How the project is governed

Who maintains it

G-14, Inc. founded the reference and maintains it. Its founder, Robert F. Tilley Jr., edits the site and the record. For more information about G-14, visit g14.ai.

The site is not affiliated with AARM, the Cloud Security Alliance, OWASP, NVIDIA, NIST, the European Commission, OMB, ISO, IEC, or any government agency, and mention of their work does not imply their endorsement.

G-14’s interests

G-14 has the following interests in the subject of this site.

• G-14 builds products that control what AI systems do, the category this site describes.
• G-14 maintains ECL-1, the External Control Layer Standard, and is developing a commercial implementation of it. G-14’s commercial development is separate from the standard, and G-14 has patents pending on related technology.
• The editor’s writings include The External Control Problem, the accepted SIAI 2026 position paper Correctly Stopped, Still Unresolved, and the forthcoming book Nobody Said Yes. They are listed in the library under works by the editor and G-14.
• The editor runs a LinkedIn group on AI governance and occupational risk, where incidents and controls are discussed.

ECL-1 is a public standard that G-14 maintains. The ECL-1 Working Group, which anyone can join for free, develops it: the editors propose changes, the working group discusses them, and the editors decide by rough consensus and record the reason. The maintainer may not overrule a recorded consensus except for a legal or a security reason that it states in writing. G-14 keeps ECL-1 versioned separately from its products and states the known limitations of each version, and later minor and major versions have public review windows in which every comment gets a published disposition.

The text of ECL-1 is under CC BY 4.0, its schemas, registries, tests, and code are under Apache-2.0, and G-14 pledges not to assert its essential patent claims against conforming implementations. G-14’s own implementations of ECL-1 are its platform and are not part of the standard. The ECL-1 page sets out the licenses and the pledge.

Rules that keep those interests out of the record

1. No product promotion. G-14’s products are not named, and no page carries pricing or sales contacts. Other companies’ products are named only where they are the subject of an incident, a mapped specification, or a cited source.
2. No requirement depends on a product. Nothing recommended here needs a particular vendor’s product to meet it.
3. Entries follow the published rules. An incident must meet the inclusion rules, and its gaps are marked by following the published rules for applying them. The editor chooses which eligible incidents go into each release, as the record’s method notes explain. Who was involved, including G-14’s customers or competitors, makes no difference to which incidents go in or which gaps are marked.
4. Each marked gap cites a source. Anyone can check the reading against the passage and dispute it.
5. The record is kept independent of ECL-1. The classification changes only through its published process, and never to match ECL-1. A specification is mapped to the gaps only when its full text is public, and ECL-1, which G-14 maintains, will be added to the mapping only after someone outside G-14 has mapped it.
6. Corrections are dated and public. Changes are published in the change log or in the notes on the record page, with the reason.
7. No advertising. The site carries no advertising, and if the project accepts funding or sponsorship, the funders and the terms will be listed on this page. No funder will have a say over entries, gaps, or mappings.

How decisions are made

At present the editor decides what goes into each release by applying the published rules, and publishes the reasons in notes on the close calls in each release, in a written answer to each dispute and each proposal to change the classification, and in the change log for everything else.

Releases

The record and the classification have separate version numbers. Each release lists what changed and why.

Permanence

Entry numbers and gap numbers are never reused. Earlier releases stay available, unchanged, on the data page.

Disputes

A dispute about an entry is settled by going back to its sources. If the sources do not settle it, the entry says so and records both readings.

Participation, review and stewardship

The project uses an open editorial model: people can question an entry, propose a correction and examine the evidence behind a decision. The record’s editorial process and the ECL-1 standard’s working-group process remain separate.

Open contributions

Suggestions and disputes identify the entry, source passage or classification rule at issue. The editor answers against the evidence and records the disposition. Email provides the contact route; repository links are listed as they become available.

Independent review

The record’s version 1.0 requires at least two reviewers outside G-14 to code each entry from its sources without seeing the record’s answers or each other’s. The release records the actual reviewers, scope, agreement figures and resolution of disagreements. A review is described as independent only for the work and relationships its evidence supports.

Editorial responsibility

Reviewers disclose interests before assignments, and a person with a material interest cannot supply the sole review of that question. Outside reviewers contribute written readings and recommendations; the editor remains responsible for the published record under the decision process above.

Stewardship changes

A transfer of stewardship requires an identified recipient, a public governance and transition plan, and continuity for the licenses, identifiers, source data and release history. A successor is evaluated for vendor neutrality and its ability to maintain the record openly. G-14 remains the maintainer unless a documented transfer takes effect.

Changes to editorial responsibility or stewardship receive a public record naming the people or organization, scope, effective date and custody arrangements. The working-group page explains the standard’s proposal, review, decision and release procedures. The Get involved page explains how to contribute to the record.

Code of conduct

Contributors may disagree about gaps, sources, and arguments, and are expected to keep disagreements impersonal. Harassment, personal attacks, and publishing anyone’s private information are not tolerated in any space the project runs. The project follows the Contributor Covenant, version 2.1. Problems can be reported to the editor.

Licenses

Text and data are published under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. The model clauses on the procurement page may be copied into solicitations and contracts without attribution. The code that builds the site will be published under the Apache License 2.0 with the source. ECL-1 has its own licenses and patent pledge, described on the ECL-1 page.