The Hyperledger Technical Oversight Committee (TOC) responsibilities

The Hyperledger Charter states that the TOC is responsible for:

  1. coordinating the technical direction of the Hyperledger Foundation;

  2. approving project proposals (including, but not limited to, incubation, deprecation and changes to a project’s charter or scope) in accordance with a project lifecycle document to be developed, approved and maintained by the TOC;

  3. creating sub-committees or working groups to focus on cross-project technical issues or opportunities;

  4. communicating with external and industry organizations concerning related technical matters;

  5. appointing representatives to work with other open source or standards communities;

  6. establishing community norms, workflows, or policies for releases;

  7. discussing, seeking consensus, and where necessary, voting on technical matters relating to the code base that affect multiple projects; and

  8. establishing election processes for Maintainers or other leadership roles in the technical community that are not within the scope of any single project.

TOC Members

TOC members are expected to:

  • Subscribe to the TOC mailing list and the Hyperledger Github organization to stay aware of the TOC related updates and issues.
  • Regularly participate in the TOC Meetings
  • Review the TOC Project Updates and comment as needed in a timely manner
  • Bring up and help resolve any issues related to the needs of the Hyperledger technical community
  • Participate in, and optionally chair, the Task Forces set up by the TOC to address specific issues
  • Attend one project meeting a month for a project with which they are unaffiliated and have not been a contributor (and, ideally, one that they have not attended before). See TOC Issue #21.
  • Act as stewards for Hyperledger promoting and helping grow the organization and its activities by engaging of their own accord in activities such as posting on social media, responding to questions raised in forums, helping new community members find their way around, and giving talks at conferences on Hyperledger related topics.
  • Approve new lab stewards

TOC Chair

The TOC Chair has the following additional responsibilities:

  • Running the TOC meetings, such as the TOC calls per the agreed upon schedule. This includes: setting up and publishing an agenda, running the meeting, and ensuring any outcome is duly recorded
  • Representing the TOC, and more broadly the Hyperledger technical community, on the Governing Board, and give updates to the Governing Board on TOC activities
  • Giving a TOC update at the Hyperledger Global Forum
  • Giving a TOC update at the Hyperledger Member Summit
  • Representing the Hyperledger technical community externally, including presenting at conferences and responding to press inquiries, in coordination with the Hyperledger staff

TOC Vice Chair

The TOC Vice Chair has the following additional responsibilities:

  • Running the TOC meetings when the chair is unable
  • Reaching out to projects when they miss submitting their TOC Quarterly Project Update to remind the projects that they have a report due