foundation/docs/09_Licensing_Versioning_and_Attribution.md

Licensing, Versioning, and Attribution — Civicus

This document explains how Civic Analyst reports are licensed, authored, preserved, and attributed. It is not bureaucratic overhead — it is the scaffolding of credibility and permanence.

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1. License

• Unless otherwise specified, all Civic Analyst reports are published under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0).

• This allows free reuse, adaptation, and republication, provided attribution is given.

• Attribution must include:

  • Civicus (the project).
  • The primary contributor(s) (human).
  • The LLM model name/version used in drafting.

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2. Authorship & Pen Names

• The author is the individual who produces and finalizes the report.

• A pen name may be used, but credibility increases when tied to verifiable Internet identity.

• RFC-standard aliases (e.g., postmaster@domain.tld, webmaster@domain.tld, admin@domain.tld) provide strong authentication:

  • These addresses exist by Internet standards and cannot collide.
  • Only the domain owner can use them.
  • Example: publishing as postmaster@civicus.us anchors authorship to DNS control.

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3. Domain Ownership & Web3 Bridging

• DNS control is public, timestamped, and auditable.

• Publishing under a domain alias ties authorship to a verifiable, non-colliding identity.

• DNS may be bridged into Web3:

  • Mapping to ENS, Handshake, or IPNS.
  • Publishing hash manifests in DNS TXT records.
  • Anchoring digests to blockchains for permanent notarization.

This ensures Civic Analyst reports cannot be erased or silently replaced.

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4. Preservation & Versioning

• Use semantic versioning (e.g., v1.0.0 initial release).

• Publish SHA-256 digests for every file.

• Git repositories are not immutable:

  • Repo owners can rewrite history.
  • Only once pinned immutably (IPFS, Arweave, notarized hashes) does publication occur.

• Drafts may evolve in Git, but publication = immutable pin.

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5. Quoting & Source Material

• Many online articles are paywalled, redacted, or later removed. The Civic Analyst cannot depend on permanence.

• Therefore:

  • Preserve local immutable snapshots (PDFs, hashes, CIDs).

  • Quote only short slices (a phrase, headline, or single sentence).

  • Tie every quote to:

    • The canonical source (URL, publisher, date).
    • The preserved local copy.
    • The artifact hash.

• This makes even minimal quoting credible, without breaching copyright.

• The Analyst’s own work is CC BY 4.0, but quoted fragments remain under their original copyright.

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6. First-Analyst Principle

• The first Civic Analyst carries only the minimal burden:

  • Produce a credible, good-faith, transparent initial analysis.
  • Publish it immutably with clear authorship.

• The first report sets the floor of standards, not the ceiling.

• The burden then shifts:

  • Future analysts strive for greater authenticity, detail, and precision.
  • Iteration is the natural path of civic knowledge.

• Once published, reports are final artifacts.

  • No revisions.
  • No silent edits.
  • Only new reports by new analysts.

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7. Conversation Preservation

• Every report must include the full human↔LLM transcript.
• Append it to 11_Appendix_Conversation.md.
• This transcript is part of the civic evidence, not an optional record.

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Closing Declaration

Licensing, attribution, and preservation standards ensure that Civic Analyst reports are transparent, credible, and final. They will not be revised. Any future improvement must come from new analyses published by other Civic Analysts.

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