least six months' notice; release a final update that lets the Product work without the Company's Network Services wherever technically possible; keep data export available; and release under an open license the source code, designs, and documentation others need to maintain it. Where a third-party component cannot be released, the Company shall name it, and it shall avoid depending on such components wherever a reasonable alternative exists.

Doing now: Sunset plansEach app ships with a published sunset plan
Next: Sunset plansSource code, build steps, and keys held for a named successor
Known exception· A.4.7: Support Periods and sunset plans are not yet published for products already in testing

§ 4.11Requests from governments

Because the Company holds as little User Data as possible, it has little to produce. It shall respond only to legally valid process, as narrowly as the law permits; notify affected Users unless the law forbids it; and publish each year the number and kind of requests it received.

§ 4.12If something goes wrong

If User Data the Company holds is exposed, the Company shall tell affected Users promptly, within 72 hours of confirming it wherever possible, and publish what happened and what it changed.

§ 4.13Remedies

If the Company breaks a right in this Article, the affected User may choose a fix or a refund of what they paid for the affected Product, pro-rated where fair. The Company shall record the breach and the remedy in the Public Record.

Plain words§ E.4What we promise you

What you buy stays bought; we won't switch off or take away features you paid for. Your information stays on your device unless you choose otherwise, and we never sell it, show you ads, or track you. You can take everything you made and leave, anytime, for free. We tell you in plain words what a product does, what it costs, and when it uses AI. We don't design anything to keep you hooked. You can open, repair, and upgrade our hardware without voiding the warranty. We tell you up front how long we'll support a product; if we ever stop, we give six months' notice and release what you need to keep using it. We hold so little data that we have little to hand over to anyone. If your data is ever exposed, we tell you within 72 hours. If we break a promise, you choose a fix or a refund.

Article V§ 5.1–5.11

Our Duties to the Living World

Most of a device's climate cost is spent before it is ever switched on, so the most useful thing a small maker can do is make things last. We also measure, shrink, and clean up the energy our own computing uses, and we make no environmental claims we cannot show.

The world produced a record 62 million tonnes of electronic waste in 2022, and only 22.3 percent was documented as properly collected and recycled. The total is on track to reach 82 million tonnes by 2030 (Baldé et al. 2024).

For phones and other consumer devices, most lifetime emissions come from manufacturing, not use (Gupta et al. 2021). A European study estimated that making, shipping, and disposing of a smartphone accounts for about 72 percent of its climate impact, and that adding one year to the life of Europe's phones, laptops, washing machines, and vacuum cleaners would save about 4 million tonnes of CO2 a year by 2030 (EEB 2019).

Data centers used about 415 terawatt-hours of electricity in 2024, roughly 1.5 percent of the world's supply, and are projected to use about 945 terawatt-hours by 2030, with AI the largest driver of growth (IEA 2025). Many also consume large amounts of water for cooling (Li et al. 2023). Large, general-purpose AI models use far more energy than smaller, task-specific ones to do the same job (Strubell, Ganesh, and McCallum 2019; Luccioni, Jernite, and Strubell 2024).

Timing and placement matter. The carbon intensity of grid electricity changes by the hour, and flexible computing can be shifted to cleaner hours (Radovanović et al. 2023). Nearly all the electricity a computer uses ends up as heat: a small data center installed under a public pool in Devon, England, cut the pool's gas use by about 62 percent (East Devon District Council 2023). A solar-powered web server can run a real publication (De Decker 2018).

Honest accounting matters as much as good intentions. Many forest-conservation offset projects did not deliver the reductions they claimed (West et al. 2023). The United Nations' expert group on net-zero pledges calls for real reductions and transparent reporting rather than reliance on credits (UN High-Level Expert Group 2022). Since 27 September 2026, EU law has banned claims that a product is climate-neutral on the strength of offsets (European Union 2024b).

Provisions

§ 5.1Whole-life responsibility

The Company is responsible for each Product from the materials it is made of to what becomes of it at the end, and shall design with that whole life in view.

§ 5.2Longevity first

Because most of a device's climate cost is spent in making it, longevity is the Company's first environmental duty. The Company shall design hardware to last and to be repaired, keep software working on older devices for as long as practical, and never shorten a Product's life to sell its replacement.

§ 5.3Materials

The Company shall prefer materials that are recycled, renewable, non-toxic, repairable, and locally available, and shall publish the main materials in each hardware Product. Where a less harmful material would do the job, the Company shall use it. Legal limits on hazardous substances are the floor.

Doing now: Hardware made to openPrototypes use screws, not glue; part files published; repair link engraved; plastic-free packaging
Next: Hardware made to openFrom the first hardware sale: materials list and price breakdown published

§ 5.4Take-back

The Company shall accept the return of any hardware Product it has made, at no charge to the Owner, for repair, refurbishment, reuse, or recycling through recyclers certified to a recognized standard such as R2 or e-Stewards. It shall publish what it receives and where it goes.

Doing now: Hardware made to openPrototypes use screws, not glue; part files published; repair link engraved; plastic-free packaging
Doing now: Take-backAny Artiol hardware accepted back, free
Next: Hardware made to openFrom the first hardware sale: materials list and price breakdown published
Next: Take-backBefore the first hardware sale: agreement with an R2 or e-Stewards certified recycler

§ 5.5Packaging

Packaging shall be the least that protects the Product, free of plastic wherever practical, and recyclable or compostable.

Doing now: Hardware made to openPrototypes use screws, not glue; part files published; repair link engraved; plastic-free packaging
Next: Hardware made to openFrom the first hardware sale: materials list and price breakdown published

§ 5.6The smallest sufficient computation

The Company shall use the least resource-intensive approach that does the job well: plain code before artificial intelligence, small models before large ones, the User's own device before a remote server, and simple pages before heavy ones.

§ 5.7Measure and publish

Each year the Company shall measure the electricity its own computing uses and estimate the emissions of its operations, using published methods such as the Software Carbon Intensity specification (ISO/IEC 2024). It shall publish the results with their method and their uncertainty.

Doing now: Measuring energyMeter the computers that run our models and servers
Next: Measuring energyFirst footprint in the first Annual Accountability Report

§ 5.8Cleaner power, better timing, useful heat

The Company shall supply its own computing with renewable electricity through the best option available to it, moving over time toward power it generates itself. It shall run heavy, flexible computing when the grid is cleanest, where it can. It shall place its computers where their heat is useful in cold months, and avoid adding to cooling loads in warm ones.

Doing now: Renewable powerGrid power; see A.4
Doing now: Timing and heatHeavy batch jobs run in cleaner grid hours; computers placed where their heat warms a workspace in winter
Next: Renewable powerWithin 12 months: renewable supply or community solar for every site that runs our computers; then on-site solar for computing where feasible
Known exception· A.4.5: Our computers run on grid electricity with no renewable supply contract

§ 5.9Remote computing

The Company shall use remote computing services, including AI services, only where its own hardware cannot do the job well. It shall prefer providers that publish their energy, water, and emissions data, and shall report each year how much of this work it has moved onto hardware it controls.

Doing now: Local AIMost AI work runs on our own hardware; remote services only when local models cannot do the job
Next: Local AIPublish the local share each year and raise it
Known exception· A.4.3: Some AI work still runs on remote services in large data centers
Known exception· A.4.4: Our websites, accounts, email, and payments rely on large commercial cloud providers

§ 5.10No offset claims, no vague claims

The Company shall not describe itself or any Product as carbon neutral, climate positive, net zero, or the like on the strength of purchased offsets. It shall not use vague environmental labels such as "green" or "eco-friendly." It shall describe what it actually does and what it has actually measured, and report any purchase of credits as a contribution, never as a reduction.

§ 5.11Tools for care

Where its skills allow, the Company aims to make tools that help people and communities observe, understand, and care for their local environment.

Plain words§ E.5How we treat the earth

Most of a gadget's environmental cost comes from making it, so the best thing we can do is make things that last. We use the simplest technology that does the job, measure the electricity our computers use and publish it, and keep moving toward renewable and solar power. We take back anything we've made, free, and skip plastic packaging wherever we can. We will never call ourselves "carbon neutral" because we bought offsets, and we won't use vague words like "eco-friendly." We'll tell you what we actually do.

Article VI§ 6.1–6.9

Our Duties to the People Who Do the Work

Everyone who helps make our products is paid fairly and promptly, treated with respect, and credited, and the gap between the highest and lowest pay stays narrow. The same care extends to suppliers, and to how we use AI tools.

In 2024, chief executives of the 350 largest U.S. firms were paid 281 times as much as a typical worker; in 1965 the figure was 21 (Economic Policy Institute 2025).

