CNCF structure

The Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) has three main bodies: a Governing Board (GB) that is responsible for marketing, budget and other business oversight decisions for the CNCF, a Technical Oversight Committee (TOC) that is responsible for defining and maintaining the technical vision, and an End User Community (EUC) that is responsible for providing feedback from companies and startups to help improve the overall experience for the cloud native ecosystem. Each of these groups has its own defining role in the Foundation. 

The TOC responsibilities and operations are defined in the CNCF Charter. The TOC is intended to be a resource of technical architects in the community that both guides the direction of the CNCF and acts as a resource to projects. Their role is also to help define what new projects are accepted to the CNCF. 

The charter for the TOC was updated in September 2019. Below are the details of those changes.

Changes

The TOC is expanding from 9 members to 11 members; adding an additional End User seat and a new seat for non-sandbox project maintainers. The TOC will now consist of:

6 nominees from the Governing Board (GB)

2 nominees from the End User Community (up from 1)

1 nominee from the non-sandbox project maintainers (up from 0)

2 nominees from the other 9 members of the TOC

The next TOC Elections will take place in December 2019, with 3 GB-appointed TOC members up for election, as well as the new end user-appointed member and a non-sandbox project maintainer-appointed member, for a total of 5 seats. All TOC terms will be 2 years.

Nominations happen from the Governing Board

Nomination qualifications 

Nomination qualifications are defined in the charter. A nominee should be a senior engineer in the scope of the CNCF, have the available bandwidth to be invested in the TOC, and be able to operate neutrally in discussions regardless of company or project affiliation.

Process

Each selecting group may nominate up to two people, and the nominee must agree to be nominated. A one-page nominating statement should include the nominee’s qualifying experience and contact information. Following the nomination, there is a two week evaluation period for the Governing Board and TOC to review and contact nominees. After the evaluation period, the Governing Board and the TOC votes on each nominee to ensure qualification, with a 50% vote to become a Qualified Nominee. We will publish the list of Qualified Nominees.

TOC Election Schedule:

5 seats available: 3 GB-appointed seats, 1 end-user appointed, 1 maintainer appointed

December 12: Nominations open – 12 PM PT

Dec 20: Nominations close (last day of business before holiday) – 12 PM PT 

Jan 6: Qualification period opens

Jan 20: Qualification period closes 

Jan 20: Election opens

Feb 1: Election closes

Voting occurs by a time-limited Condorcet-IRV ranking in CIVS

Feb 3: Election results posted

TOC appointed seat (3/18/2020 start date)

February 3rd: Nominations open – 12 PM PT 

February 10: Nominations close 

February 11: Qualification period opens

February 28: Qualification period closes 

March 1: Election opens

March 17: Election closes

Voting occurs by a time-limited Condorcet-IRV ranking in CIVS

March 17: Election results posted