Purpose
Our research involves hazardous chemistry and processes, and over time it will span many methods and industries beyond our current focus. This policy explains what we publish, what we hold back for now, and the specific conditions under which held-back material is released. The aim is to open everything we can without putting a step in front of someone that they could follow and get hurt. We would rather release a little later and safely than a little sooner and recklessly.
How we classify information
Tier 0 — Always open
Released immediately, no gate: the mission and principles; how the technology works conceptually; what each process does and why it matters; safety information (hazards, PPE, ventilation, handling of toxic and reactive materials, waste neutralization, emergency procedures); applications and results, including measured data and independent replications; and everything already public, including the membrane recipe and existing videos.
Technical and design source in Tier 0 is released under CERN-OHL-S. Written materials (concepts, documentation, and especially safety information) are released under CC BY-SA 4.0, a share-alike content license, so they can be freely copied, translated, and reposted as long as adaptations stay under the same open license.
Tier 1 — Staged open
Released publicly under CERN-OHL-S once the safety gate for that process is met: detailed build guides and step-by-step process instructions; full design files for cells, stacks, and systems; operating parameters and procedures.
Tier 2 — Held and protected
Kept as trade secret, or held pending a patent filing, and shared only with vetted partners under confidentiality, until both the safety gate and the protection gate are met: the most hazard-sensitive specifics, where careless replication could cause serious harm; keystone inventions for which a defensive patent is planned; and anything whose premature public release would, in our judgment, create more risk than benefit.
The gates
A Tier 1 or Tier 2 item is released publicly only when its gates are met.
- Safety gate M1 (general). A published General Safety Framework covering the hazard classes our work can involve: toxic and reactive chemicals, hazardous and flammable gases, corrosives, oxidizers and explosion risks, high voltage, high temperature and pressure where relevant, hazardous waste handling and neutralization, and emergency response. It is the floor for any hazardous-process disclosure.
- Safety gate M2 (per process). A published safety and education module specific to the process whose details are being released. A process’s Tier 1 details are not published until its M2 module is.
- Protection gate M3 (Tier 2 only). For any keystone invention we intend to patent defensively, a provisional patent application is on file before the public disclosure of that invention. This lets us pledge the patent to the commons rather than letting someone else patent and block it.
- Integration and research-security gate M4. Some systems are complex enough that releasing them in partial form would be unsafe or misleading. We use Technology Readiness Level 8, the point at which the full system is complete and qualified through test and demonstration, as the safety threshold for releasing a complex integrated system. The principle is simple: if a system is proven and safe enough for us to sell, it is mature enough to open. Reaching that point also means we understand the system’s hazards well enough to publish a complete safety and replication package with it. That package, not the maturity label alone, is what makes open release safe. This gate governs only the complex integrated whole; individual components and subsystems still open earlier under Tiers 0 and 1, at their own maturity.
Scope, and what this is not
This policy covers the core technology that we release openly. It does not cover niche, client-specific IP created under commercial consulting or research partnerships, which is governed by those commercial agreements and is not staged for public release. This is not an indefinite hold: every Tier 1 and Tier 2 item has a defined path to public release through the gates above. We publish and keep current a simple status list showing what is released, what is staged, and which gate each staged item is waiting on, so the schedule is visible and we can be held to it.
Changes
This policy is versioned in public. If we add a tier, change a gate, or reclassify an item, we date and explain the change.