ACES specification-development governance
Policy version 1.0. Effective 5 November 2026.
1. Authority and application
This policy is the operative development and publication framework of the ACES Working Group. Adoption is recorded in Notices.md on the confirmation and publication instruction of consortium coordinator Reuven Farchi. The policy applies to the specification, its profiles, contributions and official releases.
The Working Group for CSL purposes is the ACES specification-development project. Its technical scope is Scope.md. LICENSE.md controls the legal grants; these policies control project participation and decisions without amending the license.
Membership incorporates the contributor agreement under MEMBERSHIP.md. Adoption is not an assignment of anyone's copyright, patents or trademarks, and does not itself create a corporation or foundation. Stewardship and IP ownership are distinct.
2. Participation and roles
Technical participation is open without a fee or membership requirement. Anyone materially interested may submit a reasoned proposal and have it considered. Contributions follow CONTRIBUTING.md. Membership or financial support does not purchase exclusive control or preferential implementation rights.
The initial coordinator and specification maintainer is Reuven Farchi. The coordination address is info@aces-consortium.org. Maintainers review submissions, preserve technical accuracy, administer notice records and publish releases. Editors carry out recorded decisions.
Additional or replacement maintainers are appointed through a documented consortium decision consistent with its membership arrangements. Record appointments in Notices.md. Seek balanced participation; multiple employees of one organization do not by themselves establish broader consensus.
3. Decisions, changes and appeals
Use reasoned consensus. Record material proposals, support, objections, alternatives considered and reasons for the decision. Consensus need not mean unanimity, but material objections must be addressed rather than hidden. Disclose relevant conflicts and obtain uninvolved review where practicable.
Announce material governance or Scope changes and allow at least 14 calendar days for review. A procedural exception requires the express agreement of all materially affected participants and cannot shorten any CSL right or deadline. Identify the exact adopted text and effective date. Changes to Scope are not retroactive under CSL Section 9.13. New licensing commitments require the affirmative acceptance described in MEMBERSHIP.md; they are not inferred from silence.
An affected participant may appeal by issue, pull request or written request to the coordination address. Record the appeal, obtain uninvolved review where possible, and provide a reasoned response, ordinarily within 30 days. Hold a disputed technical approval while a material rights or due-process objection remains unresolved. Do not suppress a legal notice or good-faith technical objection through membership administration.
4. Legal and technical status
Legal framework: version 1.0 is effective from 5 November 2026. It applies to working drafts as well as later approved releases.
Proposal: material submitted for consideration. Workflow labels do not redefine CSL or defer the legal effect of a Contribution.
Working draft: a version published for development and review, with its technical limitations and applicable Scope identified. Public availability is not final technical approval.
Approved Specification: an exact version expressly designated through the process below and recorded as such under CSL Section 9.2. A merge, release tag, website posting or adoption of the legal framework alone does not confer this status.
Specification revision 0.2.1, technical baseline 0.2, is an official ACES working-draft release governed by the effective framework. It is not designated an Approved Specification. No certification is granted by that release.
5. Approved Specification procedure
Before designating an Approved Specification:
- Freeze the candidate and identify its exact version, Scope and included normative profiles. Announce the candidate and proposed approval date to contributors and interested participants. Allow at least 45 calendar days for final project review.
- Track each relevant Contribution's date and all CSL Section 3 rights separately. Wait until applicable contribution-based exclusion periods have elapsed and preserve the pre-approval exclusion opportunity in Section 3.2. The project review window does not redefine or revive those rights. Material changes require renewed review of affected material and its applicable periods.
- Review all submitted notices, including unmerged notice pull requests. Preserve original notices and timestamps. Record disputes about validity without suppressing the notice or claiming to decide legal rights conclusively.
- Do not approve an affected required feature while a recorded patent exclusion or known blocking patent-licensing issue remains unresolved. Remove or redesign the dependency, obtain a documented effective withdrawal, or obtain documented royalty-free permission covering affected implementations on terms compatible with open-source and proprietary use. Record the resolution. This rule does not cancel a CSL exclusion right or guarantee that undiscovered patents do not exist.
- Resolve substantive technical objections, identify conformance requirements and record the evidence of consensus, decision authority, approval date, exact source revision and release artifacts in
Notices.md.
Working drafts may be published before this procedure is complete. Release records must identify their draft status, submitted exclusions and applicable open review periods; a draft must not be described as universally patent-cleared.
6. Publication and preservation
Follow RELEASE-CHECKLIST.md. Publish the specification and legal documents together. Retain versioned content, full licenses, Scope, notice snapshots, actual public publication evidence and integrity hashes. Keep historical releases available and issue corrections as new revisions instead of rewriting the historical record.
A legal effective date, private commit or checksum does not by itself establish public accessibility on that date. Record actual publication evidence when deployment takes place.
Submission to another standards organization or transfer of stewardship requires a recorded authorized decision and sufficient rights. Preserve existing grants and commitments; a stewardship change does not extinguish them or transfer ownership automatically.
7. Non-confidential participation and fair competition
Public contributions must be authorized for disclosure. A private repository does not authorize publication of unrelated confidential material. Follow the conduct and competition requirements in CONTRIBUTING.md and CSL Section 6.
Independent implementation, proprietary products, competing development, lawful criticism and derivative specifications remain permitted under their applicable terms. Identity and certification policy cannot be used to rewrite CSL's grants.