feat: add ELF Directives 101-105 adapted from CalConnect directives

[ronaldtse]

Summary

Adds the ELF Directives (ELF 101–105), adapted from the CalConnect Directives to satisfy ISO and IEC liaison requirements (documented standardization procedures incl. consensus, review, and appeals; patent and IPR policies; publication rules).

The port was done in two steps: a verbatim copy commit, followed by one adaptation commit per document, so each rewrite can be diffed against the original.

ELF	Title	Adapted from
101	Standardization and publication	CC/DIR 10001:2019
102	Standard document requirements	CC/DIR 10002:2019
103	Patent policy	CC/DIR 10003:2019
104	Guidelines for the implementation of the patent policy	CC/DIR 10005:2019
105	Intellectual property rights policy	CC/DIR 10006:2019

Key adaptations

• Governance: Board of Directors; TCB (Technical Coordination Board) absorbs the CC TCC and TC PUBLISH roles; ELF technical committees (multiple, incl. EXPRESS); Executive Director retained.
• ELF 101: added an Appeals clause (ISO/IEC liaison criteria expect one); consolidated the per-stage co-development/JCG blocks into a single "Liaisons and collaborative development" clause; public review/commenting via expresslang.org + the GitHub issue tracker; 60-day review (WTO TBT) and all ISO stage-alignment annotations retained.
• ELF 102: identifier scheme and examples rewritten for ELF (ELF/Guide/DS 38002:2018, ELF/ISO); CSD XML → ELF XML (an adopted form of Metanorma XML).
• ELF 103: entity renames only (identical to the ISO/IEC/ITU common patent policy by design).
• ELF 104: declaration form annex updated (Executive Director, EXPRESS Language Foundation address); fixed broken cross-references inherited from CC/DIR 10005 (clause=1 → 4, clause=2.3 → 5.4, scope's duplicated 10001 → 10002).
• ELF 105: split into sections; software clause enabled (aligned with ITU Software Copyright Guidelines).

Notes for review

• patents@ alias: the ELF 104 declaration form currently points to info@expresslang.org as a placeholder.
• ELF 105 software license terms (use/modification/redistribution) deserve a legal glance.
• All five build locally via bundle exec metanorma compile; build fixes for terms-clause recognition and normrefs heading casing are included.

ISO/IEC liaison criteria mapping

Against ISO/IEC Directives Part 1 (Consolidated ISO Supplement, 2024), clause 1.17:

Satisfied by this PR:

• 1.17.6.1 criterion 5 (stakeholder engagement and consensus process): ELF 101 — consensus defined as 2/3 affirmative, TCB balloting with mandatory voting, 60-day public review aligned with WTO TBT, comment disposition, corrections and maintenance, appeals (announcement-defined clock, recusal).
• 1.17.1 copyright/patent acceptance: ELF 103 is identical in content to the ITU-T/ITU-R/ISO/IEC Common Patent Policy (clause 2.14 consistency); ELF 105's inbound license carves out submission and adoption by other standardization bodies; published ELF documents are made available under CC BY 4.0.

Deferred to org-level evidence (bylaws/statutes, not this repository):

• Criteria 1–2 (not-for-profit legal entity; statutes on request).
• Criterion 3 (membership-based, open to members worldwide or over a broad region).
• Criterion 4 and representativity (demonstrated by ELF activities: EXPRESS stewardship, specifications 5001–5006, tooling, education).
• Application mechanics: application to the Office of the CEO, consultation with ANSI (US-headquartered charity), committee P-member vote.

[ronaldtse]

@TRThurman could you help look at this? If it's alright we can ask Allison for a review.

