Versioning & governance
Versioning
Section titled “Versioning”The protocol version is SP/1 (currently working draft). Within SP/1:
- Frozen once SP/1 is marked stable: the canonical JSON algorithm, both fingerprint compositions, the audit-chain row format and genesis rule, and all published test vectors. Evidence formats can never change within a major version — a verifier written against SP/1 must verify every SP/1 record ever produced.
- Additive within SP/1: new registry fields, new event types, new anchor targets, and new API surfaces may be added in minor revisions. Verifiers MUST ignore unknown event types and unknown object keys.
- Breaking changes (altering any frozen item) require SP/2 and an explicit migration story.
Every spec page carries its semantics from this policy; the changelog will record revisions with dates.
Stewardship
Section titled “Stewardship”The Share Protocol is stewarded by PRYVC (Many Enterprises LLC), which also
operates the reference implementation at api.pryvc.com. Stewardship means:
- maintaining this specification and its test vectors;
- keeping the reference implementation conformant (the vectors on this site are generated from its code, not written by hand);
- reviewing proposals for registry additions and clarifications.
Proposals, errata, and questions: protocol@pryvc.com. As implementer interest grows, the intent is to move stewardship toward a neutral, multi-vendor arrangement — the specification’s licensing makes that possible without renegotiation.
Licensing
Section titled “Licensing”- Specification text (this site): CC BY 4.0. Implement it, quote it, redistribute it, commercially or otherwise, with attribution.
- No patent ambush: the steward asserts no patent claims over independent implementations of this specification.
- The reference implementation’s source is proprietary to PRYVC; conformance never requires it.
Roadmap (non-normative)
Section titled “Roadmap (non-normative)”- Public conformance test-suite repository (vectors as machine-readable JSON).
- OpenAPI description of the reference hub surface.
- Evidence-pack format: a self-contained, offline-verifiable bundle for auditors.
- Additional anchor-ledger profiles.