[Ofa_boardplus] Jason's draft preso to the Linux Plumbers' Conference

[Bill Lee]

I'm offering a clarification to one of Jason's statements.

" I will remind everyone that the OFA spends almost 50% of its income from the membership on this (debug and logo event) activity."

While this is mathematically correct, the income and the expense are inseparably connected.  We don't have one without the other.


Bill

-----Original Message-----
From: Ofa_boardplus [mailto:ofa_boardplus-bounces at lists.openfabrics.org] On Behalf Of Jason Gunthorpe
Sent: Thursday, August 31, 2017 12:51 PM
To: Jim Ryan <jimdryan at gmail.com>
Cc: ofa_boardplus at lists.openfabrics.org, <ofa_boardplus at lists.openfabrics.org>
Subject: Re: [Ofa_boardplus] Jason's draft preso to the Linux Plumbers' Conference

On Thu, Aug 31, 2017 at 11:56:27AM -0700, Jim Ryan wrote:

> I want to take a minute to thank you for this excellent work. I'm 
> extremely pleased to see you can describe yourself as a "Director at 
> Large". I have to believe it's going to have an impact in general and 
> possibly specifically at this event.

Thanks Jim

> Slide   Comment
> 1 "OpenFabrics" without a space -- see I tried to foreshadow some of 
> these would be
>    stunningly important ;^))

I think I got them all

> 3 The correct name is University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory, 
>    abbreviated UNH-IOL

Done

> 4 Consider adding the OFA does not do spec development. It relies on 
> specs from other orgs chartered to do this. We develop, test, etc. 
> code based on such specs

I disagree, and I've had this argument with Paul before. The OFIWG is producing a specification. In the next email Woody suggested that the OFA should test OFI providers for conformance to this specification.
Arguing otherwise is really fussing over semantics of what a specification is.

> 5 I heard Paul question the "disband" comment and certainly it has 
> been mentioned.
>    My SUGGESTION would be something along the lines of a heading "seriously 
>    talking about" and removing this bullet. While it has been 
> mentioned, no one is
>    seriously considering doing this. This could apply to other bullets 
> as well, obviously.

It is gone

> 12 I don't think there's serious consideration of repurposing much 
> less stopping the logo program. This is, IMHO, part of, if not THE 
> foundation for the OFA.  The important discussions Susan is leading 
> now have to do with ways we can strengthen the program

I'm surprised to hear you say this.

I very much disagree that the logo program is THE foundation for the OFA. In all my meetings over the last 10 years I have never met anyone in the customer community that cares about the logo.

The developer community also doesn't really care about the testing. OFA is going to spend a bunch of money at UNH testing code derived from 4.8 that almost nobody is going to run:
 * The distros did not backport from 4.8
 * Upstream has moved on a lot since 4.8
 * A large group of customers run a vendor OFED, not OFA OFED.
   The vendor modifications are extensive enough to make the test
   of less value.

In my view the logo program is from the same era as the bylaws, it represents a way of thinking about the software that does not match the reality.

My view is that the OFA should take a hard look at the logo program and not continue with it as-is any longer.

I had thought that was the direction the discussions with the distributions were headed in...

I will remind everyone that the OFA spends almost 50% of its income from the membership on this activity. It should substantially support all of the activities of the member community, not just the EWG.

Jason
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