Shared ownership is not fragile. In a study of Uruguayan firms, worker-managed firms were less likely to close than conventional ones (Burdín 2014), and a review of the international evidence found worker cooperatives at least as productive as comparable firms (Pérotin 2016).

Electronics depend on minerals whose extraction has been linked to child labor and armed conflict (Amnesty International 2016). Internationally agreed guidance sets out the due diligence that buyers of those minerals should do (OECD 2016).

Independent workers are especially exposed to late payment; New York City made prompt payment of freelancers a legal requirement in 2016 (New York City Council 2016).

AI tools can multiply what a small team can do. They also raise unsettled questions about the use of creative work to train models (U.S. Copyright Office 2025), and they carry the energy and water costs described in Article V.

Provisions

§ 6.1Fair pay

The Company shall pay every Worker at least a living wage for the place the work is done, as estimated by a published method such as the MIT Living Wage Calculator (Glasmeier 2025). Contractors shall be paid fair market rates agreed in writing before work begins. The Company shall offer no unpaid internships, ask for no unpaid trial work, and not rely on unpaid work for its regular operations.

Doing now: Fair and prompt payLiving-wage floor; invoices paid within 15 days; pay ratio no more than 5 to 1
Next: Fair and prompt payPay ranges published with the first job posting

§ 6.2Fair pay includes us

The duty in Section 6.1 covers Members who work in the Company. A company that cannot sustain the people who run it cannot keep its promises for long.

Doing now: Fair and prompt payLiving-wage floor; invoices paid within 15 days; pay ratio no more than 5 to 1
Next: Fair and prompt payPay ranges published with the first job posting

§ 6.3A narrow gap

The total annual compensation of the Company's highest-paid person shall not exceed five times that of its lowest-paid full-time-equivalent Worker. The Company shall publish its pay ranges for every role and its actual ratio each year.

Doing now: Fair and prompt payLiving-wage floor; invoices paid within 15 days; pay ratio no more than 5 to 1
Next: Fair and prompt payPay ranges published with the first job posting

§ 6.4Prompt payment

The Company shall pay every undisputed invoice within 15 days of receiving it, and never later than 30.

Doing now: Fair and prompt payLiving-wage floor; invoices paid within 15 days; pay ratio no more than 5 to 1
Next: Fair and prompt payPay ranges published with the first job posting

§ 6.5Voice and dignity

The Company shall not oppose any effort by its Workers to organize or bargain collectively. It shall not ask Workers to sign non-compete agreements, and shall not use confidentiality agreements to hide harassment, discrimination, or unsafe conduct.

§ 6.6Safe workspaces

The Company shall keep its workshops and studios safe, train everyone who uses its equipment, and ask no one to work in conditions its Members would not accept for themselves.

§ 6.7Credit and thanks

Every Contributor shall be credited for their work in the Products they helped make, unless they prefer not to be. People who test Products before release are volunteers; the Company shall thank them and offer them the finished Product free of charge.

§ 6.8Suppliers

The Company shall prefer suppliers that publish their labor and environmental practices; ask its suppliers of electronic components about the origin of their minerals, in proportion to its size and in line with the OECD guidance; and publish the main suppliers of each hardware Product.

§ 6.9Use of artificial intelligence

The Company uses AI tools to help it design, write, and build. A person is responsible for everything the Company publishes or ships, whether or not a tool helped make it. The Company shall:

disclose its use of AI as Section 4.6 requires, and describe that use plainly in its annual report;
not train or adapt any model on User Data without the User's explicit, informed, and revocable consent;
not use AI to imitate the voice, likeness, or identifiable style of a living person without that person's consent;
not leave decisions that significantly affect a person's rights to a machine alone;
treat AI as a way to extend what its people can do, never as a reason to pay people less; and
reduce its reliance on large remote AI services over time, as Section 5.9 provides.

Doing now: Local AIMost AI work runs on our own hardware; remote services only when local models cannot do the job
Next: Local AIPublish the local share each year and raise it

Plain words§ E.6How we treat the people who work with us, and how we use AI

Everyone we pay earns at least a living wage. The highest-paid person here will never earn more than five times the lowest-paid. We pay invoices within 15 days. We respect people's right to organize, and everyone who helps gets credit. We use AI tools to help us design and build; a person is responsible for everything we ship. We run AI on our own computers whenever we can and are cutting how much we rely on big remote data centers. We never train AI on your data without your clear permission.

Article VII§ 7.1–7.8

VII

Our Duties to the Public

No one is refused our software because they cannot pay, our products are built for every body and mind, and what we learn we share. We take part in public life as a business, never as a party.

About 1.3 billion people, roughly one in six, live with a significant disability (World Health Organization 2022). The standards for making software usable by them are published and free to use (W3C 2023).

Open-source software underlies nearly all modern technology. One estimate puts its value at about $8.8 trillion and finds that companies would spend about 3.5 times more on software if it did not exist (Hoffmann, Nagle, and Zhou 2024). Communities can govern shared resources well when they make and enforce their own rules (Ostrom 1990).

Repair is also a social practice. Since the first Repair Café opened in Amsterdam in 2009, volunteers have built a network that its founder estimates at more than 4,000 community repair groups worldwide (NL Times 2024).

Tools that people can understand, repair, and adapt widen their freedom; tools that only specialists can control narrow it (Illich 1973).

Provisions

§ 7.1No one refused for inability to pay

For software, the Company shall give a free license to anyone who asks and says they cannot afford one, without asking for proof. For hardware, which costs money to make, the Company shall reserve a share of each production run for people and community groups who cannot pay full price, as set in Schedule A.

Doing now: Free when neededA free software license to anyone who asks, no proof required
Next: Free when neededFrom the first hardware sale: 1 unit in 10 of each run reserved for free or at-cost distribution through community partners

§ 7.2Schools, libraries, and public-interest groups

The Company shall offer its software free or at a deep discount to schools, public libraries, and public-interest nonprofit organizations, on terms published in Schedule A.

Doing now: Schools, libraries, nonprofitsSoftware free to schools, public libraries, and public-interest nonprofits

§ 7.3Access for every body and mind

Every Product shall meet, at minimum, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.2 at Level AA or the closest equivalent for its medium (W3C 2023). The Company shall test with disabled people and pay them for their time, and shall treat a barrier reported by a User as a defect to be fixed, not a request to be weighed.

§ 7.4Open by default

The Company shall publish under open licenses the tools, libraries, file formats, and documentation that others could use to build, repair, verify, or connect to its Products, unless doing so would endanger Users or the Company's ability to keep this Charter. It aims to publish the source code of its Products so that anyone can check the claims this Charter makes about them, and it shall do so at Sunset under Section 4.10.

§ 7.5Sharing what we know

The Company shall publish clear guides to using, repairing, and adapting its Products. Wherever it has a workshop, it shall host community repair and making events open to the public, on the schedule set in Schedule A.

Doing now: Repair and making nightsAt least four free public events a year at our workshop
Next: Repair and making nightsMonthly when volunteers allow

§ 7.6Local roots

The Company shall prefer local suppliers, fabricators, and partners where quality and fairness allow, and shall take part in the life of the communities where it works.

§ 7.7Honest selling

The Company shall not use fake urgency, fake scarcity, fake or paid-for reviews, undisclosed endorsements, or claims it cannot support. Prices shown shall be the prices paid.

§ 7.8Civic conduct

The Company shall make no contributions to political candidates or parties. It may speak publicly in support of laws that advance the rights in this Charter, such as the right to repair, privacy, and fair competition. It shall never lobby against such laws, and shall publish any lobbying it does.

Plain words§ E.7How we treat our neighbors

If you can't afford our software, ask and it's yours, no proof needed. Schools, libraries, and nonprofits get it free. We build for people with disabilities from the start. We host free repair nights at our workshop. We share what we know. We don't give money to political candidates or parties.

Article VIII§ 8.1–8.9

VIII

How We Make Things

Our promises are kept in the design, not in the fine print: every product is built so that breaking this Charter would be hard, and must pass the test in Schedule B before it ships.

Technologies are not neutral. The way a tool is built decides who holds power over it and over the people who use it (Winner 1980). Some technologies leave a person in control of the whole task; others divide the work so that control sits with whoever designed the system (Franklin 1990).

Values can be designed in on purpose (Friedman and Hendry 2019), especially when the people most affected take part in the design (Charlton 1998; Costanza-Chock 2020).

Privacy is most reliable when it is the default rather than a setting (Cavoukian 2009). European law requires data protection by design and by default (European Union 2016), and the EU's Cyber Resilience Act requires makers of connected products to state how long they will provide security updates (European Union 2024c).

