The Dillweed Namespace Project is currently operated under a single-steward founding-phase governance model. The founding steward holds the DNSO private signing key, the namespace domain assets, the specification authority, and the operational obligations defined in the DNSO Operations Charter. This concentration of authority in one person is intentional for the founding phase — it enables rapid, coherent development of the trust architecture and preserves namespace continuity — but it creates a question that any institutional partner or standards audience will eventually ask: what happens if the founding steward is unavailable?

This document — Governance Support Protocol 01 (GSP-01) — specifies the answer operationally. It defines the conditions that trigger a stewardship transition, identifies the four succession objects that must transfer, describes the continuity trustee designation mechanism, and documents the procedures by which key custody, operational obligations, specification authority, and governance commitments survive the founding steward's unavailability.

GSP-01 is a Governance Support Protocol, not a core specification. It sits alongside the seven-document specification stack without replacing or revising any of those documents. It is the operational complement to the continuity provisions already embedded in the Governance Framework and the DNSO Operations Charter.

This protocol covers the following four succession objects — the assets, authorities, and obligations that must transfer to a continuity authority in the event of a triggering condition:

This protocol does not cover the transfer of personal employment, financial arrangements, or non-namespace personal assets. It covers only what is necessary to maintain the namespace's trust fabric and operational continuity.

A stewardship transition is triggered by any of the following conditions. Triggers are classified as self-declared (initiated by the founding steward) or externally observed (initiated by the continuity trustee or, in future phases, the Technical Steering Committee).

The continuity trustee is the designated individual or controlled entity authorized to receive the succession objects and assume DNSO governance obligations upon a triggering condition.

Designation Mechanism

The founding steward designates the continuity trustee by executing a written Continuity Designation Instrument (CDI). The CDI specifies:

• trustee_identity — full legal name, contact information, and relationship to the founding steward
• scope_of_authority — which succession objects the trustee is authorized to receive
• trigger_conditions — which conditions activate the trustee's authority
• access_instructions — location and access method for sealed recovery materials
• succession_limitations — any constraints on the trustee's authority, including obligations to seek distributed governance within a defined timeframe
• successor_designation_authority — whether the trustee may designate their own successor if they become unavailable

Where the Designation Is Held

The CDI is held in at least two locations: a sealed physical copy held by a trusted third party (attorney, notary, or equivalent legal custodian), and an encrypted digital copy stored in a location accessible to the continuity trustee upon trigger, independent of the founding steward's personal systems. The existence of a continuity trustee designation is publicly acknowledged in this document. The identity of the designated trustee is held privately until a triggering condition occurs, at which point the trustee identity is publicly disclosed per §08.

Updating the Designation

The founding steward may update the continuity trustee designation at any time by executing a revised CDI. The most recently executed CDI supersedes all prior versions. The founding steward SHALL review the CDI at intervals not exceeding 12 months and SHALL update it if circumstances change materially.

The DNSO Ed25519 private signing key is the cryptographic root of trust for all capability records registered in the Dillweed Registry. Its transfer is the most technically sensitive event in any stewardship succession. This section defines the procedures for both planned and emergency key transfer.

Sealed Recovery Materials

The founding steward maintains sealed recovery materials held independently of their personal systems, accessible to the continuity trustee upon a triggering condition. These materials include:

• The DNSO private key in encrypted form, with decryption instructions accessible to the continuity trustee
• The canonical public key location (dillweed.com/dnso_public.pem) and the process for updating it
• Registry database access credentials and backup location
• Domain registrar access credentials for namespace asset continuity
• Hosting account access for dillweed.com and associated infrastructure
• A current inventory of all defensive domain registrations and their renewal status

Planned Key Transfer Procedure

In a planned succession, key transfer follows this sequence: the continuity trustee generates a new Ed25519 keypair in their own secure environment; the founding steward co-signs a transition attestation confirming the transfer; the new public key is published at the canonical URL with a minimum 30-day overlap period; all active registry records are re-signed under the new key during the overlap period; the old key is formally retired and its retirement publicly disclosed; and resolver operators are notified of the new trust anchor.

