1# OpenBMC Technical Oversight Forum (TOF) 2This is a working document and subject to change. 3 4The OpenBMC TOF or Technical Oversight Forum represents the technical 5leadership of the OpenBMC project. 6 7The TOF handles the processes around accepting new features into OpenBMC, 8creating new subprojects (git repositories), approving subproject maintainers, 9handling and enforcement of subproject maintainer issues, and many other 10technical leadership concerns related to OpenBMC. This source of this document 11is in the [OpenBMC documentation repository](https://github.com/openbmc/docs). 12The TOF updates and maintains this document, using the process documented 13within, and it can be considered authoritative unless directly overridden by 14the TSC. 15 16## Working Principles 17- Decision making is a spectrum between building broad consensus, in which 18 everyone has agreement, and providing guidance quickly, even when there are 19 strongly differing view-points. This group should intend to work towards 20 broad consensus, with a balance towards moving forward when there is minor 21 disagreement. 22- Members within this forum are representatives of the development community as 23 a whole and not as representatives for the entities they are employed by. As 24 such, decisions should be made based on merits of the decision at hand and 25 not on impacts to various member entities. 26- Encouraging progress, experimentation, and decision making within the project 27 is the core purpose of the TOF and not to create processes and barriers to 28 development. Velocity should be favored over perfection, except as a 29 rationale for ignoring well-reasoned issues. 30 31## Role and responsibilities 32Issues the TOF handle include: 33- Approval of new bitbake meta layers. 34- Approval of new subprojects. 35- Supervising subproject maintainers. 36- Resolving subproject maintainer disputes. 37- Guidance and oversight of the technical direction of OpenBMC. 38 39## Current members 40 41The current TOF members and terms are maintained [here](https://github.com/openbmc/docs/blob/master/tof/membership-and-voting.md#terms-and-elections). 42 43The TOF shall have a minimum of 5 and maximum of 9 members at any given time. 44 45The chair rotates month to month. 46 47Chair responsibilities: 48- Preparing the agenda. 49- Taking meeting minutes. 50- Documenting decisions on GitHub. 51 52Members are elected by community contributors yearly. The voting process will 53be determined by the TOF at a later date and updated in this document. TOF 54candidates should have a breadth of knowledge about the OpenBMC project. Ideal 55candidates will also have a public history of fostering collaboration between 56teams. 57 58Resignation of TOF members will be handled as an empty/reduced seat until the 59next voting session. 60 61## Github issues 62The TOF tracks any ongoing decisions using GitHub issues in the 63[TOF repository](https://github.com/openbmc/technical-oversight-forum/issues). 64Issues can be opened by anyone, including TOF members themselves. Issues 65can be requests for process or technical changes, or solicitations for the 66opinion of the TOF. When an issue is opened the TOF will respond to a proposal 67or a solicitation, or add it to the next TOF meeting agenda for TOF discussion. 68 69Once an issue has a proposal, TOF members have 8 days to vote on the proposal 70in one of three ways: for, against, or “needs discussion”. After 8 days, if 71the proposal has at least three votes for and no other votes, the proposal is 72approved. Alternatively, if the proposal has at least three votes against and 73no other votes, the proposal is rejected and closed. Any other vote count 74results in the issue being put on the next TOF meeting agenda. To ensure 75proposals do not stagnate, if the initial 8 days elapses and the minimum number 76of votes has not been met, the proposal is extended by an additional 6 days and 77then put onto the next TOF meeting agenda after 2 weeks. 78 79Issue vote indicators by reacting to the top post: 80 - For - �� (`:+1:`) 81 - Against - �� (`:-1:`) 82 - Needs discussion - �� (`:eyes:`) 83 84## Meetings 85The TOF meets bi-weekly. Any requests for consideration by the TOF should be 86submitted via a GitHub issue using the process documented earlier in this 87document. 88 89Meetings require a quorum of the TOF to be present; quorum is defined as: 90 91| Active TOF membership | Quorum | 92| --- | --- | 93| 5 | 4 | 94| 6 | 5 | 95| 7 | 5 | 96| 8 | 5 | 97| 9 | 6 | 98 99During the meeting, the TOF discusses proposals under dispute and votes on 100them. A proposal is rejected if it does not reach majority approval or there is 101more than one dissenting vote. 102 103It is the responsibility of the TOF chairperson to make a public record of the 104decisions of the meeting. 105 106## Discord channel 107The TOF has a private Discord channel for forum member coordination and, in 108rare situations, potentially sensitive topics. Sensitive topics would be 109topics having security or privacy concerns, such as those involving actions of 110an individual developer. The TOF chairperson is responsible for coordinating 111the public posting of any information or decisions that do not need to remain 112private, using the same process as public issues. 113