# Guiding Principles

The Vitess project operates under the guiding principles described below. The [Steering Committee](https://github.com/vitessio/vitess/blob/main/STEERING.md) is responsible for upholding these principles and keeping this document updated with any changes.

# Mission Statement

*“To be the most performant, scalable, and available NewSQL storage system in the Cloud.”*

Vitess can currently run on bare-metal or in the cloud. However, the trend is clear that applications are moving to the cloud. For the foreseeable future, we should continue to support the ability to run on bare-metal, because it will facilitate migration to the cloud.

The Vitess architecture is generic enough to accommodate any other RDBMS in the future. However, Vitess currently runs on MySQL and has many features that provide compatibility with it. Vitess should remain focused on MySQL until all frictions are removed for those who wish to migrate from MySQL to Vitess.

# Vision

The vision of the Vitess project is to serve the software community by gaining popularity and adoption.

# Values

Vitess is driven by high technical standards, and these must be maintained. It is also important to take into account that multiple humans are participating in the project, and we must ensure that we all treat each other well. In this respect, we will honor the following values:

* Technical excellence
* Innovation and creativity
* Fairness and equality
* Diversity
* Inclusiveness
* Openness
* Adherence to the [Code of Conduct](https://github.com/vitessio/vitess/blob/main/CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md)