Small, appropriate technology often serves people better than large, centralized systems (Schumacher 1973). Wendell Berry proposed that a new tool should cost less and be no larger than the one it replaces, do clearly better work, use less energy, run on sunlight where possible, be repairable by an ordinary person close to home, and displace nothing good, including relationships (Berry 1990).

Attention is finite, and products designed to capture it can work against the goals of the people using them (Williams 2018).

Provisions

§ 8.1Need before build

Before building a Product, the Company shall be able to say plainly whom it serves, what it does for them that existing tools do not, or what joy it brings. If it cannot, it shall not build it.

§ 8.2Architecture over promises

Wherever possible, the Company shall keep this Charter's promises through how a Product is built, so that breaking them would require rebuilding the Product, not just changing a policy. The Sovereign User Manifesto sets out the Company's detailed architectural standard.

§ 8.3Inform, then step back

Products shall inform and equip people, not steer them. They shall not score, rank, or nudge Users toward targets the Users did not set, and shall not second-guess an adult's judgment about their own life.

§ 8.4Private and secure by default

The most protective setting shall be the default. The Company shall model the threats to each Product, keep its dependencies few and current, publish a security contact in the standard form (Foudil and Shafranovich 2022), fix serious flaws promptly, and credit the people who report them.

§ 8.5Built for older devices and slower connections

Every release shall be tested on at least one device five or more years old and on a slow connection. The Company shall set size and performance budgets for each Product and publish them.

§ 8.6Made with the people who use them

The Company shall involve Users, especially those most affected by a Product, in its design, and shall pay people for the time they give to research.

§ 8.7Hardware made to be opened

Hardware shall be designed for disassembly: standard fasteners rather than glue where possible, modular parts, marked materials, and repair information printed or engraved on the Product itself. Files for printable replacement parts shall be published.

Doing now: Hardware made to openPrototypes use screws, not glue; part files published; repair link engraved; plastic-free packaging
Next: Hardware made to openFrom the first hardware sale: materials list and price breakdown published

§ 8.8Quality before quantity

The Company shall not knowingly ship a defect that harms Users, and shall fix such defects before adding features.

§ 8.9The Product Test

No Product shall be released, and no Material Change made, until it passes the Product Test in Schedule B. The result shall be published with the release.

Plain words§ E.8How we make things

We build only what we can explain the need for. We keep our promises in the design itself, so breaking them would mean rebuilding the product. Private and secure settings are the defaults. Everything is tested on an old phone and a slow connection. Hardware is built to be opened. Nothing ships until it passes our 18-question test, and the result is published.

Article IX§ 9.1–9.9

How We Earn and Use Money

We earn money only by selling useful things at fair prices, never from attention or data, and we spend it in a fixed order: fair pay, a reserve to keep our promises, a share for the common good, then reinvestment, with returns to capital capped.

Most venture capital is structured around rapid growth followed by a sale or public offering, which pushes companies to take more from their users over time (Brandel et al. 2017; Doctorow 2025).

Other structures exist and work. Cooperatives limit the return paid on capital and give members an equal vote (International Co-operative Alliance 1995). In 2022, Patagonia's founding family transferred the company's voting stock to a purpose trust and its non-voting stock to a nonprofit that receives its profits (Patagonia 2022). Legal scholars have described how a technology company can "exit to community," passing ownership to the people who use and build it instead of selling it (Mannan and Schneider 2021).

Subscriptions and ownership can coexist: JetBrains gives subscribers who have paid for a year a permanent license to the version they started with (JetBrains n.d.). Businesses can commit a fixed share of sales to the common good, as members of 1% for the Planet have done since 2002 (1% for the Planet n.d.).

Asking the public to invest, friends included, is regulated. Since 2016, U.S. securities rules have let small companies raise limited amounts from the general public through registered intermediaries (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission 2016).

Provisions

§ 9.1Earning a living

The Company earns its income by selling Products and services at fair prices. It may also accept patronage, grants, loans, and investment on terms that respect this Charter.

§ 9.2Income we refuse

The Company shall not earn money from advertising; from selling, licensing, or brokering User Data; from the time or attention Users spend; from charging people to remove obstacles the Company itself created; from gambling mechanics such as paid random rewards; or from shortening the life of a Product to sell another.

§ 9.3Fair prices

Prices shall reflect real costs and a fair margin. For each hardware Product, the Company shall publish a breakdown of what its price pays for.

§ 9.4Subscriptions without hostages

The Company may sell subscriptions. When a subscription ends, the User keeps all of their User Data, the means to read and export everything they made, and a permanent license to a version of the Product under the fallback rule in Schedule A. Cancelling shall be as easy as subscribing.

Doing now: Subscription fallbackAfter 12 consecutive paid months, a permanent license to the version current at the start of those months

§ 9.5Price changes

Price increases shall be announced at least 30 days in advance and shall never apply to a period already paid for. Prices shall include every mandatory fee.

§ 9.6Order of uses

After meeting its legal obligations and debts, the Company shall use its money in this order:

fair pay under Article VI;
a Continuity Reserve large enough to honor the Support Periods and Sunset duties of every Product it then supports;
at least one percent of gross revenue each year to an Access and Commons Fund, which pays for free and discounted access, community repair and teaching, and gifts to environmental and community organizations, with every recipient published;
reinvestment in the purpose of this Charter; and
limited returns on capital, as set in Schedule A, together with any distributions Members need to pay taxes on the Company's income.

Doing now: Access and Commons FundAt least 1% of gross revenue, recipients published
Doing now: Returns on capitalNo outside capital; Members draw pay for work and tax distributions only
Next: Access and Commons FundJoin 1% for the Planet when its terms fit our revenue
Next: Returns on capitalBefore accepting outside capital: a published cap on returns

§ 9.7Capital we decline

The Company shall not accept money on terms that require growth or a sale at the expense of this Charter, give any investor power to override it, or give anyone a claim on User Data.

§ 9.8Plain dealing with supporters

Anyone who gives the Company money shall be told plainly whether it is a purchase, a gift, a loan, or an investment, and what they may and may not expect in return. The Company shall offer investments only through channels that comply with securities law, and shall never imply a return it is not offering.

§ 9.9Open books

Each year the Company shall publish a summary of its revenue, its costs by major category, its Continuity Reserve, its giving, and its pay ratio.

Plain words§ E.9How we make money, and how we don't

We make money by selling things people want. Never from ads, from selling data, or from keeping you glued to a screen. If you subscribe and later stop, you keep your data, and after a year of paying you keep a version of the product for good. Prices go up only with 30 days' notice, never for time you've already paid for. Our money goes, in order, to fair pay, to a reserve that keeps our promises, to at least 1 percent for access and community, then to reinvestment, with returns to investors capped.

Article X§ 10.1–10.9

Ownership, Governance, and Continuity

This Charter is written into the Company's legal structure so that it binds every future owner, ownership widens to the people who do the work as the Company grows, and the products keep working even if the Company does not.

Promises that live only in marketing do not survive pressure. They need legal form. Maryland was the first U.S. state to recognize benefit corporations, in 2010, and since 2011 has allowed a limited liability company to elect benefit status by saying so in its articles of organization (Department of Legislative Services 2011).

Ownership changes are where commitments are most often lost; user data has been treated as an asset to be sold in bankruptcy (Associated Press 2025). Commitments that bind any acquirer are the remedy, and steward-ownership structures show they can be made durable (Patagonia 2022).

Cooperatives organize ownership around the people who use or work in an enterprise, with democratic control and limited returns on capital (International Co-operative Alliance 1995). Collective ownership also has real costs, including slower decisions and harder access to capital (Hansmann 1996), which is why this Charter moves toward it in stages tied to growth.

Provisions

§ 10.1Legal form

The entity through which the Company operates shall adopt and keep a legal form that binds it to a public benefit consistent with this Charter, such as a Maryland benefit limited liability company. The timing is set in Schedule A.

Doing now: Legal formCharter adopted by written resolution of the LLC's members
Next: Legal formWithin 12 months, or before any outside investment if sooner: Charter written into the operating agreement and benefit LLC status elected
Known exception· A.4.6: The Charter is not yet written into our legal documents

§ 10.2The Charter in the governing documents

This Charter shall be incorporated by reference into the operating agreement of the Company's legal entity and of any successor, so that it binds the Members as a matter of contract.

Doing now: Legal formCharter adopted by written resolution of the LLC's members
Next: Legal formWithin 12 months, or before any outside investment if sooner: Charter written into the operating agreement and benefit LLC status elected
Known exception· A.4.6: The Charter is not yet written into our legal documents

§ 10.3Votes belong to people

Each Member has one vote, whatever capital they have contributed. Members decide by consensus where they can, and by majority otherwise, except where Article XI requires more.

