Re: [kernelci-members] KernelCI TSC Reset

One thought I'd offer up is on the selection of the TSC Chair.

Rather than the "most votes", I would recommend that from those
elected to the TSC, the  TSC themselves after the election as their
first action should select from their own who their chair will be.
From my experience with other non-profits/boards, it's often best to
give the "job" to those that want it and will have the time.
Unfortunately that won't always be the person who gets the most votes.

On Mon, Jun 2, 2025 at 2:04 PM Gustavo Padovan via groups.io
<[email protected]> wrote:
>
> Hello everyone,
>
> Recently, we have been discussion the current state of the Technical Steering Committee(TSC)
> in KernelCI. Over time, a disconnect emerged between the members of the TSC and the current
> active contributors to the KernelCI community and we didn't act in time to correct course. That's
> part of the pains of a growing community.
>
> On the flip side, it opens the door for us to rethink the TSC structure from scratch - something the
> KernelCI Project Advisory Board jumped on and took a proposal for feedback to the weekly
> community meeting last week. Now, we want to share it with the wide community to discuss any
> feedback people may have before we take this to final stages.
>
> Of course, just having a new structure is not the solution to all problems. It
> will require engagement and commitment from TSC members to help the community grow,
> keep an open collaborative space, seek alignment of technical roadmap to our main goals and
> mediate key strategic decisions.
>
>
> # Proposal for the new KernelCI TSC
>
> The current proposal was build taking inspiration from how other TSC (eg ELISA, Zephyr, Yocto)
> are structured today. It has two main spaces:
> * the TSC itself
> * the KernelCI Infrastructure Working Group(Infra WG)
>
> In a nutshell, the Infra WG is responsible for the core infra of the project (Maestro, KCIDB, Storage,
> Web Dashboard) and the TSC drives the engament with the Linux kernel community, bridging the
> gap between the user needs and infra roadmap development.
>
>
> ## TSC
>
> *  5 members total
>     -> 4 by community vote with 1 year term
>     -> plus the KernelCI Infrastructure WG Lead
> *  Most voted person elected TSC Chair for a 1 year term
> *  Max of two employees from the same company
> *  Any of the community members listed below are eligible to vote and be voted to the KernelCI TSC:
>    -> Contributors to KernelCI git repositories
>    -> Technical members of CI systems and labs connected to KernelCI
>    -> Upstream Linux kernel maintainer who interacts with KernelCI results and/or give public feedback to the project
>
>
> ## KernelCI Infrastructure WG
>
> * Responsible for the software projects deployed as KernelCI services
>    ->Maestro, KCIDB, Storage, Web Dashboard
> * Manages the Sysadmin team. With the creation of the Infrastructure WG, the Sysadmin WG becomes a
>   team inside the Infrastructure WG with some people getting access to the sysadmin secrets.
> * Initial member selection is based on key contributions and ownership
> * WG can vote new members in and out at any time
> * Members who haven’t contributed to the KernelCI projects for over 6 months are automatically removed from the WG
> * WG Lead shall preside for two years
> * Voting members for WG Lead include the WG members and TSC members
>
>
> ### Additional TSC responsibilities
>
> Beyond what is already listed in the Charter, the TSC should be responsible for:
>
> * Seeking feedback from the Linux kernel community and company members as driving the
>  creation of processes for improving the feedback process over time;
> * Setting up a process (e.g. RFC, PEP, …) for decision making around important architectural
> decisions in the project. Such a process should be used whenever consensus is not achieved
> trivially.
>
> ###  Final thoughts
>
> For reference, today's the current TSC structure is described in the project charter[1] and any
> modification we will make to the TSC structure will require voting by the Advisory Board.
>
> In the next steps, once we collect extra pieces of feedback here, the board will evaluate and
> hold a voting for changing the charter. Once that happens an election process can start.
>
> Let us know your thoughts,
>
> Best,
>
> - gus
>
> [1] https://docs.kernelci.org/files/KernelCI_Project_Technical_Charter_20181107.pdf
>
>
> --
> Gustavo Padovan
>
> Collabora Ltd.
>
>
>
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-- 
Regards,
Tom

Senior Director, Ecosystem
Linaro.org  (><) │ Arm Solutions at Light Speed
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