# Governance

## Why this document exists

The thing that makes a standard outlive its author is neutral governance. The thing that kills
a standard is capture by a single vendor — **including capture by the founder**. This document
is a commitment against that.

## Structure (target)

* The **specification and taxonomy** (`spec/`) and the certification mark are to be assigned to
  an independent foundation. Adopting the taxonomy must never mean depending on any one company.
* **Implementations** — including commercial ones — compete freely on top of the spec.
* Conformance testing and mark licensing fund the foundation, not any individual.

## Decision making

* Taxonomy changes: public RFC, evidence required, minimum 14-day comment period.
* Spec versioning: semantic. A detector behaviour change requires a signal version bump.
* The repository owner is the current accountable maintainer. Contributor and reviewer
  lanes are described in `docs/footer-workflows.md` and the public Teamwork panel;
  an open lane is not an accepted assignment. No separate MAINTAINERS.md roster exists yet.

## Conflicts of interest

Maintainers with a commercial interest in an implementation must recuse themselves from votes
on conformance decisions affecting it.