The Shuttleworth Foundation subscribes to and promotes the ethos and philosophy embodied in free and open source software – collaboration and the freedom to use, adapt and share resources.

The Foundation does not directly fund the development of free and open source software, nor does it fund initiatives with the development or advocacy of free and open source software as the primary objective. We rather apply the free and open source philosophy as the underlying principle to our work, collaborating with partners to drive change and using open licences to allow learnings and resources to be used, adapted and shared widely. We also give preference to the use of free and open source software in our own initiatives and encourage the same in our partners.