Governance of the Accord — as it stands today

Governance

The Accord is currently drafted by a secretariat and governed by nobody. That is a temporary and unsatisfactory state, and this page sets out exactly how it ends.

Every disposition on this site is provisional until the Council is constituted. The register says so on every entry.

The honest position today

There is no Council. Dispositions on comments are written by the secretariat and are marked throughout the register as provisional. The Council, once constituted, may revisit any of them, and §7 of the draft says so in terms. Until the founding convening, treat every decision recorded on this site as a proposal by the drafters rather than a decision of the alliance.

We publish this rather than presenting provisional decisions as settled ones, because a transparency agreement that is opaque about its own governance is not worth signing.

How governance is constituted

Stage	What happens	Status
Public comment	Draft published, comments received and published with dispositions. Text revised in response.	Open now
Signature in principle	Organisations express alignment with some or all of the four terms. No obligation, no cost, withdrawable at any time. Signature is what confers a vote at the convening.	After close
Founding convening	Signatories constitute the Trusted Knowledge Alliance and elect the Council. Election method is an open question on which comment is specifically invited.	Scheduled
Council in office	The Council owns the text, the comment process, and the appointment of any infrastructure operator. The drafters' role ends.	On constitution

The infrastructure operator's position

An agreement about metering and compensation needs someone to run the metering. That creates an obvious conflict, and the draft addresses it structurally rather than by assurance:

The operator holds a seat on the Council without a vote.
On any question concerning the operator's appointment, remuneration or performance, the operator withdraws from the session and the Council deliberates without it.
The operator's appointment is terminable by the Council and is not exclusive. Nothing in the Accord requires a signatory to use any particular provider.
Measurement definitions are explicitly outside the operator's gift — the draft points to community standards practice rather than to the operator's own taxonomy.

Register of signatories

Signature opens after the comment period closes. When it does, this register will list every signatory, the date of signature, and — because terms are severable — which of the four terms each has adopted. Withdrawals are recorded here as openly as signatures.

Signatory	Category	Attribution	Routing	Compensation	Transparency
No signatories yet — signature opens after the comment period closes. This table is shown empty rather than hidden, so that the count is never in doubt.