Article 28 | General Principles of Engagement in Good Faith

(1) Principle of Good Faith and Integrity: Alliance Members, Technical and Policy Convenors, and participating developers shall engage with one another, the OpenBharat.net Governing Council (OBGC), the Secretariat, and external stakeholders in good faith, upholding mutual respect, technical candor, and institutional integrity.

(2) Alignment with Sovereign Objectives: Members shall act in furtherance of the core objectives of OpenBharat.net, prioritising collective ecosystem resilience, open-source vitality, and sovereign AI infrastructure over narrow partisan or commercial interests.

(3) Transparency and Information Sharing: Members shall cultivate an environment of open communication, actively sharing technical observations, empirical data, and development hurdles that inform community deliberations and repository development.

(4) Constructive Contribution: Members shall participate constructively in OpenBharat.net Working Group (OWG) sprints, discussions, and review milestones, delivering actionable technical input, reproducible code, or doctrinal feedback.

(5) Collegiality and Consensus: Members shall collaborate in a spirit of technical cooperation, resolving design disagreements, architectural disputes, and procedural differences through empirical testing, peer review, and dialogue.

(6) Inclusive Technical Meritocracy: Members shall respect diverse perspectives across engineering, scientific, legal, and regional domains, promoting meritocratic and equitable participation for developers and institutions of all scales.

(7) Information Security and Discretion: Members shall strictly honor the confidentiality covenants and data classifications established under Article 9 and Article 24, safeguarding non-public vulnerability disclosures, pre-release drafts, and restricted infrastructure telemetry.

(8) Institutional Adherence: Members shall abide by this Charter, the Bharat Pacific Principles of AI Standardisation, the ISAIL AI Principles, and formal resolutions issued by the OBGC and the Secretariat.

(9) Protection of Institutional Reputation: Members shall refrain from deceptive benchmarking, market hype, unauthorized brand appropriation, or any conduct that compromises the legal integrity, security, or public standing of OpenBharat.net and ISAIL.

(10) Responsibilities of Partner Incubators and Accelerators: Incubators, accelerators, and institutional research hubs partnering with OpenBharat.net shall endeavor to:

• Encourage and mentor affiliated startups and developers to contribute to OWG tracks in good faith;

• Foster a culture of responsible AI engineering, empirical validation, and model safety within their cohorts;

• Facilitate bilateral knowledge transfer and sprint participation between their member founders and OpenBharat.net working bodies; and

• Ensure that affiliated founders and portfolio entities honor inbound licensing frameworks, Contributor License Agreements (CLAs), and confidentiality boundaries pursuant to Article 6, Article 23, and Article 24.