Versioning and Governance
Why governance matters
SaberCraft is intended to function as a long-term choreography notation standard.
To remain useful across schools, instructors, communities, and future releases, the standard needs:
- stable terminology
- documented revisions
- controlled updates
- version tracking
- clear distinction between official and experimental material
This page defines the current governance model for the SaberCraft Standard.
Current standard version
| Version | Status | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| v1.0 | Historical foundation | Original assembled SaberCraft guide and system draft |
| v2.0 | In active rewrite | Public standards-focused rewrite hosted at standard.sabercraft.org |
Governance philosophy
SaberCraft is designed to evolve carefully.
The goal is to allow:
- improvement
- expansion
- experimentation
- community participation
without constantly breaking compatibility between schools and choreography archives.
Whenever possible:
- notation should remain readable across versions
- terminology changes should be documented
- major structural changes should be deliberate
Stewardship
The SaberCraft Standard is currently:
- developed by the SaberCraft community
- maintained by Lumina Federation LLC
- published publicly at standard.sabercraft.org
SaberCraft serves as the founding school and original implementation community of the standard.
Official versus community material
Not all choreography or notation material carries the same authority level.
| Category | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Official | Approved baseline SaberCraft standard material |
| Extended | Official expansions beyond the beginner baseline |
| Community | Independent or contributed material written using SaberCraft |
| Experimental | Draft concepts, test notation, or unreviewed systems |
This structure allows schools and instructors to innovate without immediately changing the official baseline.
Change philosophy
Small improvements are expected over time.
Examples include:
- clarifying terminology
- improving diagrams
- refining beginner explanations
- documenting notation edge cases
- expanding examples
Large structural changes should be approached carefully.
Examples include:
- changing target numbering
- redefining notation grammar
- breaking compatibility with older choreography
- changing table structure conventions
Compatibility goal
One long-term goal of SaberCraft is archival durability.
A choreography written years earlier should remain understandable to future instructors whenever reasonably possible.
Because of that, backwards readability is strongly preferred.
Version numbering
The standard currently uses a simple major/minor structure.
| Example | Meaning |
|---|---|
| v2.0 | Major public revision |
| v2.1 | Minor compatible improvement |
| v2.1.1 | Small correction or clarification |
Public reference model
The official public reference for the standard currently includes:
- GitHub repository
- Markdown source files
- version-controlled history
- public documentation site
- downloadable releases in the future
This structure is intended to improve transparency, preservation, and long-term maintainability.
Future governance possibilities
As the standard grows, future governance may include:
- contribution review processes
- community proposals
- standards committees
- notation working groups
- federation partnerships
- public revision logs
The current focus is stability, documentation quality, and foundational clarity.
Key principle
SaberCraft should evolve slowly enough to remain stable, but openly enough to remain useful.