Organization
Governance
ELF separates corporate governance from technical governance: a small Board holds legal responsibility for the Foundation, while its standards work is directed by its members through open, consensus-based technical committees.
Board of Directors
Corporate governanceThe Board holds corporate responsibility: budget, legal matters, bylaws, and final appeals. It delegates technical authority to the Technical Coordination Committee and the technical committees by resolution.
- President · Vice-President · Secretary
- Approves membership, adopts policies
- Final appeal authority
Technical Coordination Committee
Coordination & approvalThe TCC comprises the chairs of the active technical committees and a Board representative. It coordinates committee work, approves the formation of new technical committees and their charters, and gives final approval for publication of committee documents after Last Call.
- Composed of active committee chairs
- Approves new committees and charters
- Approves publication after Last Call
Technical Committees
Standards developmentCommittees are open to all members. Decisions are made by consensus of participating members; where consensus cannot be reached, a supermajority vote settles the question — one member, one vote. Formal objections escalate to the TCC, and ultimately to the Board. ELF's technical work is organized into five technical committees — described on the Technical Committees page.
- Open to every member, one member one vote
- Consensus first, supermajority fallback
- Objections: committee → TCC → Board
How decisions are made
Public review
All drafts are publicly reviewed per the ELF directives; every comment receives a published disposition.
Open participation
Non-members may comment on all work through public channels; members direct and vote on outcomes.
Transparent records
Board minutes are public once accepted (bylaws §11.05); committee records and dispositions are published.
Documented rules
Decision-making follows the published governance documents and directives — not informal convention.
Documents
The Foundation's governing documents, directives, and published standards are publicly available.
Corporate
ELF directives
- ELF 101 — Standardization and publication— How ELF develops and publishes standards, including public review
- ELF 102 — Standard document requirements— Structure and language required in ELF documents
- ELF 103 — Patent policy— Patent disclosure and licensing rules
- ELF 104 — Patent policy implementation guidelines— How the patent policy is applied in practice
- ELF 105 — Intellectual property rights policy— Copyright and IPR terms for ELF outputs
ELF standards
- ELF 5001 — Annotated EXPRESS— Annotated presentation of EXPRESS schemas
- ELF 5002 — EXPRESS language pretty print format— Canonical pretty-printed layout for EXPRESS
- ELF 5004 — EXPRESS schema manifest specification— Manifest format for schema collections
- ELF 5005 — EXPRESS changes model (in YAML)— Model for tracking schema changes
- ELF 5006 — EXPRESS mapping language specification— Language for mapping across EXPRESS schemas