Blue Life Commons uses staged governance: benevolent architecture first, formal governance only when there is real treasury, real contributors, and real decisions.

Stage 1 — Founder-led commons (current)

The founder decides. Contributors help. Science-sensitive pages need expert review. All decisions are recorded in GitHub issues and PRs.

Stage 2 — Maintainer council

Added as contribution volume grows:

• Science advisor
• Engineering maintainer
• Community steward
• Ethics reviewer
• Regional steward(s)
• Funding/admin steward

Council members get CODEOWNERS responsibility for their domain.

Stage 3 — Proposal governance

Off-chain community voting (Snapshot) is adopted only when there is a real treasury, real contributors, and real decisions to make. Using it earlier creates governance theater.

In governance scope

• Funding allocations
• Grant priorities
• New guild creation
• Regional pilot selection
• Major roadmap changes
• Public claims policy

Never in governance scope

These are standards, not popularity contests:

• Scientific truth
• Animal safety rules (ETHICS.md)
• Citation standards (SOURCES.md)
• Expert review requirements

Decision record rule

Discord discusses. GitHub decides. Website publishes. Ledger records.

Decisions worth keeping become issues; outcomes are recorded in merged PRs or documents in this directory. Funding proposals live in proposals/ as funding-proposal artifacts.

The commons stays free. The business sells implementation. Funding records impact — it does not become the religion.

Principles

• No early token. No speculative assets, no fake decentralization before there is actual work.
• Mature primitives only. Use established public-good funding tools.
• Fundable impact objects, not vague donation asks. Sponsors fund specific, evidenced work.

The stack

Need	Tool
Fiat donations, invoices, fiscal host	Open Collective
Maintainer funding	GitHub Sponsors
Web3 public-good grants	Gitcoin / Giveth
Governance votes (Stage 3 only)	Snapshot
Impact records	Hypercerts
Grant/community workspace	CharmVerse
Archival research releases	Zenodo
ML datasets/models	Hugging Face

Impact records (Hypercerts)

A hypercert is a structured claim about work: what was done, by whom, when, and where — with evidence accumulating over time.

Artifacts opt in via metadata:

impact:
  claim: "Created educational field mission for ethical seal observation."
  eligible_for_hypercert: true

Evidence for a claim includes: GitHub commits, merged PRs, published pages, partner feedback, traffic, educational usage, and completed field missions.

Example impact claims:

• "Built open-source field mission templates for ethical seal observation."
• "Published 25 species intelligence pages with source review."
• "Created GitHub/Markdown onboarding kit for marine researchers."
• "Mapped 100 ocean organizations into partner directory."
• "Ran Blue Life student contribution sprint."

Sponsors can fund: future work, retroactive work, a specific species guild, a specific region, or a specific researcher workflow.

What stays free vs. what the business charges for

Commons (free, forever): public guides, open-source templates, species pages, region briefs, basic MCPs, field missions, educational content, contributor onboarding.

Business (Starlight Marine Intelligence Systems): NGO Research OS setup, regional ocean intelligence portals, school/university workshops, eco-tourism education systems, custom partner dashboards, research-to-public media packages, grant/proposal support, custom MCP/data connectors, sponsor-funded open-source programs.

The business never sells access to ocean knowledge. It sells speed, implementation, design, integration, and institutional reliability.

Legal posture

1. Start under the existing business; keep accounting separate by project.
2. Use Open Collective or a fiscal host when donations become meaningful — a fiscal host can hold funds, generate invoices/receipts, handle compliance, and pay approved expenses.
3. Create a foundation/association only after traction.

Proposals

Funding proposals are artifacts: governance/proposals/<proposal-slug>.md with type: funding-proposal frontmatter, reviewed like any other contribution.