Status: operator review proposals. No legal terms, membership, asset transfer, license change, endorsement, submission or outreach is approved by this document.
Recommended meeting request
“Would your group review this scoped execution contract and its negative tests, identify overlap with existing work, and help recruit one independent implementer and one assessor? We will bring a versioned package, reproducible evidence and an explicit gap report. We are asking for technical scrutiny before adoption.”
The proposed first audience is relevant AAIF technical working groups, with the existing contribution roadmap preserving W3C/IEEE/NIST/IETF and other venue ownership. A successful meeting identifies the appropriate group, a named technical contact, bounded artifacts to review and an explicitly authorized follow-up. It does not create a new universal standard.
Options
| Route | Purpose | Decisions still required |
|---|---|---|
| Existing working-group contribution — recommended first | Review semantics, overlap and negative vectors before forming a new project | Artifact scope, permissible sharing and the receiving group’s contribution terms |
| AAIF technical project / Sandbox exploration | Potential neutral home for portable implementation and tests | Permissive license, exact project assets/trademarks, LF charter, maintainers, resources and growth plan |
| Community Specification process | Repository-based specification development with specification-specific legal/governance terms | Rights inventory, scope, contributor consent, reviewed terms, appeals and release process |
| JDF project exploration | Multi-organization specification programme | Founding collaborators, resources, assets, charter/IP framework and organization commitments |
AAIF’s current lifecycle policy requires project asset/trademark transfer and a technical charter in addition to technical readiness. Sandbox does not imply endorsement; a working implementation and active maintainer are required. Its six-month checkpoint and twelve-month Growth expectation matter to capacity planning. These conditions require owner review rather than an assumed transfer of the DPF platform. AAIF policy, intake.
The Community Specification process addresses rights for independent specification implementations. Ordinary code licensing should not be assumed to resolve every specification-specific patent question. JDF uses its provided agreements; IP structure follows the project’s chartered process. These are review options, not accepted terms. Community Specification, JDF FAQ.
Proposed operating terms for review
- Identify normative text, code, tests and tutorial material separately.
- Keep stable requirement identifiers and a versioned changelog with impact/migration notes.
- Maintain an issue/disposition record with dissent and appeal paths.
- Separate author, reviewer and claim assessor roles.
- Require claims to identify profile, version, applicable denominator, evidence level and limitations.
- Define security disclosure, evidence minimization, restricted-data handling and reproducible public tests.
- Name maintainers; define succession, appointment/removal and emergency correction authority.
- Disclose organizational affiliations and funding; sponsorship is not technical approval.
- Preserve existing identity/protocol/measurement venue ownership rather than creating competing transport or certification machinery.
Owner decisions before filing
- Identify rights holders and any relevant patent interests for each artifact.
- Select a bounded specification contribution or a hosted implementation/test project.
- Identify exactly which assets, if any, could be transferred; do not assume the whole platform.
- Have the owner review specification, code, test, contribution and patent terms.
- Name who can represent the rights owner and approve a specific submission.
- Establish maintainer capacity, funding, issue resolution and independent assessor arrangements.
- Approve the specific external action and recipients before sending or filing anything.
The repository currently declares Apache-2.0 and DCO contributions. This packet changes neither; those facts alone do not approve a new specification-essential patent posture, contribution agreement or asset transfer. No external communication is sent by producing the materials.