§ 10.4Widening ownership

As the Company grows, ownership shall be shared with the people who do its work. Every Worker who meets the service threshold in Schedule A shall be offered membership on fair terms. The Company aims to become worker-owned, and at the scale set in Schedule A it shall study how Users might also gain a voice or a share, including an exit to community (Mannan and Schneider 2021).

§ 10.5Change of control

No sale, merger, transfer of control, or transfer of a Product line shall take place unless the acquirer binds itself to this Charter in writing and enforceably. If that cannot be obtained, the Company shall first carry out the Sunset duties of Section 4.10 for every affected Product.

§ 10.6Acquired products

Within 30 days of acquiring a product or company, the Company shall publish every way the acquisition falls short of this Charter. It shall bring the acquisition into compliance within 12 months or Sunset it under Section 4.10.

§ 10.7Continuity

If the Company can no longer operate, for any reason, the Sunset duties of Section 4.10 apply to every Product. To make that possible, the Company shall keep its Continuity Reserve, keep a current copy of everything needed to carry out those duties where a named successor can reach it, and name that successor in the Public Record.

Doing now: Sunset plansEach app ships with a published sunset plan
Next: Sunset plansSource code, build steps, and keys held for a named successor

§ 10.8Platforms we do not control

Where a distribution platform's rules conflict with this Charter, the Company shall disclose the conflict and, wherever that platform's rules permit, offer another way to obtain the Product.

Known exception· A.4.2: Apps are distributed mainly through dominant app stores whose rules and fees we do not control

§ 10.9Conflicts of interest

Members and Workers shall disclose any personal interest in a decision, and no one shall decide a matter in which they hold a financial interest the other decision-makers do not share.

Plain words§ E.10Who owns us, and what happens if things change

We're writing this Charter into our legal paperwork so it binds us and anyone who might ever buy us. If a buyer won't agree to it, we first release what's needed to keep our products working. Each owner has one vote, whatever they invested. As we grow, the people who work here are offered a share of ownership. If we ever have to close, our products are set up to keep working.

Article XI§ 11.1–11.13

Accountability, Interpretation, and Amendment

We report on this Charter every year in public, anyone may hold us to it, and its protections can be strengthened easily but weakened only with broad agreement, and never for products people already own.

Commitments without public reporting tend to drift. The United Nations' expert group on net-zero pledges called for published plans, annual progress reports, and independent verification (UN High-Level Expert Group 2022). Independent certification against a public standard is available to companies that want their social and environmental performance assessed (B Lab n.d.).

Most commitments fail quietly rather than dramatically. The remedy is a public record that makes drift visible early, and rules that make backsliding slower than progress.

Provisions

§ 11.1Annual Accountability Report

Within four months after the end of each year, the Company shall publish in the Public Record a report on its compliance with every Article, including: progress on each Known Exception; energy use and emissions; Support Periods, Sunsets, repairs, and take-backs; use of the access programs; pay ratio and summary finances; use of AI and the share of it run on hardware the Company controls; government requests; data incidents and remedies; and its mistakes and what it changed because of them.

Doing now: AccountabilityA Charter Steward named each year
Next: AccountabilityFirst Annual Accountability Report within four months after the first full calendar year

§ 11.2Known Exceptions

Every Known Exception shall be listed in Schedule A with its reason, its plan, and its target date. No new Known Exception may be created without a public explanation.

§ 11.3The Charter Steward

Each year the Members shall name a Charter Steward, rotating the role where they can, to check compliance and sign the Annual Accountability Report. When the Company reaches the scale set in Schedule A, an independent reviewer or a council that includes Users, Workers, and community members shall review the report, and the Company shall seek independent certification against a recognized public standard when it becomes eligible.

Doing now: AccountabilityA Charter Steward named each year
Next: AccountabilityFirst Annual Accountability Report within four months after the first full calendar year

§ 11.4Anyone may raise a concern

Any person may send the Company a concern that it is not keeping this Charter. The Company shall acknowledge each concern within 7 days and answer publicly within 30, saying what it found and what it changed, while protecting the privacy of the person who raised it.

§ 11.5Interpretation

This Charter shall be read to give full effect to its purpose. Any ambiguity shall be resolved in favor of the User, and otherwise in favor of the person with less power in the situation.

§ 11.6Supremacy

This Charter governs every policy, term, contract, and public statement of the Company. To the extent the law allows, any provision that conflicts with it has no effect.

§ 11.7Other Company standards

The Sovereign User Manifesto, which governs product architecture, and the Abundance Compass, which governs project ethics, are standards under this Charter. They may be stricter than this Charter, never looser. Where a standard gives Users greater protection, that standard governs, except where it would require a harm that Section 3.3 forbids.

§ 11.8Amending the Articles

A proposed amendment shall be published, with its reasons, for at least 30 days of public comment before any vote. An amendment that strengthens protections may then be adopted by a majority of Members. Any other amendment requires every Member's consent while there are five or fewer Members, and three-quarters of them after that.

§ 11.9What no amendment may do

No amendment may reduce the rights in Article IV for any Product already acquired, reorder Section 3.2 to the disadvantage of Users, or weaken Sections 4.10, 10.5, or 10.7.

§ 11.10Amending the Schedules

The Members may amend the Schedules by majority, publishing each change and its reason. The Schedules shall be reviewed at least once a year and may never contradict the Articles.

§ 11.11Keeping the Canon true

Within 60 days of any amendment, the Company shall re-derive Schedules D and E. Derived language may compress or simplify this Charter; it may never add a claim. Websites, stores, and printed matter reproduce entries by their identifiers, so that a change here is a change everywhere.

§ 11.12Severability

If any provision of this Charter cannot be enforced, the rest remains in force, and that provision shall be applied to the fullest extent the law allows.

§ 11.13Versions and effect

Every version of this Charter shall be kept in the Public Record with its date and a summary of what changed. This Charter takes effect when the Members adopt it.

Plain words§ E.11How you can check

Every year we publish a public report on how we did, mistakes included. Anyone can raise a concern, and we answer publicly within 30 days. Our promises to you can be made stronger easily, and they can never be weakened for anything you already own.

Closing

We know how documents like this one usually end. A company describes the world it hopes to build, and then the world it actually builds looks like everyone else's. We have tried to write something harder to walk away from.

Nothing in this Charter is new. Every practice in it is already done somewhere: by a phone maker that designs for the screwdriver, a software company that lets subscribers keep what they paid for, cooperatives that have shared ownership for generations, a public pool in Devon warmed by computers, a website that runs on sunlight. What is unusual is doing all of them together, saying so in public, and writing them down in a form that is difficult to undo.

We are small, and we intend to stay honest about that. Some of what we promise here we already do. Some we will do when we can afford to, and Schedule A says when. Some we will get wrong. When we do, we will say so plainly, make it right where we can, and tell you what we changed.

If you use what we make, you should never have to wonder whom it serves. If you work with us, you should be paid fairly, paid on time, and credited. If you live near us, you should find our doors open on repair nights. And if you are deciding whether to support this work, we ask one thing beyond your support: hold us to it.

The work itself is ordinary. Careful code. Parts that come apart again. Records kept, bills paid on time, mail answered. Ordinary work, done with care and in the open, is how most good things have ever been made.

Judge us by what we ship, not by what we write here.

Schedule ATyped form

Operating Plan

This Schedule turns the Articles into work: what we do today, what comes next and what triggers it, and where each practice already works elsewhere. It runs from adoption to the first annual review and is revised at least once a year.

A.1Where we stand at adoption

The Company is two people using AI tools, with access to a fully equipped workshop in Baltimore: digital fabrication, wood and metal shops, an electronics lab, and a photography studio. Our first mobile app is in testing, and we run AI models on our own computers. Everything below is sized to that.