[TRThurman]

Allison Stuart Dave Please review as we need this for ISO TC 184/DC 4 liaison.ThanksTomOn Aug 30, 2026, at 10:00, Ronald Tse ***@***.***> wrote:ronaldtse left a comment (expresslang/docs#12) @TRThurman could you help look at this? If it's alright we can ask Allison for a review. —Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or unsubscribe.You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[TRThurman]

Legal review

I went through the five directives with a focus on the legal content rather than the editorial mechanics. Method: I assembled each ELF directive from its sections, fetched the corresponding CalConnect source repo, normalized the entity renames (CalConnect→ELF, TCC/TC PUBLISH→TCB), and diffed. So everything below is a verified delta against CC/DIR 10001/10002/10003/10005/10006, not an impression. Usual caveat: this is a reviewer's read, not legal advice.

Provenance of the adapted text

The verbatim-copy-then-adapt commit structure made this fully auditable — much appreciated.

What I could not find is any record of rights in the CalConnect text. None of the five CalConnect/cc-directive-* repos carries a license (GitHub reports no license detected on all five; no LICENSE file), which leaves the originals all-rights-reserved © CalConnect. The PR body says "adapted from," but the documents themselves don't: the forewords present each directive as prepared by the ELF TCB, and the rendered output will carry ELF's copyright notice over text that is substantially CalConnect's.

The interesting contrast is that ELF 103 already shows the right pattern — its Scope explicitly states it is identical to the ISO/IEC/ITU Common Patent Policy except for entity renames. The same kind of derivation sentence for the CalConnect ancestry, plus a written CalConnect consent noted somewhere durable (board or TC PUBLISH minute), would close the gap. Given the overlap in people this is presumably easy to obtain — it just isn't documented, and these are the governance documents ELF will show to ISO/IEC, so provenance seems worth getting airtight.

New normative language (not in the CalConnect originals)

ELF 105 Software clause — CC 10006 had this entire clause commented out; here it is enabled with two new sentences. Since the PR asks for a legal glance at exactly this: as worded, "shall permit use, modification and redistribution … for any purpose, including in derivative works, without discrimination" admits copyleft licenses (GPL permits all of that; it attaches reciprocal conditions rather than restricting purpose). If the intent is permissive-only — which is where the cited ITU Software Copyright Guidelines point — the clause may want to say so, e.g. by excluding licenses that impose conditions on implementers beyond attribution. Two smaller points: the clause is silent on patent grants in software licenses (the other half of the ITU guidelines' concern), and "made available for free" is ambiguous between gratis and libre.

ELF 101 Appeals clause — structurally sound. Three things a liaison reviewer might poke at: the 30-day clock runs from "announcement" without saying where decisions are announced; appeals lie only against procedural decisions (may be intentional); and there's no recusal provision when the Board itself, or a TCB overlapping the Board, took the contested decision.

Inherited from CalConnect verbatim

These all exist letter-for-letter in the CC originals — the adaptation pass is a natural opportunity to fix them:

• "Obligated" vs "invited" conflict. ELF 104 mandates draft cover text saying recipients "are obligated to submit notification of any relevant patent rights" (directive-ipr-guidelines/sections/06-documents.adoc:11, with the unresolved // invited or obligated? comment still at line 9), while ELF 102 mandates "invited to submit" (directive-document-requirements/sections/05-structure.adoc:47). Two directives prescribe conflicting boilerplate for the same cover page — and "obligated" overreaches: a disclosure duty can't realistically be imposed on mere draft recipients, and the Common Patent Policy framework uses voluntary "invited" language.
• Reversed membership rule. "Individuals who are not members of ELF are only allowed to participate in a project unless specifically authorized…" (directive-standardization/sections/06-process.adoc:137) — as written, non-members may participate unless authorized. Presumably "only … if authorized."
• Copyright ownership model. ELF 101 IPR clause says deliverable copyright "will be jointly owned by ELF and its authors," while ELF 105 has contributors grant only a non-exclusive, non-sub-licensable license — under which contributors remain owners and ELF is a licensee, not co-owner. Joint ownership is also messy across jurisdictions (US: each co-owner can license the whole; elsewhere: all co-owners must consent). Choosing one model would resolve it.
• No outbound license. The directives govern inbound rights thoroughly but never state under what terms the public may use ELF's published deliverables, and the repo has no LICENSE file. Given ELF 101's promise of text "free of IPR restrictions," an explicit publication license seems like the missing piece.

