[ewg] RE: OFED meeting sumary on June 02, 08

[Ryan, Jim]

Tziporet, thanks for the meeting notes. Re item 3, you correctly
captured the outcome of the meeting and my AR. That was to make the
larger group, the XWG, aware that there was an election in process
within the EWG so individuals who might be interested could make that
known. That would make the election as inclusive as possible -- not just
including those who happened to be at the meeting Monday.

However, I'd like to suggest a different course of action for you and
the rest of the EWG to consider. Please understand, I have no authority
here and it really is the expectation of the Board that each WG would be
self-managing. I'm trying to offer a suggestion in an unbiased,
non-partisan fashion, as best I can.

I fully appreciate the points you made at Monday's meeting when you
nominated yourself to chair the EWG. I've been attending a few meetings
and it's clear you run the meetings. Also, to your credit, you clearly
take the larger view when dealing with important questions, like the one
raised Monday on delaying the feature freeze date.

My recommendation is that your effective, week in and week out
leadership be recognized by formally naming you a co-chair of the EWG. 

I'd also like to acknowledge, with thanks, the offer made by Yiftah to
put his name forward for a co-chair position.

At the same time, I've been in touch with Gopal on this issue. As I
think you all know, the Board asked Gopal to take over the leadership of
the EWG to replace an earlier leader from Cisco.

Gopal needs to speak for himself, but I think he will acknowledge a lack
of involvement and leadership in this WG and a desire to ramp this up
and become an effective chair.

Assuming that's the case, I ask for consideration of Gopal to continue
as a co-chair with Tziporet.

Again, this is an issue for the EWG to decide. That's why I changed the
distrib to be the EWG only and to make sure Gopal saw it. Please comment
by email and we should discuss at the next EWG meeting. As you said,
Tziporet, this is important but not incredibly urgent. We have time to
make the right decision

Thanks for listening, 

Jim Ryan, Chairman, OFA

-----Original Message-----
From: Tziporet Koren [mailto:tziporet at mellanox.co.il] 
Sent: Tuesday, June 03, 2008 5:26 AM
To: ewg at lists.openfabrics.org
Cc: general at lists.openfabrics.org; Ryan, Jim
Subject: OFED meeting sumary on June 02, 08

OFED meeting summary on June 2, 08 

Summary:
--------
1. OFED 1.3.1 release should be out today
2. OFED 1.4 development - ongoing
3. Decided to elect a new chair and co-chair to the EWG
4. Decided on libraries backward compatibility process

Details:
--------
1. OFED 1.3.1 status:
   Release is expected on Tuesday June 3.
	
2. OFED 1.4:
   - Kernel rebase status: Backports are available for all kernels
     between 2.6.26-rc2 and kernel 2.6.16.
     Work is ongoing and expected to be completed this week.
     URL: git://git.openfabrics.org/ofed_1_4/linux-2.6.git ofed_kernel
   - There is a request to delay the feature freeze to July to implement
CMA support for IPv6.
     Prefer not to delay the general feature freeze but take this one as
an exception.

3. Electing a chair and co-chair to the EWG:
   Decided on the following process for election:
   a. Jim Ryan will email the XWG and EWG requesting nominations and
explaining the process.
   b. Time frame:
      Nominees will present themselves at the next ewg meeting on June
18.
      Chair and co-chair selection will be made in 4 weeks, by June 30.

4. Backward compatibility of libraries:
   Problem: Qlogic found late in OFED 1.3 release process that one of
opensm libraries had 
            changed the binary API, and this brake some of the
customers' application.
   Decisions: 
   1. Need to preserve binary API of libraries and not break backward
compatibility (even if it requires extra efforts)
   2. In case binary API must be changed, then both versions will be
included in OFED to prevent broken applications.
      Also - a plan for deprecation of the old library should be
published.
   3. Changes in the API must be done before RC1.


Tziporet