> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://black-paper.rgb.tech/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://black-paper.rgb.tech/other-information/11.-governance.md).

# 11. Governance

To reduce the level of complexity and mitigate the risks of cross-dependencies RGB developers took a layered approach, building the technology in a modular way, where the modules are abstracted into different strata - such that the strata below know nothing about the strata above.

Overall, the development around RGB can be classified into the following fields, layered on top of each other:

**Core protocol**, or **consensus-level development**. You may think of it as of something which means the same thing for RGB as "Bitcoin Core" means for Bitcoin.

**Toolchain development**, which includes compilers, linkers, programming languagues and other tools. You may think of it as of Consensys company in Ethereum ecosystem.

* Schemata development
* Smart contracts issuance
* Wallet, exchange and other software integration

| Field of development                | Overseen by                                                   | Developers                                                                             | Main languagues                                              |
| ----------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------ |
| Core protocol                       | LNP/BP Standards Association                                  | RGB core maintainers, but eventually ossified (i.e. no development activity)           | Rust                                                         |
| Toolchain                           | LNP/BP Standards Association                                  | Association & member companies                                                         | Rust                                                         |
| Schemata                            | LNP/BP Standards Association                                  | Independent companies & developers                                                     | Contractum (alternatively, Rust)                             |
| Smart contracts                     | nobody                                                        | Issuers: independent companies, teams, DAOs, issuing assets & creating smart contracts | JSON & any languagues working with Web                       |
| Integration (wallets, exchange etc) | Integration standards proposed by LNP/BP Standards Asociation | Applied software companies: exchanges, wallet devs, outsourcers etc                    | JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, C, Java, Kotlin, Swift, Rust |

Core protocol devs, upon final RGB/1 v1.0 release will perform only the bugfixing.

Toolchain development, managed and sponsored through LNP/BP Standards Association, will continue to produce and improve tools for other developer categories.

Schemata development consists of two main tasks:

* Defining standards for API used in most common use cases.
* Develop specific schemata, which may be seen as "RGB smart contract templates created by domain professionals".

The first case is covered by LNP/BP standards. Anybody can propose a new standard for a Schema (these standards are called "Schema (API) standards"). The standards are reviewed by the same process as any other LNP/BP standard, and are overseen by the LNP/BP Standards Association quite similar to how IETF oversees Internet standards (RFCs).

Development of a schema confirming to some, multiple, or even none of the Schema Standards can be performed by anybody, independently from the LNP/BP Standards Association or any other body. The only requirement is to unserstand how to develop a Schema and have the ability to write them using Contractum languague.

LNP/BP Standards Association maintains [registry of the schemata](https://github.com/RGB-WG/schemata), however any other body may create an independent registry, so multiple registries may co-exist. The process of adding an implementation to the LNP/BP registry is very simple: just submit a PR request providing all the necessary information about your schemata.

Due to using schemata, the development of actual smart contracts require no coders and conding: it comes down to the selection of a schema (or multiple schemata) which the contract must confirm to - and filling in the data specific to that schemata in pretty much the same way as filling in paper forms. This is done with some data-oriented languagues, like JSON, YAML, XML - or using some user interface tools supplied by LNP/BP Association or independent companies for existing schemata types (like fungible asstets, NFTs, identity etc).