A.2The plan

Schedule A.2: the plan, by commitment
Commitment (Section)	What we do now	Next, and what triggers it	Already works elsewhere
Data stays on the device (4.2)	New apps store data locally and work offline	Optional sync only if Users ask for it, end-to-end encrypted	Kleppmann et al. 2019
No telemetry (4.3)	No usage analytics in new apps; see A.4	Crash reports sent only when a User chooses to send one	—
Leaving is easy (4.5)	Every app exports its data in open formats	—	—
Support Periods (4.9)	Hardware: at least 5 years after its last sale. Paid software: at least 2 years after its last sale or last major release, whichever is later	Lengthen as revenue allows; never shorten	Fairphone 2023; European Union 2024c
Sunset plans (4.10, 10.7)	Each app ships with a published sunset plan	Source code, build steps, and keys held for a named successor	Google Open Source Blog 2025
Subscription fallback (9.4)	After 12 consecutive paid months, a permanent license to the version current at the start of those months	—	JetBrains n.d.
Free when needed (7.1)	A free software license to anyone who asks, no proof required	From the first hardware sale: 1 unit in 10 of each run reserved for free or at-cost distribution through community partners	—
Schools, libraries, nonprofits (7.2)	Software free to schools, public libraries, and public-interest nonprofits	—	—
Access and Commons Fund (9.6)	At least 1% of gross revenue, recipients published	Join 1% for the Planet when its terms fit our revenue	1% for the Planet n.d.
Repair and making nights (7.5)	At least four free public events a year at our workshop	Monthly when volunteers allow	NL Times 2024
Hardware made to open (5.3–5.5, 8.7)	Prototypes use screws, not glue; part files published; repair link engraved; plastic-free packaging	From the first hardware sale: materials list and price breakdown published	Fairphone 2023
Take-back (5.4)	Any Artiol hardware accepted back, free	Before the first hardware sale: agreement with an R2 or e-Stewards certified recycler	—
Measuring energy (5.7)	Meter the computers that run our models and servers	First footprint in the first Annual Accountability Report	ISO/IEC 2024
Renewable power (5.8)	Grid power; see A.4	Within 12 months: renewable supply or community solar for every site that runs our computers; then on-site solar for computing where feasible	De Decker 2018
Timing and heat (5.8)	Heavy batch jobs run in cleaner grid hours; computers placed where their heat warms a workspace in winter	—	Radovanović et al. 2023; East Devon District Council 2023
Local AI (5.9, 6.9)	Most AI work runs on our own hardware; remote services only when local models cannot do the job	Publish the local share each year and raise it	Luccioni, Jernite, and Strubell 2024
Fair and prompt pay (6.1–6.4)	Living-wage floor; invoices paid within 15 days; pay ratio no more than 5 to 1	Pay ranges published with the first job posting	Glasmeier 2025
Legal form (10.1, 10.2)	Charter adopted by written resolution of the LLC's members	Within 12 months, or before any outside investment if sooner: Charter written into the operating agreement and benefit LLC status elected	Department of Legislative Services 2011
Returns on capital (9.6)	No outside capital; Members draw pay for work and tax distributions only	Before accepting outside capital: a published cap on returns	International Co-operative Alliance 1995
Accountability (11.1, 11.3)	A Charter Steward named each year	First Annual Accountability Report within four months after the first full calendar year	UN High-Level Expert Group 2022

A.3Growth thresholds

These events switch on the commitments the Articles tie to scale.

Schedule A.3: growth thresholds
When this happens	This takes effect
First hardware product offered for sale	Take-back partner, materials list, price breakdown, and the 1-in-10 access share
First person paid beyond the founding Members	Published pay ranges and pay ratio; living-wage check each year
A Worker completes 12 months at 20 or more hours a week	That Worker is offered membership on fair terms (10.4)
First outside investment	Benefit status in place; return cap published; investor bound to this Charter in writing (9.7, 10.1)
5 Workers	A published study of conversion to a worker cooperative
10 Workers, or $1 million in annual revenue	Independent review of the annual report; certification sought when eligible (11.3)
10,000 Users of any one Product	A published study of a User voice or an exit to community (10.4)

A.4Known Exceptions

Where we do not yet meet this Charter, and what we are doing about it.

Schedule A.4: Known Exceptions. Each row is on the Public Record.
No.	Exception	Section	Plan	Target
A.4.1	Our first mobile app includes a third-party analytics and crash-reporting service, with an opt-out in settings	4.3	Remove usage analytics; make crash reports opt-in, one at a time	Next major release
A.4.2	Apps are distributed mainly through dominant app stores whose rules and fees we do not control	10.8	Disclose store fees; offer a direct download where store rules permit	Reviewed each year
A.4.3	Some AI work still runs on remote services in large data centers	5.9	Move work onto our own hardware; report the share each year	Reviewed each year
A.4.4	Our websites, accounts, email, and payments rely on large commercial cloud providers	4.2, 5.9	Prefer providers that publish energy data; keep stored data minimal; self-host where practical	Reviewed each year
A.4.5	Our computers run on grid electricity with no renewable supply contract	5.8	Renewable supply or community solar, then solar for computing	Within 12 months
A.4.6	The Charter is not yet written into our legal documents	10.1, 10.2	Amend the operating agreement; elect benefit status	Within 12 months
A.4.7	Support Periods and sunset plans are not yet published for products already in testing	4.9, 4.10	Publish both	Before general release

Every Known Exception, on the Public Record →

Plain words§ E.AWhere we fall short today

We're a small team, and we're not there yet. Our first app still includes an outside analytics tool (you can switch it off), which we're removing. We rely on big app stores and cloud companies, some of our AI work still runs in large data centers, and our computers run on ordinary grid power. Our plan to fix each of these is public, with target dates.

Schedule BTyped form

The Product Test

Every release and every Material Change must answer yes to each question below before it ships. A "no" blocks release unless it is listed in Schedule A as a Known Exception with a plan and a target; the completed test is published with the release. Several questions adapt Wendell Berry's standards for new tools (Berry 1990).

Schedule B: the Product Test questions
#	Question	Section
B.1	Can we say plainly whom this serves, and what it does for them that existing tools do not, or what joy it brings?	8.1
B.2	Does every feature serve the User, with none serving us at the User's expense?	3.2
B.3	Have we designed out ways it could help someone harm another person or push avoidable costs onto others?	3.3
B.4	Does User Data stay on the device by default, with only what is necessary leaving it, encrypted?	4.2
B.5	Have we checked every component, including third-party code, for telemetry, advertising, tracking, and data sharing, and found none?	4.3
B.6	Can a User take everything they made, in open formats, and delete what we hold?	4.5
B.7	Is there a plain-language page on what it does, what data it handles, what it costs, what it cannot do, and where it uses AI?	4.6
B.8	Is it free of dark patterns, endless feeds, retention mechanics, and default notifications?	4.7
B.9	Will everything an Owner pays for keep working without us, as far as the Product's nature allows?	4.1
B.10	For hardware: can an ordinary person open and repair it with common tools, and are the guides and part files published?	4.8, 8.7
B.11	Are its Support Period and sunset plan published?	4.9, 4.10
B.12	Is this the least resource-intensive approach that does the job well, and does it work on a five-year-old device over a slow connection?	5.6, 8.5
B.13	For hardware: are its materials listed, chosen to do the least harm, and packed without plastic wherever practical?	5.3, 5.5
B.14	Is there a free path for people who cannot pay, and does it meet WCAG 2.2 AA, tested with disabled people?	7.1, 7.3
B.15	Have we modeled its threats, updated its dependencies, and published a security contact?	8.4
B.16	Is its price fair, with every fee included and no data held hostage by a subscription?	9.3–9.5
B.17	Does every claim we make about it hold up, with no vague environmental claims?	5.10, 7.7
B.18	Would we be comfortable explaining every design decision in it in public?	3.4

Schedule CTyped form

Objections We Have Considered

A charter that cannot answer its strongest critics is not worth adopting. These are the best objections we know of, and our honest answers to them.

