Announcing Istio's 2025 Steering Committee Elections
With Contribution Seats allocated, members are now invited to stand for election to our four Community Seats.
The Istio Steering Committee oversees the administrative aspects of the project, including governance, branding, marketing, and working with the CNCF.
Every year, the leaders in the Istio project estimate the proportion of the hundreds of companies that have contributed to Istio in the past year, and uses that metric to proportionally allocate nine Contribution Seats on our Steering Committee.
Then, four Community Seats are voted for by our project members, with candidates being from companies that did not receive Contribution Seats.
We are pleased to share the result of this year’s calculation, and to kick off our Community Seat election.
Contribution seats
The calculation for the 2025-2026 term reflects the deep investment of our vendors in the Istio open source project, especially in the area of ambient mode. As was the case last year, we have five companies represented in our Contribution Seats:
| Company | Seat allocation |
|---|---|
| Solo.io | 5 |
| Microsoft | 1 |
| Huawei | 1 |
| 1 | |
| Tetrate | 1 |
The full allocation can be seen in our formula spreadsheet.
Community Seat election
Last year, we changed the timing of the Community Seat elections to immediately follow the allocation of the Contribution Seats. It is therefore now time to collect our nominations for candidates, and ensure our voter list is correct.
Candidates
Eligibility for candidacy is defined in the Steering Committee charter as a project member who does not work for a Company that will hold a Contribution Seat during the upcoming term.
We would now like to invite members from outside our Contribution Seat holders to stand for election. Nominations are due by February 23.
Voters
Eligibility to vote is defined in the charter as either:
- a project member who has had at least one Pull Request merged in the past 12 months, or
- someone who has submitted the voting exception form and has been accepted by the Steering Committee as having standing in the community through contribution of another kind.
The draft list of voters has been published. If you’re not on that list and you believe you have standing in the Istio community, please submit the exception form.
Exception requests are due by February 23. Voting will start on February 24 and last until March 9.
Announcement of the new committee
Upon the completion of the election, the entire 2025-2026 committee - election winners and company-selected Contribution Seat holders - will be announced.
The Steering Committee wishes to thank its members, old and new, and looks forward to continue to grow and improve Istio as a successful and sustainable open source project. We encourage everyone to get involved in the Istio community by contributing, standing for election, voting, and helping us shape the future of cloud native networking.
