Standards Process

The Foundation publishes specifications through a public, multi-stage process. The process is designed to balance technical rigor against the speed required by an evolving field, to ensure broad input from implementers, and to produce specifications that are interoperable, testable, and free of single-vendor capture.

Every Foundation specification advances through five public stages.

Pre-Draft

A Pre-Draft is an initial proposal authored by one or more members and submitted to a Working Group. Pre-Drafts are exploratory, may be revised freely, and carry no normative weight.

Draft

On Working Group acceptance, a Pre-Draft becomes a Draft. Drafts are formally numbered, publicly versioned, and entered into the Foundation's RFC registry. Drafts may evolve through multiple revisions and undergo Working Group review.

Last Call

When the Working Group judges a Draft technically complete, it enters a Last Call period of not less than thirty (30) days. During Last Call, the wider Foundation membership and the public may submit formal comments. The Working Group must address each comment in the public record.

Candidate Recommendation

After Last Call, the Draft becomes a Candidate Recommendation. A Candidate Recommendation requires at least two independent implementations that demonstrably interoperate against the published conformance criteria.

Final

On confirmation of conformance and Working Group super-majority vote, the Technical Steering Committee may ratify a Candidate Recommendation as a Final Standard. Final Standards are immutable; subsequent changes proceed through a new Draft.

Each Working Group operates under a public charter, an elected chair, and an open mailing list. Working Group meetings are public and recorded. Working Groups conduct routine business by lazy consensus and resolve disputes by recorded vote.

A Working Group may not advance a Draft to Last Call without the affirmative recorded vote of two-thirds of its voting membership.

• Editorial changes: lazy consensus on the public list.
• Procedural decisions: simple majority of present voting members.
• Advancement to Last Call: two-thirds of Working Group voting membership.
• Ratification to Final: two-thirds of the Technical Steering Committee following Working Group recommendation.

No vote shall be conducted in a private channel. All votes shall be recorded and entered into the public Foundation registry within seven (7) days of conclusion.

For a Candidate Recommendation to advance to Final, the Working Group shall publish:

• Conformance criteria sufficient for independent implementers to test against;
• Evidence of at least two independent implementations exercising the full normative scope;
• An interoperability matrix documenting tested behavior;
• Disposition of every Last Call comment.

Errata to a Final Standard are issued as numbered amendments. Substantive changes that alter normative behavior require a new Draft and shall not be issued as errata.

A Final Standard may be withdrawn from active status by a two-thirds vote of the Technical Steering Committee in cases of demonstrated harm, irreparable interoperability failure, or supersession by a successor specification. Withdrawn standards remain published under their original license.