Emergency Key Transfer Procedure

In an unplanned succession, the continuity trustee: accesses sealed recovery materials; takes the registry offline if key compromise is suspected; generates a new Ed25519 keypair; publishes the new public key at the canonical location; re-signs all active capability records; discloses the succession event publicly within 48 hours per §08; and marks the predecessor key status in the operational log.

Historical Signature Treatment

Capability records signed under the predecessor key retain their signatures in the registry as archival evidence of their governance state at the time of signing. They are annotated with the predecessor key identifier and the date of key transition. Relying parties may treat predecessor-signed records as historically valid but should obtain re-verification under the successor key before relying on them for high-trust invocations.

Upon assuming stewardship authority, the continuity trustee inherits all operational duties defined in the DNSO Operations Charter. These duties are role-bound — they belong to whoever holds the DNSO stewardship role, not to any specific individual.

Duties Transferred

• Trust tier attestation — reviewing and processing tier promotion and demotion requests according to the attestation predicates in the Registry Specification
• Revocation processing — executing capability revocations within the windows defined in the Operations Charter and ensuring propagation to resolver nodes
• Incident disclosure — issuing public incident notices within 48 hours of detected or suspected governance failures, key events, or service disruptions
• Anthill telemetry log custody — maintaining the append-only Anthill operational log and ensuring its integrity and availability
• Public key publication — maintaining the DNSO public key at its canonical URL reflecting the current valid signing key
• Service continuity — maintaining the registry at the availability posture committed in the Operations Charter for the current phase
• Domain and trademark maintenance — renewing domain registrations and trademark registrations on schedule. Domain renewals within 90 days of expiration take immediate operational priority during succession, superseding any reduced-availability posture declared under §06

Temporary Service Posture

In the period immediately following an unplanned succession trigger, the continuity trustee may declare a temporary reduced-availability posture for up to 30 days while establishing full operational control. During this period: the registry remains readable but may suspend new registrations; critical revocations continue without delay; a public status notice indicates the transition status; and known institutional partners and resolver operators are notified directly. No Canonical tier promotions may occur during the reduced-availability transition posture. This restriction protects governance legitimacy during the succession period and may only be lifted by the continuity trustee upon formal assumption of full operational authority.

Specification authority — the right and obligation to maintain and revise the seven core specification documents and any governance support protocols — transfers to the continuity trustee upon succession.

Revision Authority Rules

The continuity trustee may issue minor revisions (x.x.1 increments) to any specification document to correct errors, clarify language, or address operational necessities arising from the succession. Major revisions (x.1 or x.0 increments) require either a 30-day public comment period with documented rationale, or confirmation from a Technical Steering Committee if one has been constituted at the time of succession. The founding steward's published versions are preserved as archival references and are not retroactively altered.

Standards Body Migration

If the continuity trustee determines that migrating specification stewardship to a neutral standards body is in the namespace's interest, this migration may proceed subject to the following constraints: the Dillweed® trademark and its registered rights remain with the designated stewardship entity, not with the standards body; neutrality covenants in the Governance Framework continue to run with the namespace assets regardless of where specification stewardship is housed; and prior published versions remain accessible under the original publication terms.

Archival Preservation

The continuity trustee commits to maintaining accessible archives of all prior specification versions. The founding-phase specification family (Stack Family 2026.04) is preserved permanently as the constitutional founding corpus of the Dillweed Namespace.

A stewardship succession is a significant namespace event and must be publicly disclosed promptly, regardless of the nature of the triggering condition. Transparency is a foundational commitment of the DNSO governance model.

