Governance¶
Draft for ratification
This page takes effect when each founding coordinator has approved the pull request that adopts it.
The Foundry's structure follows the OBO Foundry model: an Operations Committee with overall responsibility, and working groups that carry out the work.
Operations Committee¶
During the founding phase the Operations Committee consists of the founding coordinators:
- David R. Koepsell
- William Mandrick
- Barry Smith
The Operations Committee is responsible for the principles, the registry, the
w3id.org/lof namespace, admission decisions, and appointments to working
groups. It meets as needed and records decisions in this repository.
Working groups¶
See Working groups.
Decision-making¶
- Routine changes (typo fixes, clarifications, new registry entries at draft status, updates to an ontology's own metadata) need approval from one Operations Committee member on the pull request.
- Substantive changes (new or amended principles or policies, admission to accepted status, changes to the identifier scheme, changes to this page) need approval from all Operations Committee members, after a comment period of at least 14 days announced in Discussions.
- The committee aims for consensus. A substantive change on which consensus cannot be reached is not adopted.
The pull-request history of this repository is the Foundry's official record of decisions.
Ontology status¶
The metadata policy defines the two status fields,
status (draft, candidate, accepted, deprecated) and activity_status
(active, inactive, orphaned). Status changes follow the
review SOP.
Transition beyond the founding phase¶
Once the Foundry has at least five accepted ontologies maintained by at least three independent groups, the Operations Committee will propose a standing structure with elected, rotating membership, for adoption under the rules above.
Conduct¶
All participation is governed by the Code of Conduct.