Participation Rules
Purpose
These Participation Rules define how organizations and individuals ("Participants") may participate and contribute to the Smart Cities Special Interest Group ("Smart Cities SIG").
The objective of the Smart Cities SIG is to support open, implementation-neutral, and reusable interoperability collaboration through publicly accessible discussions, proof of concept activities, workshops, demonstrations, shared materials, and related ecosystem coordination efforts.
The initiative is intended to identify business requirements, technical requirements, interoperability gaps, use cases, methodologies, and ecosystem needs rather than to create formal standards specifications or implementation mandates.
Open Collaboration
The Smart Cities SIG operates as an open and collaborative ecosystem initiative.
Participants acknowledge and understand that discussions, contributions, meeting records, presentations, demonstrations, shared materials, and related outputs may be publicly accessible and may be reused as part of the Smart Cities SIG's activities and related ecosystem collaboration efforts.
Governance Documents
Participants agree to follow the applicable governance and collaboration practices of the Smart Cities SIG, including the Charter, The Way We Work, repository contribution procedures, and related governance documents adopted by the initiative.
Participants acknowledge that such documents may evolve over time to support the effective operation of the initiative.
Public and Non-Confidential Participation
Participants agree not contribute:
- confidential information,
- proprietary restricted material,
- material subject to restrictions incompatible with open collaboration and reusable interoperability activities,
- and/or content that cannot be publicly discussed or reused within the Smart Cities SIG.
Participants acknowledge and understand that the Smart Cities SIG is intended to operate using transparent and publicly accessible collaboration practices.
Contribution Rights
By contributing, each Participant agrees that it has the appropriate right and authority to contribute the material to the Smart Cities SIG.
Participants acknowledge and understand that contributions are intended to support open ecosystem collaboration, reusable interoperability activities, and downstream standards and ecosystem alignment efforts.
Participants agree not contribute material subject to patent, licensing, or other intellectual property restrictions.
Reusable Outputs and Royalty-Free Collaboration
The Smart Cities SIG supports publicly reusable interoperability outputs and collaborative ecosystem alignment activities.
Participants agree not contribute material that would restrict the open reuse of the Smart Cities SIG's outputs or introduce fee or royalty-bearing restrictions incompatible with the collaborative and reusable objectives of the Smart Cities SIG.
The Smart Cities SIG encourages practical and reusable interoperability collaboration across participating organizations and ecosystem stakeholders.
Non-Normative and Exploratory Nature
Unless separately approved through a formal standards development process, Smart Cities SIG outputs are exploratory, informational, and non-normative in nature and do not constitute formal specifications, standards, certification requirements, or compliance obligations.
Participation in the Smart Cities SIG does not imply endorsement, approval, or adoption of any resulting outputs by participating organizations or standards bodies.
Applicable Laws
Participants must abide by and comply with all applicable laws, including but not limited to competition and antitrust laws and regulations, and export laws and regulations.
No Obligation to Implement
Participation in the Smart Cities SIG does not create any obligation to:
- implement specific technologies,
- adopt specific interoperability approaches,
- publish specifications,
- participate in future activities,
- or contribute to formal standards development activities.
Independent Participation
Participation in the Smart Cities SIG does not create a partnership, joint venture, agency relationship, or exclusive collaboration obligation among the participants. The Smart Cities SIG is not a legal entity.
Participants remain independently responsible for their own organizational decisions, standards activities, and intellectual property considerations.
Voluntary Participation
Participation in the Smart Cities SIG is voluntary and free of charge.
Participants may join, contribute to, or discontinue participation in the Smart Cities SIG at their discretion, subject to Participation Rules.
Relationship to Standards and Ecosystem Activities
The Smart Cities SIG is intended to complement existing standards organizations, ecosystem alliances, interoperability programs, and industry initiatives rather than replace or supersede them.
Participants remain independently responsible for their own standards activities, organizational decisions, and related intellectual property considerations.
Repository License
The repository content and publicly released Smart Cities SIG outputs are made available under the repository license:
Participants acknowledge and understand that contributions submitted to the Smart Cities SIG may be publicly shared, distributed, and reused consistent with the repository license and the open collaboration objectives of the Smart Cities SIG.
Acceptance
By participating in the Smart Cities SIG, each Participant agrees that it must comply with the Participation Rules set forth herein, as may be amended from time to time.