TSC/draft election procedures

warning - very drafty - these are for discussion and likely have some bad ideas in them

FD.IO TSC ELECTION PROCEDURES

This page describes the proposed TSC selection procedures

Overview

With the changes in the Linux Foundation structures for networking projects, to behooves us as the fd.io TSC to develop a plan for moving from a Platinum Membership based TSC to one based on the contributing community. This page proposes a target operating procedure, and a transition path to move smoothly from our current state to our desired state. It starts by laying out some guiding principles and concerns that drive the choices made herein.

Principles

The following are a short list of principles that drive the election procedures. These principles are sometimes in conflict with each other, and balancing such is a judgment made by the TSC, not a matter of mathematics of formal correctness.

Represent the Implementing Community

The membership in the TSC should be made up of folks who understand and represent the interests and concerns of the people actually building the code. While input from users is always important, the project is driven by those who write code

Attention to Central Concerns

Certain aspects of the FD.IO project are central to the overall project. When issues from these aspects are not given due attention, the likelihood is high that there will be side-effects throughout the project. Thus, these aspects need to be directly represented on the TSC.

Avoidance of Central Dominance

While certain technical aspects are critical, and at times certain companies provide significant resources to the project, the TSC election structure needs to ensure that the TSC represents broader concerns and can not be captured by or subservient to any specific interests.

Modern Election procedures

Given that we are selecting a multi-member TSC, it is important that we use election procedures that have been found to code with this task with some robustness and reasonable fairness (putting aside the proof that no election procedure is ever perfect). While the procedures below make a specific choice, the principle is that techniques like Condorcet or Single Transferable Vote be used.