Public orientation map

The public stack is a map. CSF is the operating layer.

The instruments on this page tell you what to value, what to document, and what the law requires. CSF is the only one you can license, configure, and keep under a single canonical authority. This map orients NIST, ISO, the EU AI Act, OECD, and the Council of Europe Convention around CSF without treating them as equivalents.

See why CSF sits above the stack CSF public description

Instrument explorer

CSF first. The rest of the stack is input.

Open CSF to see the owned core. The other records are public instruments CSF can ingest. They are not substitutes and they do not grant a license.

Owned IP: Not a public commons.
Licensable: Public text is not permission to use.
Operational: Sites and configures the live architecture the checklists do not run.

7 instruments in this view.

Owned intellectual property

Polycentric Ventures L.C.

Configurational Systems Framework

CSF is owned intellectual property of Polycentric Ventures L.C. It is the operating layer on this map: owner-governed, licensable, and amendable at one canonical source. It is not a public standard, a certification scheme, or a statute.

Published record: Foundational IP under owner control
Binding force: Owner-governed intellectual property. Public description is not a license.
Assurance path: Canonical authority, amendment authority, and licensing remain with Polycentric Ventures.
What it governs: Relationships among people, AI systems, evidence, and authority, including conditions for carrying learning into later decisions.

Working functions

Evidence and provenance
Authority and reserved decisions
Bounded application and extension
Correction and record integrity

Evidence: Public pages describe the subject at category level. Controlled methods, unreleased chapters, and confidential terms are not published here.
Authority: Polycentric Ventures retains ownership, canonical control, amendment authority, licensing authority, and reserved decisions.
Relationship to CSF: Owned core. The other instruments on this page are inputs CSF can ingest. None of them replace CSF or grant rights in it.
Limits of this map: Reading this map does not transfer ownership, create a field-of-use authorization, or disclose controlled CSF material.
What it cannot do: Not a statute and does not claim to be. Law remains controlling. CSF supplies the verification and configuration layer the instruments below lack.

Read the CSF public description

Landscape

Kind is the first distinction. Ownership is the second.

A statute, a certifiable management system, a voluntary risk framework, and a principle set can share vocabulary and still impose different duties. Only CSF on this page is owned, licensable IP.

Public instruments in this orientation map
Instrument	Kind	Binding force	Assurance	What it cannot do
CSF	Owned intellectual property	Owner-governed intellectual property. Public description is not a license.	Canonical authority, amendment authority, and licensing remain with Polycentric Ventures.	Not a statute and does not claim to be. Law remains controlling. CSF supplies the verification and configuration layer the instruments below lack.
NIST AI RMF	Voluntary framework	Voluntary. Often treated as a U.S. operational baseline, including in federal procurement contexts.	Self-attestation and program evidence. Not a certification standard.	Cannot be owned, licensed, or amended by the adopter as proprietary canon. Describes risk practice. Does not run a live governance cycle.
ISO 42001	Management-system standard	Voluntary unless required by contract, procurement, or a regulator’s chosen assurance path.	Certifiable Artificial Intelligence Management System (AIMS) through accredited audit.	Process certificate, not an owned operating system. Certifies the management system you declared, not that a model is safe, and not EU AI Act conformity.
EU AI Act	Binding law	Binding law for AI systems placed on the EU market or affecting people in the EU, with risk-tiered duties.	Risk-class duties, documentation, transparency, GPAI obligations, and conformity assessment where required.	Legislates what. Does not give an operator an owned, configurable how.
OECD Principles	Principles / soft law	Non-binding soft law for adhering governments and a common policy vocabulary for organizations.	Political commitment and reporting initiatives. No corporate certification.	Vocabulary and values, not an operating system, license, or audit.
ISO 23894	Management-system standard	Guidance standard. Not independently certifiable.	Used as risk-methodology guidance, often alongside ISO/IEC 42001.	Method note, not a system. No certificate, no owner, no live configuration layer.
Council of Europe Convention	Binding law	International treaty for states that ratify it. Not a direct corporate management system.	State-level implementation of human-rights, democracy, and rule-of-law duties around AI systems.	State instrument. Leaves private operators without a licensable operating architecture.

How to use this map

Stack the public instruments. License CSF.

Most serious programs use more than one layer: a legal regime where it applies, a management system if certification is required, a risk vocabulary for operations, and principle language for policy. Those layers are inputs. CSF sits apart as owned foundational IP — the operating layer that sites and configures them. Implementation work sits with the businesses. Licensing and canonical questions sit with Polycentric Ventures.

Configuration Capital Group Research + Development

Ownership + implementation

CSF is licensed. It is not borrowed from this page.

For CSF ownership and licensing, use Polycentric Ventures contact. For enterprise implementation, visit Configuration Capital Group. Reading this map does not grant a license.

Contact information