VOLTHA Governance

Owned by Michelle Roth
Last updated: Jul 22, 2024
4 min read


VOLTHA Governance & TST

Governance of the VOLTHA™ project is intended to foster a technical meritocracy within the context of stewardship by the VOLTHA Technical Steering Team (TST), under the guidance of the LF Broadband Directed Fund Governing Board and the Linux Foundation LLC.   

Link to Technical Charter

Link to Fund Charter

Goals

The goals of VOLTHA project governance are to:

  • Provide an environment that thrives on technical meritocracy. Merit is based on technical contribution, not on financial contribution.
  • Have strong technical vision and shepherding. This ensures architectural integrity of the codebase.
  • Provide a framework for VOLTHA teams and projects – how they are started, how they are managed, how members are elected, how conflicts are resolved, how they are disbanded when no longer needed.
  • Be clear on how VOLTHA software evolves – how code is added to (or removed from) the project.
  • Be clear on how decisions are made and conflicts resolved in the community.
  • Make it easy for community members to participate.
  • Avoid bureaucracy.
  • Create a great codebase.

Principles

The principles of VOLTHA governance are in line with these community values:

  • Serve our Community.
  • Practice true Meritocracy.
  • Operate with Transparency.
  • Strive for Quality, consistently.
  • Value and enable Innovation.
  • Respect others in all Interactions.

In addition, the overarching governance principle is to act in the best interest of the broader community.

Governance Structure

The VOLTHA project is governed by the VOLTHA Technical Steering Team (TST). The TST is guided by the LF Broadband Directed Fund Governing Board, which in turn operates under the oversight of the Linux Foundation.

The VOLTHA TST takes primary responsibility for release planning and collaborating with the community to guide architectural and technical choices. The TST is responsible for leading periodic community calls, release coordination and the VOLTHA CI/CD and certification test systems, with assistance as needed from LF staff.  

Roles and Responsibilities

TST Members

TST members here include all elected/appointed TST members in term, including the chair or co-chairs. The responsibilities of TST members include:

  • Strategic technical guidance and release coordination
  • Attending weekly community meetings and (if needed) separately scheduled TST meetings
  • Technical decisions when needed by the community. In general, technical decisions are made regularly in the community channels by lazy consensus. If there is a need for a more formal decision the TST is responsible for making the decision.
  • Reviewing collaboration proposals
  • Helping folks that yet do not know details of the project
  • Guiding/helping community with questions asked and problems raised from Slack channels and mailing lists. 
  • Creating project teams or working groups as needed
  • Ensuring the VOLTHA CI/CD and certification test systems are working/maintained, with assistance as needed from LF staff/outside contractors. 

Additionally, TST chair(s) only;

  • Release planning in coordination with the LF Broadband Governing Board 
  • Calling separate TST member calls when needed
  • Leading TST and/or community meetings and preparing content agenda
  • Engaging new members and developers, with assistance from LF staff
  • Ensure documentation is maintained, both technical and operational (i.e. meeting minutes)

TST Voting and Quorum

  • If consensus cannot be reached, a TST decision may be reached with a one vote per voting member basis. 
  • Quorum requires at least 50% of all voting members. For TST meetings, the TST can continue to meet if quorum is not achieved by cannot make any decisions. 
  • If quorum is met at a TST meeting requiring a vote, majority vote is required of those voting members who are present. If a vote is required by electronic means, a majority vote is required of all voting members of the TST. 

Technical Steering Team

Email: TST@lists.voltha.org  

The technical steering team is responsible for all technical decisions having to do with the VOLTHA project and the VOLTHA codebase. The VOLTHA codebase is the software distribution represented by the VOLTHA trademark, distributed within the different repos in github. It is entirely up to the technical steering team to decide what constitutes the VOLTHA project.  

The TST is intended to be an oversight body, and is not intended to have responsibility for patch-level project decisions.

TST Election Process

New technical steering team members will be elected on a yearly basis. Each Elected Member shall be elected to serve for a term of two (2) years, or until his or her earlier resignation or removal.  TST elections shall be staggered, if possible, so that roughly half of the Elected Member seats are up for election each year.

Elections of TST members shall be conducted as follows:

Nominations

For each election, the project PM will send out notification to the VOLTHA community that will include the election timeline, number of seats available, list of eligible nominees (contributors), and nomination and voting process. Interested voting members may nominate themselves or other eligible members. 

Elections

The TST should use a multiple-candidate method of voting, such as Condorcet Helios or single transferable vote.  Multiple-candidate methods may be replaced by a simple election by a plurality of votes when there are only two candidates for one position to be filled.  No election is required if there is only one candidate running and no voting member voices an objection.  In the event of a tied outcome, the TST may determine the winner or a process to resolve the tie.

Voting Members

Individuals eligible to vote in TST elections include:

  • Any contributor, a module owner, or a project owner who has submitted (and had accepted) or reviewed, as applicable, at least two patchsets in the prior twelve (12) months. 

TST Chair(s) Provision

The LF Broadband Governing Board shall appoint from the elected TST members the individual(s) to serve as the TST chair (or co-chairs). This provision will be reviewed annually with the intent that in time the TST may elect the TST chair. (TC 2.f and FC 3.iv)

Becoming a Contributor

Guidelines for becoming a contributor to VOLTHA are can be found here:

https://docs.voltha.org/master/overview/contributing.html