The binder is kept under a small set of working rules, filed here so that the reader can hold the record to them.

Read the text, not the adjective

Every sheet starts from the license's clauses, not from the marketing around them. Open, free, shared and collaborative are words the texts use about themselves; the binder's rule is to report what the clauses actually grant.

Cite the record

Historical claims are tied to the public record: the Wayback Machine, the license texts themselves, the published definitions. Where the record is thin, the sheet says so rather than inventing a cleaner story.

No fake service

The binder does not offer a license, a certification, a membership, or a consultancy. It is a reading of texts that exist, kept by a reader, and it makes no claim on the organizations whose documents it files.

The signature

Each sheet ends the same way, with a line that says the reading was done and agreed for the record. It is the binder's way of saying the work is finished for now and open to correction.