Smaller items

• The info@expresslang.org placeholder in the ELF 104 declaration form (already flagged in the PR body): patent declarations are legally significant records, so a dedicated monitored patents@ alias seems worth setting up before publication. The Delaware address looks like a registered-agent address — fine if intended for legal notices.
• The reference-docs/ ITU/ISO PDFs are inherited one-for-one from the CalConnect repos, so continued practice rather than a new act — but ITU/ISO publications carry redistribution restrictions, and linking rather than embedding would be cleaner in a repo asserting ELF governance.
• The 104 cross-reference fixes (clause=1→4, clause=2.3→5.4) check out correctly against ELF 103's actual clause structure (5.2 free-of-charge, 5.3 RAND, 5.4 unwilling-to-license). Verified.

The two I'd prioritize before merge are the CalConnect permission/attribution record and the obligated/invited conflict, since both sit where an ISO/IEC liaison review will look. The rest reads fine as follow-up issues.

[TRThurman]

ISO liaison-eligibility review

Separate from the legal review: since the PR's stated purpose is satisfying ISO and IEC liaison requirements, I mapped the directives against the actual criteria in ISO/IEC Directives Part 1, Consolidated ISO Supplement, 2024 edition (current), clause 1.17. Summary: the directives satisfy the one criterion that is about documented process — but most of the eligibility test is organizational, and the criterion most likely to draw questions can't be satisfied by this repo at all.

What clause 1.17.6.1 requires (Category A/B, TC/SC level)

The Office of the CEO verifies that the organization:

1. is not-for-profit;
2. is a legal entity — "the Office of the CEO will request a copy of its statutes";
3. is membership-based and open to members worldwide or over a broad region;
4. through its activities and membership demonstrates competence to contribute to International Standards;
5. has a process for stakeholder engagement and consensus decision-making to develop the input it provides.

Plus, under 1.17.1: an explicit statement accepting ISO's copyright policy (clause 2.13), acceptance of the patent-rights requirements (2.14), agreement to ISO/IEC procedures including IPR, and sufficient representativity. Procedurally (1.17.2–1.17.3): application form to the Office of the CEO, consultation with the National Body where the organization is headquartered — ANSI, for a US charity — then a 2/3 vote of the committee's P-members. Category C (WG level, 1.17.6.2) drops the legal-entity and open-membership criteria but adds that the organization be multinational in objectives and standards development activities.

How the directives map

Criterion 5 — met, with margin. ELF 101 provides consensus defined as 2/3 affirmative, TCB balloting with mandatory voting, a 60-day public review explicitly aligned with WTO TBT, comment disposition, maintenance/corrections, and the new appeals clause. That exceeds what 1.17.6.1 asks for, which is only a consensus process for developing the input provided to ISO. The appeals clause addition was the right call for this audience.

Criteria 1–2 — satisfied by ELF as an organization, not by this repo. The forewords assert US public charity status, but ISO will ask for the statutes themselves; nothing here conflicts, it just isn't the evidence.

Criterion 3 — the gap worth planning for. The directives reference "ELF membership" and member ballots throughout but never define membership or its openness. That evidence has to come from the bylaws/membership policy. Small related note: the external-members clause (06-process.adoc:137) as literally worded says non-members may participate unless authorized — flagged in the legal review; as intended it's a normal member-gate and unproblematic, since the criterion is about membership being open rather than non-member access.

Criterion 4 and representativity — demonstrable from ELF's activities (EXPRESS stewardship, the 5001–5006 specifications, tooling, courses); not a documentation question.

