RT Something I've long wondered about: Is there any provision in TCT goverance to periodically "refresh" the membership? Any process for folks "retiring" should they cease to be involved with Tcl for extended periods? I'd be interested to hear current members thoughts on this topic.

DKF: The topic comes up from time to time. TIP#0[3] is our official rules on the topic (such as they are). We even update it to reflect current practice occasionally. :-)

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[SRL] Can I join the TCL Core Team?

LV Right now, it is my understanding that the procedures are that the TCT invites new members based on a historical look at their code and leadership contributions. What you could do is volunteer to be responsible for maintaining one or more sections of the tcl and tk code, and then, based on how that goes, perhaps you would receive an invitation.

DKF: That's a pretty accurate summary. Note that you do not need to be a member of the TCT to have a strong influence over Tcl's future direction. Volunteering to work on things and showing that you care can be done by absolutely anyone. The TCT have a long-standing policy of wanting to enable people to do cool stuff and not getting unduly in the way of those who do the work. But we're particularly keen on enabling people to do cool stuff without having to change Tcl; we apply very high engineering standards to the core (especially for stability, robustness and documentation) so that people can build things on top easily, but it does make us rather slow as an organization. (OTOH, would you want rapidly changing foundations on a house?) When something goes in, it needs to persuade us that it is going to be widely useful and not destabilize other important things. (I personally would also rather it had docs and tests before going in; otherwise I'm often the person who has to write them...)