# RFC-0005: Stewardship

**Status:** Proposed
**Phase:** The Bedrock Phase

## Abstract

This RFC proposes stewardship — the obligation to maintain and improve engineering knowledge for future practitioners — as the governing principle for the standard.

## Motivation

Knowledge governed by ownership is hoarded, restricted, or lost when the owner departs. Knowledge governed by stewardship is maintained, extended, and transmitted.

## Observation

The most durable knowledge systems — open-source software, professional engineering bodies, craft guilds — are governed by stewardship rather than ownership.

## Engineering Principle

Standard documents are stewarded, not owned. Contributions are evaluated on value to future practitioners, not contributor status.

## Reasoning

Stewardship aligns with the standard's purpose: preserving engineering context across generations. Stewardship creates an obligation to preserve and improve. It includes the obligation to identify and flag context that has become obsolete or incorrect.

## Relationship to Existing Concepts

Stewardship is defined in OE-0009. It is the transmit discipline, paired with inheritance (OE-0010, the receive discipline).