Methodology IP not licensable to successor

Scenario

If Landseed PBC fails as a corporation, the methodology, registry, and brand have no institutional home. Without an irrevocable IP license to an independent Foundation, methodology stewardship freezes and the registry stops issuing credits.

Cost / impact

Methodology stewardship freezes; registry stops issuing Earth Credits; the architecture becomes an orphan with no path to new attestations or credit issuances.

Prevention

Form the Methodology Foundation per the actionable formation plan in 07-execution/05-methodology-foundation-formation.md (12–18 months; $115k–$215k formation budget). Methodology IP is irrevocably licensed to the Foundation under an open-source license at Month 14–18.

Mitigation

With the formation plan in place, this transitions from aspirational to a concrete project with named start triggers, board seat targets, and a phase-by-phase task list. Specific formation risks (IRS denial, board not assembled, stewards refusing license) are catalogued in the formation plan's risk register — see Test 24 for those failure modes.

Residual risk

The most fragile interim window is the 8–14 months between Form 1023 filing and IRS determination, during which buffer pool governance and IP custody still sit at Landseed PBC. Successor-trustee/escrow structure addresses the buffer pool specifically; methodology-IP custody during the gap remains corporate.