Copyright/patent acceptance (1.17.1, 2.13, 2.14) — the directives help, with two wrinkles. ELF 103 being deliberately identical to the ITU/ISO/IEC Common Patent Policy makes accepting 2.14 trivially consistent, and ELF 105's inbound-license carve-out ("except for the submission and adoption by other standardization bodies") is exactly the hook needed for granting ISO what 2.13 expects for submitted material. The wrinkles: ELF 101's "jointly owned by ELF and its authors" copyright clause sits awkwardly against 2.13 (copyright in ISO drafts and standards belongs to ISO) the moment ELF text feeds an ISO deliverable, since ELF alone can't cleanly convey rights it co-owns; and ELF 104's "obligated to submit notification" overstates relative to the voluntary-disclosure framing of the Common Patent Policy that ELF 103 mirrors. Both are also in the legal review — they acquire ISO-facing consequences here.

Two calibration points

• The directives deliberately overshoot the liaison criteria (publication rules, document requirements, full standards apparatus). Not required for liaison — but it is what makes the "effective contribution" case for Category A persuasive.
• The co-development/dual-logo machinery in ELF 101 is not covered by liaison status at all; joint or dual-logo publication with ISO requires a separate cooperation agreement at TMB level. Keeping the machinery as aspiration is harmless, but the un-adapted CalConnect references sitting in exactly those clauses ("ISO/CC dual-logo", the "CS" deliverable in the stage table) are the part most likely to draw a raised eyebrow if these directives are submitted as supporting documentation, so they'd be my first editorial fix for this audience.

Bottom line

For a Category A application (or Category C at WG level), this PR supplies the process evidence well. What it cannot supply — and what the application will actually turn on — is the statutes and evidence of open worldwide membership, plus ANSI's non-objection and the committee vote. It may be worth noting in the PR description which criteria are satisfied here versus deferred to the bylaws, so the directives aren't later mistaken for the complete liaison package.

[ronaldtse]

Thanks @TRThurman — thorough and genuinely useful review. All points addressed in the latest commit; disposition below.

Editorial

• ISO/CC leftovers: rather than re-targeting them at ISO, the dual-logo publication procedure is now its own generalized clause (Dual-logo documents under the Publication stage) covering any external standardization body — ELF is not aiming specifically at ISO here.
• Stage-table deliverable code CS → ES (ELF Standard).
• External-members "unless" → "if" (typo, as suspected).
• Obligated/invited: resolved to invited. The ELF 104 draft-cover text now uses the ISO sentence verbatim ("Recipients of this draft are invited to submit, with their comments, notification of any relevant patent rights of which they are aware and to provide supporting documentation."), matching ELF 102; the stale // invited or obligated? comment is removed.
• Appeals: the 30-day clock now runs from the decision being "announced to the ELF membership or published in the corresponding ELF document repository"; a recusal sentence excludes Board members who took part in the contested decision. Appeals remain procedural-only, intentionally.

Copyright model

• ELF 101 now states that copyright in published deliverables is vested in ELF, while copyright in contributions remains with their authors, who grant the inbound license (ELF 105 unchanged). The joint-ownership clause is removed — which also removes the ISO DIR 2.13 friction you flagged.

Software clause

• The intent is to admit copyleft, so the license scope stays as written (use, modification and redistribution for any purpose, without discrimination); only "made available for free" was clarified to "free of charge".

Provenance

• I authored the CalConnect directives myself. Rights in these adapted documents are granted to ELF directly by the author, so no CalConnect consent record is needed and no attribution sentence has been added.

Outbound license

• Addressed now: published ELF documents are made available under CC BY 4.0 — new "Publication license" clause in ELF 101, a repo LICENSE, and a README note.

Other

• The ELF 104 declaration form now points at patents@expresslang.org (alias being set up).
• The reference-docs/ ITU/ISO PDFs are retained deliberately for provenance, as inherited practice.
• The PR description now carries the clause 1.17 criteria mapping: what this PR satisfies versus what is deferred to org-level evidence (statutes, open-membership proof, ANSI consultation, committee vote).