The TOC is the technical arm of the FINOS Governing Board, committed to fostering the growth of FINOS projects. It operates transparently through open discussion, maintaining alignment with FINOS's technical and strategic goals while ensuring the long-term sustainability of projects.
The TOC consists of three roles: Members, Vice Chair, and Chair. Each role has specific responsibilities and expectations to ensure the effective functioning of the committee. Responsibilities of each role are outlined in the Responsibilities section.
TOC members are responsible for actively participating in meetings, discussions, and decision-making processes. Members determine FINOS technical standards, enable cross-project collaboration, provide technical guidance, and help resolve disputes when needed.
Members are also expected to equally share the responsibility of serving as liaisons to projects and technical initiatives approved by the governing board. Assignments will be divided among TOC members based on interest, to ensure each technical effort has a dedicated liaison.
The TOC Vice Chair supports the Chair in overseeing the smooth functioning of the committee by handling logistical tasks such as scheduling meetings, maintaining attendance, and ensuring documentation is up to date.
The Vice Chair may act as a delegate for the Chair when necessary.
Vice Chairs are appointed by the TOC to one-year terms beginning with the vacancy of the role. Onboarding a new Vice Chair should be prioritized by the outgoing Vice Chair.
The TOC Chair is responsible for ensuring the smooth operation and productivity of the Technical Oversight Committee. This includes leading meetings, driving the agenda, overseeing decision-making processes, and ensuring all TOC responsibilities are completed on time.
The Chair also serves as the primary liaison between the TOC and the Governing Board, including presenting a quarterly report summarizing updates from project liaisons.
Chairs are appointed by the TOC to one-year terms beginning with the vacancy of the role. Onboarding a new Chair should be prioritized by the outgoing Chair.
- Members: Appointed to two-year terms through the elections process.
- Chair and Vice Chair: Starting with vacancy of the role, these positions are appointed by the TOC to one-year terms or until their membership on the TOC ends — whichever is first. Voting must be done asynchronously to ensure that all members are notified.
The key responsibilities of the TOC are summarized below:
| Responsibility | Frequency | Responsible Party | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Landscape Ownership | |||
| Technical Governance & Standards | January & July | Chair | |
| Landscape Evolution | March & September | Chair | |
| Lifecycle Criteria | May | Chair | |
| Technical Dispute Resolution | As needed | Chair | |
| Cross-project Synergies | Routine | Vice Chair or Volunteer | |
| Project Health Review | Semi-annual (per project presentation) | Vice Chair or Volunteer | |
| Lifecycle Transitions | As needed | Vice Chair or Volunteer | |
| Landscape Growth | |||
| Contribution Review | As needed | Chair & Volunteer | |
| Project Promotion | As needed | Vice Chair | |
| Strategic Interaction | |||
| Board Reporting | Quarterly | Chair | |
| OSFF Participation | Twice a year | Vice Chair or Volunteer | |
| TOC Newsletter | Monthly | Vice Chair or Volunteer | |
| Strategic Initiative Liaison | As needed | Volunteer |
- Participate in TOC meetings and contribute to discussions, at least 50% of the time
- Delegates may be sent to meetings, but the member is still responsible for giving feedback or acting on outcomes from the meetings
- Participate in all project applications and promotion requests through discussion and/or voting
- This may be asynchronous via GitHub issues or in TOC meetings
- Volunteer as a liaison for a strategic initiative as agreed with the larger TOC body
- Provide logistical support for meetings and repository maintenance
- Assist in maintaining attendance and ensuring voting eligibility
- Help coordinate TOC activities and documentation
- Ensure a monthly stakeholder newsletter is sent by FINOS on behalf of the TOC
- Act as a delegate for the Chair when required
- Propose and onboard a Vice Chair replacement before transitioning out
- Ensure all collective TOC responsibilities are met
- Support TOC members in understanding and executing upon their responsibilities
- Facilitate meetings
- Lead the engagement on project applications and promotion requests
- Ensure all outcomes are documented in the TOC repository
- Ensure 5 project demos are presented at each OSFF event
- Serve as the primary liaison between the TOC and the Governing Board
- Propose and onboard a Chair replacement before transitioning out
- Proposals must be submitted as GitHub issues
- Discussions occur openly on the issue or in TOC meetings
- Operational changes to this governance document require a two-thirds majority vote of all TOC members prior to PR approval
- Any member can propose a resolution which will be binding immediately upon completion
- Votes must last five business days, unless a live vote is done with a supermajority quorum
- A supermajority quorum entails two-thirds of qualified membership present
- To qualify as a voting member, members must have attended two of the last three TOC meetings
- A majority vote is required to pass proposals
- The Chair must withhold all vote participation except to act as a tie-breaker
- Discussions related to community-impacting work should happen in GitHub issues, including proposals, meeting agendas, and suggestions
- Decisions, outcomes, and policies must be documented in the TOC GitHub repository
- Charters, reports, and other key documentation should be maintained and updated on the TOC GitHub repository regularly
- In the event that a requirement from this document is not explicitly captured herein, clarifying documentation may be captured in the TOC repository, where it should be considered equally authoritative unless conflicting with this document.
- Governance or technical decisions with lasting effect — for example, a standard or template the TOC asks FINOS projects to follow — should be recorded as an Architecture Decision Record (ADR) once decided through the Decision-Making and Voting process above. See
adrs/README.mdfor the ADR process and format.
TOC activities are managed in GitHub via the TOC Backlog, which is fed by the Community, the FINOS team and owned by the TOC chair. Below a list of transparently documented processes the TOC follows:
Authoritative supporting material and guides can be found in the processes directory of this repo.
Functional modifications to this governance document require an asynchronous supermajority vote prior to merge (two-thirds of qualified votes).