Governance.

Purpose

Governance maintains the integrity, continuity and change control of Responsibility Infrastructure. It defines how normative material is maintained, how participation occurs, how disagreements are recorded and how changes are published.

Institutional neutrality

Responsibility Infrastructure is intended to remain usable by organisations that do not share a supplier, software stack, sector, commercial relationship or internal governance model. No vendor implementation, open-source project or sector extension becomes the normative reference merely by reproducing RI functions or achieving market adoption.

Normative requirements are established through the published RI corpus and its change process. Implementations are assessed against that reference point rather than the reference point being defined by an implementation.

Separation of functions

Standard-setting, implementation, evaluation, Recognition, Registry publication, Resolution and Reliance are distinct functions. Conformance with the Standard or use of the Protocol does not transfer authority over the other functions.

This separation allows regulators, procurers, insurers, auditors, professional bodies, vendors and relying organisations to use a common responsibility standard while retaining their own statutory, contractual, professional and operational authority.

Change control

A normative change must identify the affected publication or requirement, the reason for change, its effect on implementation or interoperability, and the version in which the change takes effect. Accepted changes are published through the applicable publication process rather than altering an issued version silently.

Publication lifecycle

Proposed

Reserved or proposed material. Not part of the issued requirement set.

Working Draft

Early public draft subject to substantive change.

Consultation Draft

Published for structured review and recorded comment.

Issued

Current published version within the Responsibility Infrastructure corpus.

Superseded / Withdrawn

Retained in the record with its historical status and replacement or withdrawal information.

Participation

Participation may include implementation evidence, technical criticism, change proposals, consultation and working groups. Contributions do not alter normative requirements until a change has completed the applicable review and publication process.

Versions and conformance

Every conformance claim must identify the relevant role, scope and version. Superseded and withdrawn material remains identifiable so implementers and relying parties can determine which requirements applied at a particular time.

Governance record

Governance instruments, consultation material, issued requirements and version history are published through the Publications Registry with their applicable status.