C.1“A company that sells things cannot oppose the harms of the market. This is marketing.”
We do not claim to stand outside the market (Section 1.2). Our claim is narrower: specific harmful practices are choices, and we refuse them in ways anyone can check (Schedule B, Article XI). The structural parts of this Charter, including benefit status, capped returns, and the change-of-control rule, bind us in law rather than in words. If we fail, the Public Record will show it.
C.2“A business's social responsibility is to increase its profits within the rules.”
This is Milton Friedman's well-known argument, and it rests on what a company's owners want (Friedman 1970). Owners may choose a different purpose. Ours have, and they have written it into the Company's legal form so that it is legitimate and binding (Section 10.1). We also agree with the part of the argument that matters most: companies should follow the law, compete honestly, and not pretend to be governments.
C.3“Markets and regulation already handle this.”
In part, and we are glad of it. But laws on repair and green claims are recent and uneven (European Union 2024a, 2024b; Oregon Legislative Assembly 2024), and buyers rarely see data practices before they buy. Where costs fall on people outside a transaction, prices mislead (Pigou 1920). We treat the law as a floor (Section 1.6) and support laws that raise it (Section 7.8).
C.4“Running AI on your own computers is less efficient than using large data centers.”
Often true per computation. Large facilities run hardware near capacity and serve many requests at once, though the average data center still spends about half again its computing power on cooling and overhead (Uptime Institute 2025). We do not claim local computing is automatically cleaner. Our case rests on what we control: the smallest model that does the job (Luccioni, Jernite, and Strubell 2024), fewer computations, heat put to use in winter, and cleaner power. Local computing also protects privacy and independence. We measure (Section 5.7), and we will change course if the numbers tell us to.
C.5“Efficiency just leads to more consumption.”
It can; economists call this the rebound effect (Sorrell 2009). That is why this Charter asks first for sufficiency, building only what is needed (Section 8.1) and keeping things longer (Section 5.2), and why we report totals, not just efficiency.
C.6“Repairable, long-lived hardware costs more and performs worse.”
Sometimes. We accept those trade-offs and say so before purchase (Section 4.6). Over a product's life the gains are large: keeping a phone five to seven years instead of three can cut its climate impact by roughly 30 to 40 percent (Fairphone 2023).
C.7“Free licenses on request will be abused.”
Some people who could pay will not. A software license costs almost nothing to give, and an honor system preserves dignity. We will publish how often it is used (Section 11.1). If abuse ever threatened the Company, we would change the method, never the principle that no one is refused for inability to pay.
C.8“Shared ownership makes it harder to raise money and decide quickly.”
True (Hansmann 1996). That is why ownership widens in stages tied to growth (Schedule A.3), and why we prefer slower growth funded by customers and supporters to faster growth funded by capital that would require us to break this Charter (Section 9.7). Worker-managed firms also tend to last (Burdín 2014).
C.9“Using AI at all contradicts your commitments to the earth and to workers.”
AI tools let a very small team build what would otherwise take many more people. Their costs are real: energy and water (Article V), and unresolved questions about creative work used in training (U.S. Copyright Office 2025). So we disclose our use, keep a person responsible, run models locally where we can, report the share, and never use AI as a reason to pay people less (Section 6.9).
C.10“One small company cannot change an industry.”
We agree, and we do not claim to (Section 1.7). A small company can show, with public numbers, that these practices are workable, as Fairphone and the Repair Café movement have, and can make them easier to copy by publishing its methods (Section 7.4).
C.11“A charter you can amend is not a promise.”
That is why the most important protections can be strengthened easily but weakened only with broad agreement and public notice, and never for products people already own (Sections 11.8 and 11.9).

Schedule DTyped form

The Canon: Approved Public Language

Every sentence the Company publishes about itself comes from this Schedule or quotes an Article by reference. Each entry carries a permanent identifier; the website, stores, packaging, and print reproduce entries by identifier, so a change here is a change everywhere. Entries compress the Articles. None adds a claim. Entries marked † depend on a Known Exception in Schedule A.4 and are used only once it is resolved.

D.1Rules of use

D.1.1Derive down, never up. An entry may compress, simplify, or reorder the Articles. It may never add a claim, a number, or a promise the Articles do not make.
D.1.2Reproduce by reference. Public copy is displayed from this Schedule by identifier, never retyped. Situational text (Section 2.2) is exempt but may not contradict this Charter.
D.1.3Identifiers are permanent. An identifier never changes meaning. A retired entry keeps its identifier, marked retired, and the identifier is never reused.
D.1.4Present tense means true today. Before any absolute claim about a specific Product, check Schedule A.4.
D.1.5Environmental words travel with their specifics. "Light" is the name of a commitment; in public it is paired with what we do and measure. Never "green," "eco-friendly," "sustainable," or "carbon neutral" (Section 5.10).
D.1.6No grand claims (Section 1.7). We say what a product does for a person.
D.1.7Money is named (Section 9.8): a purchase, a gift, a loan, or an investment, and never an implied return.
D.1.8AI is named plainly (Section 6.9). Never "AI-powered" as a selling point.
D.1.9One voice. Plain, calm, specific. "We" and "you." Numbers over adjectives.
D.1.10Every reproduction shows the Charter version it draws from.

D.2Names

Schedule D.2: Names
ID	Entry	Use
D.2.1	Artiol Technology	First mention in any text
D.2.2	Artiol	After the first mention
D.2.3	Artiol Technology, a studio of Dynamic Arts, LLC, Baltimore, Maryland	Legal and footer line
D.2.4	Not used: "Artiol Tech," "ArtiolTech," "Artiol Technologies"	—

D.3Mission and commitments

Schedule D.3: Mission and commitments
ID	Entry	From	Use
D.3.1	Artiol makes technology that answers to the people who use it: theirs to keep, built to last, light on the living world, fair to everyone it touches, and honest about all of it.	1.3	Mission sentence: About, press, decks
D.3.2	Yours. Lasting. Light. Fair. Open.	1.4	The Five Commitments, short
D.3.3	Yours to keep. Built to last. Light on the earth, and we measure it. Fair to everyone it touches. Open about all of it.	1.4	The Five Commitments, long
D.3.4	Yours: the people who use our products stay in control of them, of their data, and of their time.	1.4	Commitment card
D.3.5	Lasting: we make things to be kept, repaired, and improved, and we keep them working.	1.4	Commitment card
D.3.6	Light: we ask as little of the living world as each product's purpose allows, across its whole life, and we measure what we ask.	1.4	Commitment card
D.3.7	Fair: we keep our costs off other people, pay the people who do the work fairly, and make our work reachable by people who cannot pay full price.	1.4	Commitment card
D.3.8	Open: we say what we do, show how we do it, and report where we fall short.	1.4	Commitment card

D.4Boilerplates

From Articles I, IV, V, VI, VII, and XI.

Schedule D.4: Boilerplates
ID	Entry	Length
D.4.1	Artiol Technology is a small software and hardware studio in Baltimore, Maryland. We build apps and devices that answer to the people who use them. We design them so your data stays with you, what you buy stays bought, and hardware opens with a screwdriver. We never sell data or show ads. We commit to a living wage for everyone we pay, keep pay gaps narrow, and give our software free to anyone who can't afford it. We measure our energy use and are moving our computing to renewable power. Every year we'll report publicly on how we're doing, mistakes included.	100 words
D.4.2	Artiol Technology is a Baltimore studio making apps and devices that answer to the people who use them. We design them so your data stays with you and what you buy stays bought. We never sell data or show ads, and our software is free to anyone who can't afford it.	50 words
D.4.3	Artiol Technology makes apps and devices that answer to the people who use them: built to last, honest about their costs, and never selling your data.	25 words
D.4.4	Artiol Technology makes apps and devices that answer to the people who use them.	One line

D.5Lines

Taglines and slogans. Each names its source and its intended use; none is used where its source does not yet apply.

Schedule D.5: Lines
ID	Line	From	Use
D.5.1	Technology that answers to you.	1.3, 3.2	Primary tagline: site header, signatures, press
D.5.2	Yours to keep.	4.1, 4.5	Packaging front, store listings
D.5.3	What you buy stays bought.	4.1	Pricing pages, hardware, paid apps
D.5.4	Tools, not traps.	4.7, 9.2	Talks, articles, profiles
D.5.5	We show our work.	11.1	Public Record, annual report, footer
D.5.6	Your data lives with you.	4.2	Privacy pages, first-run screens
D.5.7	Opens with a screwdriver.	4.8, 8.7	Hardware pages, repair guides, engraving
D.5.8	Ask and it's yours.	7.1	The free-license program
D.5.9	No ads. No tracking. No selling your data.	4.3, 9.2	Store listings, app privacy screens
D.5.10	Fix it. Keep it. Own it.	4.8, 5.2	Repair nights, hardware
D.5.11	Judge us by what we ship.	Closing	Annual report, About
D.5.12	Hold us to it.	Closing, 11.4	Concern form, footer, supporter letter
D.5.13	Built to last.	5.2	Hardware, general
D.5.14	Held. This entry waits on Known Exception A.4.1, so it is not printed or used yet.	4.3	App privacy screens, once A.4 item 1 is resolved
D.5.15	Made in Baltimore.	7.6	Packaging, engraving, event signage
D.5.16	When we stop, you keep going.	4.10	Product support pages, sunset notices
D.5.17	Bring the broken thing.	7.5	Repair night signage and invitations
D.5.18	Free to anyone who can't afford it.	7.1	Store listings, pricing pages
D.5.19	One person, one vote.	10.3	About, governance pages
D.5.20	Five to one, and published.	6.3	Hiring pages

D.6Promises

For the people each Article is written to.

Schedule D.6: Promises
ID	Entry	From
D.6.1	Our promise to you. What you buy stays bought. Your data stays on your device unless you choose otherwise; we never sell it, show you ads, or track you. You can export everything and leave anytime. We tell you how long we'll support this product, and if we ever stop, we release what you need to keep using it. If we break a promise, you choose a fix or a refund.	Article IV
D.6.2	Our promise to the people who work with us. A living wage or better. Invoices paid within 15 days. No non-competes, no unpaid trial work, and no gag clauses for wrongdoing. Credit for what you make. A pay gap capped at five to one, and published. The right to organize, unopposed.	Article VI
D.6.3	Our promise to testers. You're a volunteer, and we treat you like one: we thank you, credit you if you want it, and give you the finished product free.	6.7
D.6.4	Our promise to supporters. We tell you what your money is, a purchase, a gift, a loan, or an investment, and what to expect back. We never imply a return we aren't offering. Investments only through lawful channels. No money on terms that would make us break this Charter.	9.7, 9.8
D.6.5	Our promise to our neighbors. Our doors are open on repair nights. We buy local where quality allows. We give no money to candidates or parties, and we speak for laws that protect your right to repair and your privacy, never against them.	7.5, 7.6, 7.8
D.6.6	Our promise to the living world. We make things to last, take back what we made, measure our energy and publish it, move toward renewable power, and make no environmental claim we can't show.	Article V

D.7Page copy

The website's own words, by page. Pages not listed, such as Contact, carry situational text only.

