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Originally Posted by Child
And Tolkien made it quite clear in his letters that this world was somewhat open-ended, since he had wanted to "leave scope for other minds and hands", inviting gifted creators to come in "wielding paint and music and drama."
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This brings up the question of how narrowly or broadly Tolkien himself would have defined 'canonicity' - if he was happy (unlike Christopher) for people to expand on his creation, as long, presumably, as they stayed within the spirit of the work. Presumably he didn't think of Middle earth as his sole 'property', & was in a sense giving it to the world - as he said to Milton Waldman, he wanted to dedicate it to England.
If this is the case, then it could be argued that any fanfic which was true to the spirit of the work could be considered 'canonical' as writers would be simply expanding Tolkien's world, with his permission.
Of course, Tolkien, as Shippey among others has shown, was attempting to recreate an already existing mythology, & attempting to explain, for instance, why in Norse myth & Saxon legend there are references to Light Elves, Dark Elves, Elves of the Gloaming, Sea Elves, Wood Elves, etc. So Tolkien, in part , is not 'freely' inventing his stories, he is attempting to account for references in the old sources. So we could say that the Legendarium is an exercise in applied philology, an attempt to reconstruct a lost mythology, as much as an attempt to tell an entertaining story.