ACES legal framework
Version 1.0 | Effective 5 November 2026
ACES is an open, vendor-neutral specification-development project. Its specification is available under the Community Specification License 1.0. Both commercial and open-source implementations are permitted under the applicable terms. Consortium membership is not required to read the specification, implement it or submit a technical proposal.
Specification
ACES Specification v0.2.1, Word
ACES Specification v0.2.1, Markdown
The specification is a technical working draft. The legal framework below is effective and applies to its publication and development; it is not conditional on completion of the technical standard.
Licenses and patent terms
- Community Specification License 1.0: the complete specification license, including patent grants, acceptance methods and exclusions.
- Licensing and attribution: which material each license covers, attribution and implementer acceptance.
- Working-group scope: the technical scope used by the patent provisions.
- Notices and records: adoption, contributor acceptance, patent exclusions and other notices.
- Apache License 2.0: license for the designated JSON examples and preliminary schema.
Membership, contributions and governance
- Membership terms: acceptance of the legal framework as a condition of membership.
- Contributor agreement: the agreement accepted through membership or an authorized non-member contribution.
- Contributing: submission and review procedure.
- Governance: official specification decisions, review and approval.
- Identity and certification policy: honest compatibility statements, official branding and certification claims.
Membership incorporates contributor acceptance. An implementer seeking the CSL Section 2.1 patent grants must also follow a Section 2.1.3 acceptance route. The full licenses govern; this index does not replace them or guarantee freedom from third-party rights. No product certification is conferred by membership or by implementing a draft.
Coordination and legal notices: info@aces-consortium.org. Notices for which CSL requires a repository pull request or commit must follow the procedure in Notices.md.