Policy Questions & Answers

To formalize the role of RISC-V as a standard, the Board of Directors have determined that obtaining ISO certification for the ISA will be pursued.  The policy updates have been driven with the intention of enabling this goal.

The policy mandates that Robert’s Rules of Order should be used to run meetings.  While there are many detailed references, a simplified primer can be found here. A practical quick guide for voting during a meeting is available here.

Robert’s Rules of Order and voting is not intended to take the place of a coming to consensus when a working group is deciding technical matters, including what will be in a specification. Instead, voting is intended to formalize the process once consensus has been reached.

All Horizontal Committees, ISA Committees, Special Interest Groups, and Task Groups are considered to be Technical Committees as defined in the policy.

The policy requires that the Governing Committee be assigned by the TSC at the time of approving formation of the new group.  This information is needed no later than the TSC Charter approval at the end of the Inception phase, but should be proposed at the beginning of the group proposal to build consensus about governance.

The policy does not require assignment nor approval of those Committees which have interest but are not the Governing Committee, the Dotted-line Committees.  A new group should still strive to identify them as a means of ensuring broad propagation of information, but will not require any formal approvals or actions from them.

The policy requires that new group proposals include support from  at least three (3) RISC-V Premier or Strategic Members.  Sponsorship from Community Organizations or Individual Members is not supported at this time.

During a Call for Candidates, any RISC-V member of any membership level may declare their desire to be a candidate for one or both of the chair and vice-chair positions.  Candidates will be elected by the group per the policy.

While the elections for chair and vice-chair may be held in parallel, the vote counting will be performed on the positions beginning with the chair first.  Thus, a candidate’s successful election as chair  may exclude that candidate from the vice-chair election.

Chairs and Vice-chairs of a Technical Committee may be the Voting Member from their entity.  However, the recommendation is that they avoid any perception of conflict this situation may create and delegate this role to another member of their entity whenever practical.

Robert’s Rules of Order state that the chairperson is expected to remain impartial and does not vote except in specific circumstances including secret ballots, small committees (fewer than 12 members), and when their vote would affect the outcome, e.g. breaking a tie.

Chairs also have the ability to temporarily cede their position (to the vice-chair or others as needed) by prior arrangement so that they may actively participate in a discussion in a where neutrality is difficult.

Because key committee decisions such as elections and major milestone approval votes will be handled in secret, asynchronous votes via OpaVote, the opportunity for non-impartial influence by a chairperson, should they serve as their entity’s voting representative, will be minimized for these decisions.

In-meeting voting should begin with the designated voting representatives, if present, but may be performed by any member from the entity in the absence of all declared voting representatives. 

In the case where the voting representatives are not present and the remaining Affiliates representatives for an entity who are present cannot unanimously agree on a position, the entity is strongly encouraged to vote with an Abstention.

RISC-V Individual Members who work for companies that are RVI Members must participate under their company’s agreement and use their company email address. Exceptions will be reviewed by RISC-V Staff and handled on a case-by-case basis.  

Anyone registered as an Individual Member who works for a RISC-V Member entity will be promptly converted to the entity email (profile).  Additional actions such as escalating to the Member company representation or reporting a Code of Conduct violation may be used if deemed appropriate.

RISC-V Member entities may list one or more Voting Members in a group. The are no restrictions among RISC-V groups relative to voting representatives from the entity.

The decisions of who will represent the entity in each group is left to them.  Should a question or concern be raised, RISC-V Staff will work with the Voting Representatives from the Member company.

When a group member requests restoration of Member Participant status after it has been lost, the policy states “that request shall be granted after attending two (2) consecutive meetings”.   This means that the Member may vote in the third meeting, not the second.

Voluntary re-instatement of voting rights and request for voting rights of existing groups has not been explicitly detailed in the policy as having any delay.  Since the restoration process requires attendance in 2 consecutive meetings, the additional scenarios will follow the same process for consistency and until the policy clarifies this situation.

The voting process follows well-defined, established procedures for elections and specification milestone approvals under the guidance of the RISC-V Staff.  The remaining votes in a group should follow Robert’s Rules of orders as mandated in the policies.

Specific questions can be routed to RISC-V Staff.

The RISC-V Policy defines quorums for meetings and majority for votes. Details on quorums and majorities are  in the Policies and Procedures in Section B. Members and Voting Rights Technical Committees.

New groups are required to prepare a strategic plan  and review it with the TSC within 6 months of their creation.  A template plan is available to help the group.