# Interim governance charter

> Status: interim, v1.0 (2026-07-20). This charter governs the standard until stewardship
> transfers to a neutral standards home. It is published so that implementers can see how
> decisions are made before that transfer happens. Licence: CC-BY-4.0.

## 1. What this charter covers

This charter covers the Lending Deal-Package Readiness standard and its companion artifacts:
the pack schema, the field catalogue, the code lists, the requirement profiles, the reference
data registry, the disposition message, the borrowing-base certificate, the conformance vectors
and the reference validator.

## 2. Current steward

The maintainers (AskVouch) steward v0 as the reference implementation. Stewardship means the
maintainers publish releases, run the change process below, and answer implementation questions.
Stewardship is not ownership of the specification: the licences in §5 grant everyone the right
to implement, fork and redistribute the standard.

## 3. Decision rights

| Decision | Who decides today | Who decides after transfer |
|---|---|---|
| Editorial and non-normative changes | Maintainers | Editors appointed by the standards home |
| Additive normative changes (new optional field, new code, new profile) | Maintainers, after a comment window (§4) | The standards home's process |
| Breaking normative changes (new required field, changed rule, removed code) | Maintainers, after a comment window, recorded in the changelog with a migration note | The standards home's process |
| Adopting a name, trademark or namespace | Maintainers, subject to clearance | The standards home |
| Transferring stewardship | Maintainers, on the criteria in §7 | n/a |

Implementers with a conforming producer or consumer may request a standing seat in the review of
normative changes. Write to `ask@askvouch.com`.

## 4. Change control and the comment window

1. A proposed normative change is published as a draft artifact with a version number and a
   dated comment window of **at least 21 days**.
2. Comments go to `ask@askvouch.com`. Comments and their disposition are recorded in the
   changelog entry for the release.
3. A change ships only after the window closes. Editorial fixes, security fixes and corrections
   of factual errors may ship immediately and are marked as such.
4. Every release states whether it is **additive** or **breaking**. Breaking changes carry a
   migration note.
5. Requirement profiles are normative artifacts and follow this process. Profiles shaped with
   individual funders are published as drafts and go through the same window before they are
   treated as normative.

## 5. Licences

- Schema, catalogue, code lists, profiles, reference data, validator and other code:
  **Apache-2.0**.
- Specification prose and documentation: **CC-BY-4.0**.
- Upstream attributions are recorded in `NOTICE`.
- Patent position: see `PATENTS.md`.

## 6. Conformance and the reference implementation

The reference validator defines conformance in practice. The maintainers operate a reference
implementation (AskVouch). The reference implementation holds no privileged position: it passes
the same published conformance vectors that any other implementation runs, and its failures are
bugs in the implementation, not in the standard.

## 7. Transfer to a neutral standards home

The maintainers intend to transfer stewardship to a recognised industry or national standards
body. The transfer criteria are:

1. At least two independent conforming producers, and
2. at least two funders consuming conforming packs in production, or a standards body that
   accepts the work into an existing programme, and
3. a receiving body that will maintain the licences in §5 and the patent position in
   `PATENTS.md`.

Until transfer, this charter applies. The maintainers publish progress against these criteria in
the changelog.

## 8. Conflicts of interest

The maintainers operate a commercial product that consumes this standard. Two safeguards apply:
the standard's artifacts are licensed so that a competitor can implement them fully without
permission, and no normative change may require a feature that only the reference implementation
can provide.

## 9. Contact

`ask@askvouch.com` — implementation questions, comments on drafts, spec findings, and requests
for a review seat.