[Openframeworkwg] OFA OFWG meeting minutes and responses to AR re organizational recommendations

[Paul Grun]

>From Bill's note:  "We implement to comply with standards and specifications set by others, work in the open by consensus as close to 100% as we can, and select by peer-assessed technical merit, NOT voting."

This is the crux of the matter.  We heading into uncharted territory because there is no standard on which we can rely to guide our decision making.

The charge we have implicitly accepted is to attempt to create something in the absence of supporting standards set by others.  (See Bill Magro's workshop presentation).  Hence, some form of policies & procedures is required in order to drive group consensus, including an agreement on when to forward the work to the board for approval as a work product of the OFA.

So I do not agree with Bill's points below.

One question for Bill - in the face of honest differences of opinion, how exactly does one "select by peer-assisted technical merit"?

Having well-understood processes is not incongruent with open source methods.

-Paul

From: Bill Boas
Sent: Wednesday, September 11, 2013 2:02 PM
To: Ryan, Jim; 'openframeworkwg at lists.openfabrics.org'; 'Coulter, Susan K'; Rimmer, Todd; Woodruff, Robert J; Wood, Donald E; 'Jeff Becker'; Rupert Dance (rsdance at soft-forge.com); Berry, Frank; Hefty, Sean; Stachura, Tom L; Paul Grun; Benton, Brad (Brad.Benton at amd.com); 'Mani Subramaniyan'; 'Tom Reu'; Sur, Sayantan; 'Avneesh Pant'; Rebecca Moran (rebecca at openfabrics.org); 'Goldiez, Brian'; 'Christoph Lameter'; 'tzahio at mellanox.com'; 'linden at cmf.nrl.navy.mil'; 'Marcin Ocwieja'; 'Jeff Squyres (jsquyres)'; 'Dave'; 'David Goodell (dgoodell)'; 'Cesare Cantu (cantuc)'; 'Marcin Ocwieja'; 'openframeworkwg at lists.openfabrics.org'; 'Coulter, Susan K'; 'Jeff Becker'; Rupert Dance (rsdance at soft-forge.com); Paul Grun; Benton, Brad (Brad.Benton at amd.com); 'Mani Subramaniyan'; 'Tom Reu'; 'Avneesh Pant'; Rebecca Moran (rebecca at openfabrics.org); 'Goldiez, Brian'; 'Christoph Lameter'; 'tzahio at mellanox.com'; 'linden at cmf.nrl.navy.mil'; 'Marcin Ocwieja'; 'Jeff Squyres (jsquyres)'; 'Dave'; 'David Goodell (dgoodell)'; 'Cesare Cantu (cantuc)'
Subject: RE: OFA OFWG meeting minutes and responses to AR re organizational recommendations

Jim and all OFWG members,

The minutes below raised a number of concerns in the context of the success OFA has been to-date and how that has been achieved.

In addition to the sections of the by-laws you have referenced, if the output of the OFWG is code that substantially alters the functions and capabilities of the OpenFabrics software then the "Proposal" and related sections of the by-laws should provide additional guidance and resolution to many of the appropriate questions raised in your email below.

I suggest the OFWG members review the Proposal process in the bylaws on the OFA web site before their next meeting. How to approve code changes, both major and minor are addressed there. All members of the Alliance get to vote on "Proposals". One member can propose.

Also my recollection, contrary to the letter of the by-laws, of the precedents and practices we have used for other working groups from the beginning of the OFA is that the WG members have proposed, and the Board has approved, the WG Chair and Vice-Chair. The WG has also determined its own decision making processes for their internal work, some have voted on some issues, some have not.

I strongly recommend that we do not follow, or enable a similar level of inter-company politics, of IEEE, IBTA or any other standards bodies  with strict voting practices, rules of order etc.

Let's remind ourselves ONCE AGAIN that the OFA is not in the standards or the specification business.

We implement to comply with standards and specifications set by others, work in the open by consensus as close to 100% as we can, and select by peer-assessed technical merit, NOT voting.

Our deliverable and responsibility to the whole computing community of members, industry and end users, world-wide, is focused, functional, efficient, reliable, clean, documented code, open-source, free and available to all.

In this spirit lets understand the differences and limit the influence of the IBTA, IEEE, T10, etc. in our technical work together,

Respectfully to all members of the OFWG and the OFA,,

Bill.
Bill Boas
OFA Treasurer.
510-375-8840

From: Ryan, Jim [mailto:jim.ryan at intel.com]
Sent: Wednesday, September 11, 2013 11:30 AM
To: 'openframeworkwg at lists.openfabrics.org'; 'Coulter, Susan K'; Rimmer, Todd; Woodruff, Robert J; Wood, Donald E; 'Jeff Becker'; Rupert Dance (rsdance at soft-forge.com<mailto:rsdance at soft-forge.com>); Berry, Frank; Hefty, Sean; Stachura, Tom L; Paul Grun; Bill Boas; Benton, Brad (Brad.Benton at amd.com<mailto:Brad.Benton at amd.com>); 'Mani Subramaniyan'; 'Tom Reu'; Sur, Sayantan; 'Avneesh Pant'; Rebecca Moran (rebecca at openfabrics.org<mailto:rebecca at openfabrics.org>); 'Goldiez, Brian'; 'Christoph Lameter'; 'tzahio at mellanox.com'; 'linden at cmf.nrl.navy.mil'; 'Marcin Ocwieja'; 'Jeff Squyres (jsquyres)'; 'Dave'; 'David Goodell (dgoodell)'; 'Cesare Cantu (cantuc)'; 'Marcin Ocwieja'; 'openframeworkwg at lists.openfabrics.org'; 'Coulter, Susan K'; 'Jeff Becker'; Rupert Dance (rsdance at soft-forge.com<mailto:rsdance at soft-forge.com>); Paul Grun; Bill Boas; Benton, Brad (Brad.Benton at amd.com<mailto:Brad.Benton at amd.com>); 'Mani Subramaniyan'; 'Tom Reu'; 'Avneesh Pant'; Rebecca Moran (rebecca at openfabrics.org<mailto:rebecca at openfabrics.org>); 'Goldiez, Brian'; 'Christoph Lameter'; 'tzahio at mellanox.com'; 'linden at cmf.nrl.navy.mil'; 'Marcin Ocwieja'; 'Jeff Squyres (jsquyres)'; 'Dave'; 'David Goodell (dgoodell)'; 'Cesare Cantu (cantuc)'
Subject: OFA OFWG meeting minutes and responses to AR re organizational recommendations

I'm sorry for the length of the attached, but I don't believe there's any way around it. I reviewed the OFA Bylaws and the IBTA Guidelines for suggestions as to how to identify the areas we touched on in our meeting yesterday, and additional areas suggested by the Guidelines themselves.

I'm taking a relatively aggressive position by suggesting practices and procedures from the Guidelines, primarily. This is instead of raising an issue and saying, in effect, "what do you think?" Instead, I'm offering a position and asking you to support it or argue with it

I'm hoping we can make significant progress by email to set up another productive meeting on Tuesday

Thanks,

Jim Ryan
Technology Initiatives and Industry Marketing (TiiM)
(503) 712-0408
cell (503) 970-9246
jim.ryan at intel.com<mailto:jim.ryan at intel.com>

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