Schedule D.7: Page copy
ID	Place	Entry	From
D.7.1	Home, hero	Headline D.5.1; subhead D.4.3; buttons "Read the Charter" and "See what we make"	1.3
D.7.2	Home, what we make	Every product carries the same promise and passes the same 18-question test before it ships.	8.9, Schedule B
D.7.3	Home, where we fall short	We'd rather you hear it from us. Every gap between the Charter and our practice is listed, with a plan and a date.	11.2
D.7.4	Repair nights	Bring the lamp, the laptop, the toaster. Free, open to everyone, at our workshop in Baltimore. Tools, and people who like fixing things.	7.5
D.7.5	Access	If you can't afford our software, tell us and we'll send a free license. No proof, no questions. Schools, libraries, and nonprofits always get it free.	7.1, 7.2
D.7.6	Support us	We tell you plainly what your money is: a purchase, a gift, or, when the paperwork exists, an investment. Never a return we aren't offering. Buy something we made, the best support there is. Make a gift: not tax-deductible, and it buys no share and no return. Invest, later: only through a lawful channel, with written terms.	9.8
D.7.7	About	Artiol Technology is a small studio in Baltimore that makes software and hardware. We build things to answer to the people who use them. In practice, that means a few plain rules. We design our apps so your data stays on your device unless you choose otherwise. We never sell data, show ads, or design for addiction. What you buy keeps working, and the hardware we design opens with a screwdriver, with repair guides and printable parts. We tell you up front how long we'll support each product, and if we ever stop, we release what's needed to keep it running. We commit to a living wage for everyone we pay and keep the gap between our highest and lowest pay to five to one. Our software is free to anyone who can't afford it, and to schools, libraries, and nonprofits. We measure our energy use, run AI on our own computers wherever we can, and are moving to renewable power. All of this is written into the Artiol Charter, which binds us and anyone who might ever own us. Every year we'll publish a report on how we did, including where we fell short. Judge us by what we ship.	I, IV, V, VI, VII, X, XI
D.7.8	Products, intro	Each product page tells you what it does, what it costs, what data it handles, how long we'll support it, and what happens if we ever stop.	4.6, 4.9, 4.10
D.7.9	Services, intro	We take on a few client projects, built to the same rules as our own: no tracking, no dark patterns, accessible by default, and no lock-in.	1.2, 1.5, 4.3, 4.5, 4.7, 7.3
D.7.10	Public Record, intro	Where we stand against our own Charter, in numbers we measured ourselves. Where a number is missing, we say so rather than guess.	5.7, 11.1
D.7.11	Beta program	Testers are volunteers. We thank you, credit you if you want it, and give you the finished product free.	6.7
D.7.12	Footer	No ads. No tracking cookies. No data sales. Charter v[version]. Artiol Technology, a studio of Dynamic Arts, LLC, Baltimore, Maryland.	4.3, 9.2, D.2.3
D.7.13	Charter page, intro	This is the master statement of what we are for, what we promise, and how we will keep those promises. Every other sentence we publish about ourselves comes from it.	About, 1.8

D.8Short forms

Schedule D.8: Short forms
ID	Entry	Use	From
D.8.1	Artiol Technology · Technology that answers to you · Charter: [link]	Email signature	1.3
D.8.2	Small Baltimore studio making apps and devices that answer to you. No ads. No data sales. Built to last. Charter: [link]	Social profile, 160 characters	I, IV, V
D.8.3	Apps and devices that answer to you. Baltimore. No ads, no data sales.	Social profile, 80 characters	I, IV
D.8.4	Artiol Technology is a small Baltimore studio. We design apps so your data stays with you and what you buy stays bought. No ads, no data sales. Free to anyone who can't afford it; just ask.	Store "about the developer," 300 characters	IV, VII
D.8.5	Yours to keep.	Packaging, front	4.1
D.8.6	Opens with a screwdriver. Repair guide and parts at [link]. Done with it? Send it back, free.	Packaging, back	4.8, 5.4
D.8.7	Repair guide: [link] · Made in Baltimore	Engraved inside the case	8.7, 7.6
D.8.8	Held. This entry waits on Known Exception A.4.1 and Known Exception A.4.4, so it is not printed or used yet.	First-run screen in apps	4.2, 4.3, 4.5
D.8.9	What leaves this device: [list]. Nothing else.	Settings, privacy header	4.3, 4.6
D.8.10	Doing now · Next · Known exception	Status labels on the Charter page and Public Record	Schedule A
D.8.11	Every release passes the Product Test before it ships. Here's what changed.	Release notes opener	8.9
D.8.12	Product Test: 18 of 18 / 17 of 18, one known exception	Badge on product pages	Schedule B
D.8.13	What we shipped, what we fixed, and what we got wrong.	Newsletter opener	11.1
D.8.14	Repair night tonight. Bring the broken thing.	Workshop door sign	7.5

D.9Notices and templates

Bracketed fields are situational text.

Schedule D.9: Notices and templates
ID	Entry	From
D.9.1	Support period. [Product] is supported with security fixes until at least [date]. We may extend this. We will never shorten it for a copy you already have.	4.9
D.9.2	Sunset notice. On [date, at least six months from today], we'll stop developing [Product]. Before then: a final version that works without our servers wherever possible, your data exportable, and the source code and documentation released under an open license so anyone can keep it running. Nothing you paid for switches off.	4.1, 4.10
D.9.3	Price change. From [date, at least 30 days from today], [Product] will cost [price]. Time you've already paid for stays at the old price.	9.5
D.9.4	Data incident. On [date] we confirmed that [what] was exposed. [Who] is affected. Here is what happened, what we did, and what we've changed. We're telling you within 72 hours because that's our rule.	4.12
D.9.5	Concern received. We received your concern on [date]. We'll answer publicly on the Public Record within 30 days, without naming you.	11.4
D.9.6	Concern answered. Concern received [date]: [summary]. What we found: [finding]. What we changed: [change].	11.4
D.9.7	Free license. Here's your license: [key]. No questions asked. If you can pay later, you can; if not, that's fine too.	7.1
D.9.8	Take-back. Done with it? Send it back, free. We'll repair, reuse, or recycle it through a certified recycler and publish where it went.	5.4
D.9.9	Repair night. Repair night at [place], [date and time]. Bring the broken thing. Free, open to everyone.	7.5
D.9.10	Job posting opener. Pay: [range], published. The highest pay here is capped at five times the lowest. Invoices paid within 15 days. No non-competes. You can organize; we won't oppose it. After 12 months at 20 or more hours a week, you're offered membership.	6.1–6.5, A.3
D.9.11	Annual report opener. This is our [year] report against the Artiol Charter: every Article, every known exception, our energy, our pay ratio, our mistakes. Signed by this year's Charter Steward, [name].	11.1, 11.3
D.9.12	Government requests, yearly. Requests for user data received in [year]: [n]. Answered: [n], as narrowly as the law allows. People notified: [n].	4.11
D.9.13	Acquisition notice. We acquired [product] on [date]. Here is every way it falls short of our Charter, and the date by which each will be fixed or the product retired.	10.6
D.9.14	Change of control. Artiol can't be sold to anyone who won't sign the Charter. If that ever happened, every product would first get its final open release.	10.5
D.9.15	Subscription fallback. Subscribe for 12 months in a row and you keep a permanent license to the version you had when those 12 months began, even if you cancel.	9.4, A.2
D.9.16	Pricing line. The price you see is the price you pay. It changes only with 30 days' notice, never for time you've already paid for.	7.7, 9.5
D.9.17	Supporter letter. Dear [name], we're writing to tell you about Artiol Technology and to ask for your support. Artiol is a small studio in Baltimore that makes apps and devices. We've written down exactly how we intend to run it, in the Artiol Charter: your data stays with you, what you buy stays bought, hardware opens with a screwdriver, no ads, no data sales, a living wage and a narrow pay gap, our software free to anyone who can't afford it, and a public report every year on how we're doing, including where we fall short. We're not promising to fix the technology industry. We're promising to run one company this way, in public, and to make it hard for anyone, including us, to back out. [One of: A gift: your gift pays for [specific use]; it is not tax-deductible, and it buys no share and no return. A purchase: you'll receive [product, license, or membership] when it ships. An investment or loan: please don't send money yet; we'll share written terms through a channel that complies with securities law.] Whatever you choose, the most useful thing you can do is hold us to what we've written. With thanks, [names].	Preamble, 9.8, Closing

D.10Words we use, and words we don't

Schedule D.10: Words we use, and words we don't
Instead of	We say
"eco-friendly," "green," "sustainable," "carbon neutral"	What we did, and what we measured
"change the world," "revolutionize," "disrupt"	What the product does for a person
"AI-powered"	What the feature does, and that it uses AI
"free" with conditions attached	"Free" only when it is free
"users" in public copy	"people" (the Charter's defined term stays "User")
"community" as a growth word	The actual people and events
"visionaries," "the future"	Who it is for, and what it does now

Schedule ETyped form

The Charter in Plain Words

The same Charter in everyday language, keyed to the Articles it restates so that any page can show the two side by side. If the two ever seem to disagree, the Articles win.

