OpenTitan Technical Committee Terms of Reference

Purpose

The OpenTitan Technical Committee is part of the OpenTitan Governance structure and is responsible for technical decision making required to implement the technical roadmap.

Expectations and Conduct

All OpenTitan spaces, including the Technical Committee, are covered by the OpenTitan code of conduct to ensure a welcoming and respectful community. Beyond this, Technical Committee members are expected to follow the guidance below:

• Each Technical Committee member has a good faith duty to act in the best interests of the OpenTitan Project when performing their role as a Technical Committee member.
• Be active participants in development discussions within the OpenTitan Project, including but not limited to Technical Committee meetings.
• Consider comments and feedback that have been made on proposals during the Project-wide review process and ensure any concerns are adequately considered and addressed.
• Ensure that feedback has been sought from all relevant stakeholders, and appropriate effort has been made to find consensus within the OpenTitan contributor community.
• Put aside sufficient time on a week-by-week basis to review active proposals and give feedback.
• Collaborate to deliver on the responsibilities of the Technical Committee.
• Proactively seek to identify contributors who should be nominated for committer status.

Membership

The current OpenTitan Technical Committee membership is below. Individuals shown in italics have been directly appointed by the OpenTitan Governing Board in addition to membership entitlement.

• Andreas Kurth (chair, lowRISC)
• Eran Meisner (Nuvoton)
• Tim Trippel (Google)
• Shimeon Greenberg (Nuvoton)
• Rupert Swarbrick (lowRISC)
• No current appointee (Giesecke & Devrient)

Roles

The Technical Committee Chair facilitates the effective functioning of the Technical Committee. The role confers no enhanced voting rights. By default the Technical Committee Chair is the lowRISC representative in the Technical Committee. Any alternative Technical Committee member may be appointed to the Chair for a period of three months by Technical Committee vote.

Appointing members

Membership of the Technical Committee consists of one member appointed by each member organisation entitled under the terms of their membership agreement. Other members may be appointed by the Governing Board when it is felt that they have a key contribution to the project.

Meetings

Technical Committee meetings will be held regularly on an agreed schedule. The Chair may call additional meetings when a discussion or decision is needed outside the schedule. Minutes should be kept in a form accessible to Technical Committee members but will be considered confidential to this group. If a meeting has no agenda items (see below), the Chair may cancel it ahead of time.

Notification of meetings

Agenda items should be submitted at least three days in advance of the meeting by adding them to the meeting notes doc. The Chair should circulate the agenda at least two days in advance of the meeting.

Voting and quoracy

Voting uses the following rules unless otherwise specified.

• Voting may be at a meeting to which all TC members are invited or offline by email on the TC mailing list.
• If voting is offline, at least two weeks’ notice is required.
• If a TC member cannot attend a meeting to vote, they may instead vote by email to the TC mailing list before the respective TC meeting.
• For a vote to be quorate, it requires:
  • At least 60% of Technical Committee members to respond “Yes” or “No”
• For a vote to pass, it requires:
  • At least 75% of those Technical Committee members who vote “Yes” or “No” to be in favour

The chair has no enhanced voting rights as a result of their position. Voting results are recorded in the TC meeting notes. Results may be captured by number (e.g., “5 Yes, 2 No”) or by name (e.g., “Yes: Member A, Member C; No: Member B”).

Communication

Decisions and action points should be recorded and distributed to Technical Committee members and the Governing Board no later than a week after the meeting. Where Technical Committee decisions affect the broader OpenTitan community, the Chair should ensure that information is sent, or documentation updated, in a timely manner.

Responsibilities

Maintaining the list of OpenTitan Committers.

Committers are individuals with repository write access. While everyone can and is encouraged to contribute by reviewing code, committers are responsible for final approval and merge. New committers are appointed by Technical Committee vote. The Technical Committee removes committers who no longer meet the Technical Committee’s criteria as described in Committers.

Oversight of the RFC process

This includes voting to approve, reject, postpone or revise RFCs in line with the RFC process. In particular this includes:

• Determining whether an RFC is complete
• Approving or rejecting an RFC by a Technical Committee vote.
• Referring an RFC to the GB for a decision by a Technical Committee vote.

Creating and managing Commit Escalation Guidelines

These set out the guidance for when Committers should escalate a particular Commit to the Technical Committee (e.g. cross-cutting changes), and when Committers should recommend a design rationale write-up or RFC for wider feedback from the Technical Committee.

Proposing changes and/or additions to the Project’s technical roadmap

The Governing Board has ownership of the Project roadmap. Proposals can be made by Technical Committee vote and are referred to the Governing Board for consideration.

Framework for compliance & certification

Proposing the technical framework for compliance & certification under the Project’s trademarks. This defines what meets the standards of OpenTitan certification. The Technical Committee may propose changes to the technical framework by Technical Committee vote. The Governing Board votes to approve or reject the proposed changes. In the absence of a vote, changes proposed by the Technical Committee are approved one month after notification to the Governing Board.

Modifying the terms of reference

The Technical Committee Terms of Reference are set by the Governing Board.