Disclosure Timeline

• Within 24 hours — publish a succession notice at a designated URL on dillweed.com confirming that a stewardship transition is underway and identifying the continuity trustee by name
• Within 48 hours — publish a full transition disclosure covering the triggering condition, the succession objects being transferred, the timeline for key transition if applicable, and the temporary service posture if any
• Within 7 days — publish the new DNSO public key if a key transition is required, and notify known resolver operators and institutional partners directly
• Within 30 days — publish a transition completion notice confirming all succession objects have been transferred and the continuity trustee has assumed full operational authority

Discretion in Sensitive Circumstances

In circumstances involving the founding steward's death or medical incapacity, the continuity trustee may exercise reasonable discretion in the language of the disclosure while preserving the substantive requirements above. The triggering condition may be described as "founding steward unavailability" without further personal detail if appropriate.

At the moment of a succession trigger, there may be unresolved governance matters in progress: pending attestation reviews, unprocessed revocation requests, open incident investigations, or in-progress partner or standards conversations. The continuity trustee inherits all of these.

Attestation Queue

Pending trust tier attestation requests are paused during the transition period and resumed under the continuity trustee's authority. Requestors with pending applications are notified of the transition and the expected timeline for resumption. No tier changes are made during the transition period without explicit continuity trustee authorization.

Revocation Obligations

Revocation requests are not paused. Critical revocation obligations — particularly those involving active capability abuse or security incidents — must be processed by the continuity trustee within the windows defined in the DNSO Operations Charter, regardless of any other transition activities underway.

Partner and Standards Conversations

The continuity trustee notifies all active partner contacts and standards engagement participants of the transition. Active conversations — including any ongoing ITU-T engagement or partner diligence conversations — are continued by the continuity trustee at their discretion. The transition does not constitute a withdrawal from any standards engagement or partnership process.

Single-steward continuity is a founding-phase governance model, not the intended end state for the Dillweed Namespace. This protocol operationalizes succession within the founding phase. The longer-term governance path moves toward distributed authority and multi-party legitimacy.

Intended Transition Paths

As the namespace matures and ecosystem adoption grows, governance authority is intended to migrate toward one or more of the following structures. The specific path will depend on which institutional relationships develop and what governance model best serves the namespace's neutrality obligations:

• Controlled stewardship entity — a purpose-formed legal entity holding the namespace assets under documented governance rules, separating the founding individual's personal identity from the stewardship role
• Trust wrapper with Participant Council — a governance structure in which registered capability providers and resolver operators participate in oversight of DNSO attestation and revocation decisions
• Licensed neutral operator model — analogous to the registry operator model in domain name infrastructure, in which a neutral operator holds the namespace assets and operates the registry under a governance license, with neutrality covenants running permanently with the assets
• Standards-hosted stewardship — transfer of specification authority to a neutral standards body while retaining trademark and neutrality covenant protection through a licensing structure

Neutrality Covenants Run with the Assets

Regardless of which governance transition path is taken, the neutrality covenants established in the Governance Framework are irrevocable and run permanently with the namespace assets. No governance transition may remove or weaken these covenants. Any successor stewardship structure inherits the neutrality obligations as a condition of the transfer.

Governance Concentration Is a Monitored Risk

The Dillweed Anthill Observability Plane defines Ecosystem Concentration Risk (ANT-EC) as a monitored signal for capability providers. The same principle applies to governance topology: single-steward concentration is tolerated during the founding phase only while ecosystem scale remains low and public transition pathways are documented. This protocol is part of that documentation. As the namespace grows, distributed governance becomes not merely desirable but a governance obligation under the neutrality principles the namespace exists to embody.

The Dillweed Namespace Project is operated by Richard McClelland. Founding Steward Jurisdiction: Colorado, United States. The project has been under continuous single-owner operation since 1997. Questions regarding this protocol or the namespace governance framework may be directed through the contact information published at dillweed.com.

Open Obligations Under This Protocol

The following governance obligations identified in this protocol remain to be completed as of initial publication. Their identification here is a public commitment to their completion:

• Execution of the Continuity Designation Instrument (CDI) naming the continuity trustee
• Assembly and secure placement of sealed recovery materials per §05
• Attorney engagement for CDI custody and legal continuity planning