OpenSSL Communities

Notice: randomized selection for seat rotation

EC Election Committee Thu 15 Jan 2026 6:55PM Public Seen by 13

Dear Advisory Members,

As part of recent changes to term length and rotation, we need to determine which advisory committee seats will be up for election in the next cycle. To do this in a neutral and defensible way, we will use a randomized selection process.

Some current members have already indicated that they do not intend to stand in the next election cycle for their own reasons. Those seats will be handled accordingly and are not the subject of this randomization. The randomization applies only to the remaining eligible seats where rotation must be determined.

The purpose of the randomization is to ensure that the selection of seats for election is unbiased, not influenced by individuals or committees, and can be clearly explained and justified.

Process summary

  • Multiple independent entropy inputs will be combined.

  • Inputs are mixed using a standard KDF and used to produce a randomized selection.

  • No single party can control the outcome.

  • The process will be executed by a neutral operator and recorded.

  • The code and methodology will be published.

Advisory committee members are strongly encouraged to contribute entropy (for example via a coin toss or dice roll), provided as a hex string. Participation is optional and does not confer influence over the result, but additional independent entropy strengthens the process.

Further details will follow shortly.

-- Anton Arapov, Election Committee

SL

Shane Lontis Thu 15 Jan 2026 8:30PM

  • I think you are better off using a manual process such as grabbing names from a hat in a public setting rather than doing this. It is simple and works.

  • Mixing inputs could still be potentially controlled by having a single additional input source and just modifying a single byte until it gives you a desired outcome.

EC

Election Committee Tue 20 Jan 2026 1:37PM

Dear Advisory Members,

The advisory committee seat rotation for the 2026 election cycle was completed yesterday, January 19 (UTC).

@Shane Lontis, @Craig Lorentzen, and @Nicola Tuveri have stepped down as committee members at the end of the current term. As a result, there was no need to run a randomization process for TAC.

Accordingly:

– Academics, Committers, and Large Businesses will have an election.
– Distributions, Individuals, and Small Businesses representatives will remain in place for the next term.

The motivation for the randomized rotation approach (used where applicable) is documented here: https://github.com/openssl-oss/random-voting/blob/main/MOTIVATION.md

For BAC, a randomized selection was required to determine seat rotation. Details of that process and its outcome are provided in the separate update.

Regards,
Anton Arapov, Election Committee