OpenFPGA Standard Affirmation Process

· Step 1: Working group develops and confirms preliminary proposal.

· Step 2: When working group affirms proposal with majority vote within the working group, proposal is submitted to OpenFPGA membership for member vote by notifying President that a proposal is ready and in proper format (see below for elements of a properly formatted proposal)

· Step 3: The OpenFPGA president will see the proposal is posted publicly at the OpenFPGA website and distributed to member email addresses on file.

· Step 4: All comments are due within 2 weeks of submission to OpenFPGA membership.

· Step 5: Working group addresses comments in following 2 weeks. All comments are to be addressed in some manner. Comments and responses will also be posted to the OpenFPGA website.

· Step 6: Provided all comments are addressed, a vote by members will commence 30 days following the submission of the standard proposal to the membership by the working group. Voting period will last for 7 days.

· Step 7: The President of OpenFPGA will designate a recorder of votes who will specify a destination email address for votes to be sent.

· Step 8: Individual votes will be cast through email by members in good standing and will not be publicized. The recorder of votes may publicize affirmative and negative counts in advance of the close of the voting period.

· Step 9: Upon conclusion of the voting period, within 2 days the recorder of votes will report the number of votes in affirmative and number of votes cast from members in good standing. In addition, for auditing purposes, the recorder of votes will report to the OpenFPGA members the list of voting organizations or institutions without connection to the vote cast.

· Step 10: The standard proposal will be accepted if either condition is satisfied:

o The affirmative vote count for the proposal is in the majority, provided a quorum of three-quarters of the OpenFPGA active membership cast votes.

o The affirmative vote count for the proposal exceeds fifty one percent of the active OpenFPGA membership.

· Step 11: Upon acceptance of the standard proposal, the proposal document will be updated with the vote tally information and the date of reported acceptance and posted at the OpenFPGA website.

· Step 12: Should a proposal not be accepted, the control of the proposal document will revert back to the originating working group for subsequent action. The proposal will no longer be posted at the OpenFPGA website, but may be posted at such sites as the Wiki for revision and further development.

A properly formatted proposal (in PDF format) will contain the following:

· An email address for correspondence, comments and questions related to the proposal.

· An identifier for the standard proposed.

· A brief abstract narrative providing background and motivations for the standard

· An overview of the ‘right to practice’ and any intellectual property constraints around the standard

· A review of existing standards relating to, overlapping with, or to be extended by the proposed OpenFPGA standard.

· The proposed standard.

· Supplementary supporting information if appropriate

© 2008 OpenFPGA. Inc.