Open Federated Database (OFD) Specification

This repository houses the official build system and source documentation for the Open Federated Database Specification. The specification is authored as a single Bikeshed source document and rendered to a standalone HTML document by the integrated build system.

What is this?

The Open Federated Database (OFD) is a specification for self-hosted network services designed to mitigate spam and malicious activity without compromising user privacy or introducing friction to the digital landscape.

The specification outlines a semi-decentralized framework for identifying entities and actors across federated databases. By adhering to this common standard, firewalls, clients, servers, and automated services can reliably detect malicious content or behavior and take proactive measures to prevent abuse.

Adopters of the specification retain full autonomy over how they respond to database queries; the federated database itself is strictly responsible for indexing entries, maintaining historical context, and providing standardized telemetry to assist in risk assessment.

While any individual OFD host can define what constitutes malicious behavior within their domain, the framework is primarily tailored to target malware and spam. Hosts are free to categorize content using custom tags, allowing downstream consumers to select the specific database providers that align with their security and threat-modeling requirements.

Building

The specification is authored in Bikeshed as a single source document (index.bs) and rendered to a standalone HTML document (index.html).

Requirements: Python 3 and pipx.

make update          # first time only: download Bikeshed specification data
make spec            # build index.bs -> index.html
make watch           # rebuild automatically on every change
make check           # strict build; fails on any warning or error
make serve           # serve the built spec at http://127.0.0.1:8000/

Every push is validated and built automatically by GitHub Actions; publishing a release also deploys the rendered specification to GitHub Pages and attaches it to the release.

Repository layout

• index.bs — the specification source (Bikeshed)
• Makefile — build targets (make help for a full list)
• .github/workflows/ — CI: build, validation, and release deployment

Contributing

To contribute to the standard, please submit a pull request against the dev branch. To ensure the specification remains equitable and balanced for all participants, contributions must adhere to a strict set of foundational rules and conditions.

While these guidelines may evolve over time, the core principle remains absolute: preserve and respect user privacy while engineering effective solutions to combat malicious actors. Detailed contribution requirements will be documented in this section as they are finalized.

License

Copyright (C) 2022-2026 Nosial

This project is licensed under the GNU General Public License. The full text of the license can be found in the accompanying LICENSE file.

Why the GPL?

The GPL ensures that the specification remains open, free, and accessible to everyone in perpetuity. Even if a commercial entity adapts the specification for proprietary or monetized implementations, the underlying standard remains protected. True technical freedom ensures that all participants regardless of size have equal access to the same foundational technologies.