TL-X.org Steering Committee Roles and Responsibilities

TL-X Guiding Beliefs and Values

• The silicon industry is facing a complexity crisis affecting the time required to produce new silicon, and this crisis will continue to grow exponentially into the foreseeable future.
• Productivity improvements resulting from EDA innovation are not keeping pace with scaling complexity.
• Current EDA methodology, tools, and standards have, for decades, been driven by corporate interests. Corporations are not motivated to displace their own revenue-generating tools with better solutions. This has left us with EDA methodology, tools, languages, and standards layered atop those of a different era. The result is unnecessarily complex.
• Innovation tends to take place on a small scale, but, given the complex nature of silicon development, it has been difficult for new innovations to take root in the ecosystem.
• "Transaction-Level" design methodology is, to this committee, the best-known design methodology to address the escalation of silicon complexity into the foreseeable future, and TL-X is the best-known stepping stone to help the industry transition to clean standards to support this methodology. Contrarian viewpoints are welcome and warrant discussion and possible refocusing.
• Community-driven change can be a powerful force.
• Standards are best driven by the community in the open and ratified by small decision-making bodies without commercial interests.
• Simplicity is essential for productivity. Every language feature must have sufficient value to overcome the burden of its existence.

TL-X Steering Committee Overview

Aligning with our beliefs and values, TL-X is a community-driven effort relying primarily upon open-source infrastructure and practices to drive the effort forward organically. Communication generally takes place in public online forums and contributions come in the form of pull requests.

Though most activity does not require oversight, given the nature of TL-X as part of a long-range roadmap to lead the industry to a better future, our steering committee of volunteers has been established to provide a modicum of community oversight and steering with the long-term goals in mind. In contrast to most EDA organizations, where membership dues award influence, the TL-X Steering Committee members are volunteers. Members with commercial interest are excluded from voting, not awarded votes.

This document outlines the expectations of and process for committee members.

Roles and Responsibilities

The Steering Committee is responsible for:

• the evolution of the TL-X Language Extension Specification
• providing visibility for the technology and mission
• facilitating collaborations and partnerships
• engaging in activities that promote adoption
• educational outreach
• administrative roles for git repositories
• conducting quarterly and adhoc meetings to facilitate forward progress
• informed and timely voting on all matters brought to a vote
• identifying conflicts of interest
• acting in the best interest of the silicon industry, from hobbyists to professionals

Git Repositories

Some TL-X projects (including this document) are overseen by the Steering Committee. These projects are located in this GitHub organization: https://github.com/TL-X-org. Committee members have owner privileges on these repositories. Members are entrusted to contribute to these repositories and accept pull requests unilaterally to move the community forward while ensuring that other committee members are tagged and informed of relevant changes. Each repository has at least one committee member responsible for reviewing pull requests and summarizing changes for other members.

Meetings

The Steering Committee holds regular quarterly online meetings and focused meetings as appropriate. Outcomes are posted.

One member shall be the chairperson. The chairperson is responsible for conducting the meeting. This includes preparing and communicating the agenda, keeping the meeting discussion on track and productive, and conducting votes. The position of chairperson is a voluntary position determined by vote. Revolving this responsibility is encouraged.

Every meeting also requires a note-taker, responsible for meeting minutes or notes, posted publicly after each meeting (with additional private communication if appropriate). The position of note-taker is a voluntary position determined at the onset of the meeting by the chairperson.

Quarterly meetings generally follow this outline:

• Review of new and ongoing TL-X activities.
• Where are there opportunities for traction?
• What steps can we take to take advantage of the opportunities?
• Action item review and updates.
• Assessment of the board structure. This begins (and possibly ends) with the vote to keep the current structure of the committee.
• Other issues up for voting. Determination of input required, timeline, process, and conflict of interest prior to each vote.

Voting

While the committee is generally more focused on sourcing ideas than on making decisions, occasional issues warrant voting. A member may call a vote on any issue anytime, especially to help align the committee on contentious alternate directions. Members shall be given a chance to adequately research an issue prior to voting. Unless all members are present and prepared, voting will be conducted asynchronously by an anonymous online voting system. Members may choose to abstain from any vote. A non-vote within the specified timeframe of the vote shall be considered abstinence. Majority rules. Ties result in no determination, requiring further resolution.

Voting rights: All members have voting rights except for those determined by vote or self-determination to have a conflict of interest on a particular vote. In particular, any member with a commercial interest in the direction of the TL-X standard shall not vote on the specification. All members have voting rights for issues pertaining to committee structure (so members may vote to preserve their own membership, for example).

Particular issues that require voting include:

Committee structure and membership: The committee is responsible for its own structure and membership. Any structural changes to the committee shall be determined by vote (aye, nay, abstain). This includes accepting new members and ejecting or replacing members. It is important that the committee consists only of active members and that it maintain a healthy size. Membership should maintain an appropriate balance of representation.

TL-X Language Extension Specification ratification: It is the responsibility of this committee to maintain the TL-X Language Extension Specification.