E.PWhy we wrote thisRestates Preamble
We make software and hardware. Over the past twenty years, much of the technology industry learned to make money from people in ways they didn't choose: watching them, keeping them scrolling, renting them what they thought they'd bought, and making repair hard so they buy again. None of that was inevitable. This Charter records the different choices we have made. We're not a charity, and we don't claim we'll fix the industry. We promise to run one company this way, in public, and to make that promise hard to break, even for us.
E.1Who we areRestates Article I
We are Artiol Technology, a small studio in Baltimore that makes apps and physical devices. We sell what we make at fair prices. We think a technology company can earn its living by being useful instead of by taking advantage of people. Five commitments run through everything: Yours, Lasting, Light, Fair, Open. We follow the law, and where this Charter asks more, we do more. We don't claim our products will solve big problems; we claim we'll make each one the way this Charter says, and that anyone can check. Every word we publish about ourselves comes from this document.
E.3What we mean by goodRestates Article III
Something we make is good when it serves the person using it, is made to be kept rather than replaced, asks as little of the earth as it can, keeps its costs off other people, and tells the truth about itself. When interests collide, the person using the product comes first and we come last, with one limit: nobody gets to use our products to harm someone else. Not everything has to be important. Fun counts.
E.4What we promise youRestates Article IV
What you buy stays bought; we won't switch off or take away features you paid for. Your information stays on your device unless you choose otherwise, and we never sell it, show you ads, or track you. You can take everything you made and leave, anytime, for free. We tell you in plain words what a product does, what it costs, and when it uses AI. We don't design anything to keep you hooked. You can open, repair, and upgrade our hardware without voiding the warranty. We tell you up front how long we'll support a product; if we ever stop, we give six months' notice and release what you need to keep using it. We hold so little data that we have little to hand over to anyone. If your data is ever exposed, we tell you within 72 hours. If we break a promise, you choose a fix or a refund.
E.5How we treat the earthRestates Article V
Most of a gadget's environmental cost comes from making it, so the best thing we can do is make things that last. We use the simplest technology that does the job, measure the electricity our computers use and publish it, and keep moving toward renewable and solar power. We take back anything we've made, free, and skip plastic packaging wherever we can. We will never call ourselves "carbon neutral" because we bought offsets, and we won't use vague words like "eco-friendly." We'll tell you what we actually do.
E.6How we treat the people who work with us, and how we use AIRestates Article VI
Everyone we pay earns at least a living wage. The highest-paid person here will never earn more than five times the lowest-paid. We pay invoices within 15 days. We respect people's right to organize, and everyone who helps gets credit. We use AI tools to help us design and build; a person is responsible for everything we ship. We run AI on our own computers whenever we can and are cutting how much we rely on big remote data centers. We never train AI on your data without your clear permission.
E.7How we treat our neighborsRestates Article VII
If you can't afford our software, ask and it's yours, no proof needed. Schools, libraries, and nonprofits get it free. We build for people with disabilities from the start. We host free repair nights at our workshop. We share what we know. We don't give money to political candidates or parties.
E.8How we make thingsRestates Article VIII
We build only what we can explain the need for. We keep our promises in the design itself, so breaking them would mean rebuilding the product. Private and secure settings are the defaults. Everything is tested on an old phone and a slow connection. Hardware is built to be opened. Nothing ships until it passes our 18-question test, and the result is published.
E.9How we make money, and how we don'tRestates Article IX
We make money by selling things people want. Never from ads, from selling data, or from keeping you glued to a screen. If you subscribe and later stop, you keep your data, and after a year of paying you keep a version of the product for good. Prices go up only with 30 days' notice, never for time you've already paid for. Our money goes, in order, to fair pay, to a reserve that keeps our promises, to at least 1 percent for access and community, then to reinvestment, with returns to investors capped.
E.10Who owns us, and what happens if things changeRestates Article X
We're writing this Charter into our legal paperwork so it binds us and anyone who might ever buy us. If a buyer won't agree to it, we first release what's needed to keep our products working. Each owner has one vote, whatever they invested. As we grow, the people who work here are offered a share of ownership. If we ever have to close, our products are set up to keep working.
E.11How you can checkRestates Article XI
Every year we publish a public report on how we did, mistakes included. Anyone can raise a concern, and we answer publicly within 30 days. Our promises to you can be made stronger easily, and they can never be weakened for anything you already own.
E.AWhere we fall short todayRestates Schedule A.4
We're a small team, and we're not there yet. Our first app still includes an outside analytics tool (you can switch it off), which we're removing. We rely on big app stores and cloud companies, some of our AI work still runs in large data centers, and our computers run on ordinary grid power. Our plan to fix each of these is public, with target dates.

Back matter75 works

Sources

Web sources were checked on 22 October 2026. Works are cited for the facts and arguments attributed to them; their authors do not endorse this Charter.

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Back matter§ 11.13

Versions

Versions of the Charter
Version	Date	What changed
1.0	4 November 2026	To bring the Canon inside the Charter

TheArtiol Charter

About This Charter

Preamble

Name, Nature, and Purpose

§ 1.1Name

§ 1.2Nature

§ 1.3Purpose

§ 1.4The Five Commitments

§ 1.5Scope

§ 1.6Law as the floor

§ 1.7Modesty of claims

§ 1.8One source for every public word

Definitions

§ 2.1Reading conventions

§ 2.2Terms for the public voice

What We Mean by Good

§ 3.1Definition

§ 3.2Order of loyalty

§ 3.3The limit of loyalty

§ 3.4When in doubt

§ 3.5Room for joy

§ 3.6In plainer words

The Rights of Users and Owners

§ 4.1What you buy stays bought

§ 4.2Your data lives with you

§ 4.3No surveillance, no sale

§ 4.4Your data is not our asset

§ 4.5The right to leave

§ 4.6The right to understand

§ 4.7Your attention is your own

§ 4.8The right to repair, modify, and upgrade

§ 4.9Support you can count on

§ 4.10When we stop, you keep going

§ 4.11Requests from governments

§ 4.12If something goes wrong

§ 4.13Remedies

Our Duties to the Living World

§ 5.1Whole-life responsibility

§ 5.2Longevity first

§ 5.3Materials

§ 5.4Take-back

§ 5.5Packaging

§ 5.6The smallest sufficient computation

§ 5.7Measure and publish

§ 5.8Cleaner power, better timing, useful heat

§ 5.9Remote computing

§ 5.10No offset claims, no vague claims

§ 5.11Tools for care

Our Duties to the People Who Do the Work

§ 6.1Fair pay

§ 6.2Fair pay includes us

§ 6.3A narrow gap

§ 6.4Prompt payment

§ 6.5Voice and dignity

§ 6.6Safe workspaces

§ 6.7Credit and thanks

§ 6.8Suppliers

§ 6.9Use of artificial intelligence

Our Duties to the Public

§ 7.1No one refused for inability to pay

§ 7.2Schools, libraries, and public-interest groups

§ 7.3Access for every body and mind

§ 7.4Open by default

§ 7.5Sharing what we know

§ 7.6Local roots

§ 7.7Honest selling

§ 7.8Civic conduct

How We Make Things

§ 8.1Need before build

§ 8.2Architecture over promises

§ 8.3Inform, then step back

§ 8.4Private and secure by default

§ 8.5Built for older devices and slower connections

§ 8.6Made with the people who use them

§ 8.7Hardware made to be opened

§ 8.8Quality before quantity

§ 8.9The Product Test

How We Earn and Use Money

§ 9.1Earning a living

§ 9.2Income we refuse

The
Artiol Charter