Intellectual Property Policy
IP policy governing all contributions to the Open Agentic ITSM Framework
Plain Language Summary
Every contribution to the Open Agentic ITSM Framework is made freely available to the public. No contributor may assert proprietary rights over content they have contributed. No contributor may incorporate proprietary, confidential, or IP-encumbered material from any third party.
This is an open standard. “Open” means that anyone can read it, use it, adapt it, build on it, teach from it, and implement it without paying a license fee, obtaining permission, or acknowledging any proprietary claim.
Contributor IP Agreement
By submitting any content to this repository, you agree to the following:
1. Original work or proper attribution. The content you contribute is either your original work, created independently without drawing on proprietary or confidential sources, or it is properly attributed to a publicly available source that you have the right to reference.
2. No proprietary claim. You do not assert and will not assert any proprietary rights, trade secret protection, patent claim, or any other form of intellectual property claim over the content you contribute to this framework. Your contribution is irrevocable and cannot be withdrawn once merged.
3. No third-party IP. You have not incorporated and will not incorporate into your contribution any content subject to a third party’s proprietary claim, including content from proprietary frameworks, vendor-specific methodologies marked as confidential, content subject to non-disclosure agreements, or copyrighted material reproduced without a qualifying fair use basis.
4. Authority to contribute. You have the authority to make this contribution. If you are employed and the content relates to your professional work, you have confirmed with your employer whether the contribution requires their authorization.
5. License acceptance. You accept that your contribution will be published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License and that it may be used, adapted, and built upon by any person or organization for any purpose, provided they attribute the Open Agentic ITSM Framework.
What “Independently Derived” Means
A central requirement of this framework is that all content is independently derived. This requires clarification.
Independently derived does not mean that contributors have no prior knowledge of other frameworks, proprietary methodologies, or confidential client work. IT practitioners accumulate knowledge from many sources over the course of a career.
Independently derived means that what you contribute is expressed in your own original language, based on your professional judgment and publicly available sources, and not traceable to a specific proprietary document or confidential source that you are not authorized to draw from.
If you have worked with a client under NDA and that experience informs your understanding of a topic, you may contribute content based on that understanding, provided the content is generalized and does not reveal specific confidential client information. If you have used a proprietary framework in your professional practice and that experience informs your understanding of best practices, you may contribute observations about what works, provided you do not reproduce the framework’s proprietary content.
When in doubt, ask before contributing. Open an Issue describing what you want to contribute and ask whether the source creates an IP concern. The community will advise.
Third-Party Attribution
When contributors reference publicly available research, published frameworks, or other publicly available sources, they should cite those sources accurately in the document’s reference list. Proper attribution is both an academic and ethical requirement.
Proper attribution does not substitute for originality. Paraphrasing a proprietary source and citing it is still drawing on proprietary content. Attribution applies to publicly available sources that the public has the right to reference.
What Happens If IP-Encumbered Content Is Found in the Framework
If it comes to the attention of the framework maintainers that any content in the framework incorporates IP-encumbered material, that content will be removed promptly. The contributor will be notified and given the opportunity to resubmit a version that does not incorporate the problematic material.
The framework will maintain a record of such removals in the changelog to maintain transparency.
Questions
Questions about whether a specific contribution would comply with this policy should be raised as GitHub Issues with the label ip-question before the contribution is submitted. Getting clarity before contributing is always better than discovering a problem after.
This policy is not a legal opinion and does not constitute legal advice. Contributors with specific legal questions about their situation should consult qualified legal counsel.