Technical Steering Committee Charter

Amended January 27, 2026

  1. Governance Structure of the OpenROAD Initiative

    1. The OpenROAD Initiative is a 501(c)(3) organization that is managed by a Governing Board. The Governing Board hereby establishes a Technical Steering Committee (“TSC”) which reports to the Governing Board and whose purpose is to represent the interests of and to provide active technical leadership to the projects supported by the OpenROAD Initiative. Other committees, working groups, and similar bodies may also be established, all of which will report to the Governing Board.

  2. Mission and Scope of the Technical Steering Committee

    1. The mission of the TSC is to provide technical oversight and leadership of the “OpenROAD” open source subproject and any other subprojects that may be adopted by the TSC by vote.
    2. The scope of the TSC includes the software development of the “OpenROAD” subproject and the development of any other subprojects that may be complementary including but not limited to: synthesis tools, timing tools, common interfaces, and reference implementations.
    3. The composition, roles, responsibilities, and meeting schedule and structure of the TSC are established by the Governing Board as defined in Section 5 of the OpenROAD Initiative Governing Charter.

  3. Subprojects

    1. Roles. Each subproject consists of Contributors and Committers.
      1. Contributors include anyone who contributes technical artifacts to the subproject such as source code or documentation, regardless of their membership status in the OpenROAD Initiative.
      2. Committers are Contributors who hold the permission to “commit” changes to the subprojects repository of technical artifacts.
      3. Committers and their respective permissions may be granted or revoked from the subproject by a simple majority vote of the existing Committers.
    2. Mission Statements. Each subproject must establish a mission statement which describes its goals and how they relate to the larger OpenROAD Initiative.
    3. Contributing. Each subproject must establish a set of contributing guidelines that defines processes and best practices for contributing source code, documentation, or other artifacts to the subproject.
    4. IP Policy. Each subproject must abide by the IP Policy as defined in Section 7 of the OpenROAD Initiative Governing Charter.
    5. Code of Conduct. Each subproject must establish a code of conduct that governs contributor behavior and establishes enforcement guidelines. If a subproject does not have its own code of conduct, they may adopt the Contributor Covenant available at https://www.contributor-covenant.org/.
    6. Vulnerability Reporting. Each subproject must establish a process for reporting security vulnerabilities. If a subproject does not have its own reporting process, they may send disclosure notices to security@openroadinitiative.org for the TSC to take appropriate action.
    7. Trademarks. Each subproject must abide by the OpenROAD Initiative Trademark Guidelines.

  4. Amendments

    1. This Technical Charter may be amended by a two-thirds majority vote of the entire TSC, subject to approval by the Governing Board.