[ofiwg] OFIWG Meeting Minutes 9/22/2026

[Xiong, Jianxin]

9/22/2026

Generated by AI assistant with manual editing
Participants
Fnu Harishjitu Saseendran (Intel)
Howard Pritchard (LANL)
Jerome Soumagne (HPE)
Jianxin Xiong (Working Group Chair)(Intel)
John Byrne [HPE]
Ken Raffenetti (Cornelis)
Kumar Suresh
Rajalaxmi (Intel)
Ryan Menhusen (HPE)
Shi Jin (AWS)
Subramaniyam (HPE)
Zach Dworkin (Intel)
Overview
Key participants: Working Group Chair leads the meeting; Shi Jin (AWS) provides provider implementation perspective; Ken Raffenetti (Cornelis) contributes experience with project transitions and foundation onboarding; other members listen and will participate in follow-ups.

Main topics and outcomes:
- Release verification: The chair confirms the 2.7.0 release shipped on September 18 and asks provider owners to verify and update the provider feature matrix on the project wiki; the chair offers to apply edits on contributors' behalf.
- FI_AV_MAP revival: The group reexamines a proposal to restore the deprecated FI_AV_MAP. The chair outlines potential locking and performance benefits, but Shi Jin (AWS) reports recent provider-side improvements (an AV array and lock-free lookup patterns) that largely mitigate the original performance motivation. The group agrees to table reviving the FI_AV_MAP for now and revisit if new requirements surface.
- OFA shutdown and hosting transition: The most significant operational item is that OFA will cease operations by year-end, which affects the project's meeting and mailing-list hosting. The group discusses options including joining the Linux Foundation or the High-Performance Software Foundation (HPSF) sub-foundation. Ken Raffenetti summarizes the typical onboarding tasks (formal governance, code of conduct, maintainers) and clarifies that individual organizations need not join the parent foundation to participate. The chair sets an action timeline to research options, hold a decision/vote by the end of October, and coordinate the transition with the OFA board so hosting and archives are handled before year-end. The chair also requests investigation into preserving historical meeting and mailing-list archives.

Commitments and next steps:
- Provider owners will check and update the provider feature matrix on the wiki, or send updates to the chair for posting (Working Group Chair).
- The FI_AV_MAP revival proposal is deferred; the group will revisit if performance needs change (neutral follow-up recorded by the chair).
- Members will research hosting options (Linux Foundation/HPSF or alternatives) and governance implications; the group will decide by end of October and communicate the choice to the OFA board to finalize the year-end transition (Working Group Chair coordinating).

Concerns and considerations: Preserving historical meeting and mailing-list archives is important; governance and administrative requirements (project governance documents, code of conduct, and who owns trademark/GitHub) require review before selecting a host. Overall, the meeting focuses on operational continuity and ensuring accurate project metadata after the recent release.

Detailed Summary
2.7.0 Release
The chair reports that the 2.7.0 release shipped on September 18, a few days later than planned, and asks provider owners to verify the provider feature matrix on the project wiki. Keeping the wiki entries synchronized between the main page and the 2.7.x copy matters to ensure accurate discovery and compatibility information across providers. The current state is that the release is out and the chair offers to accept edits or make updates if contributors flag discrepancies.

  *   Working Group Chair states the 2.7.0 release went out on September 18 and is slightly delayed from the original plan.
  *   Working Group Chair asks provider owners to check and update the provider feature matrix on the project wiki.
  *   Working Group Chair notes the 2.7.x pages are copies of the main page and offers to apply updates if contributors prefer to send changes to the chair.
FI_AV_MAP Revival
The group revisits a proposal to revive the FI_AV_MAP, which had been deprecated in v2.0 to simplify AV implementations and accommodate a new peer-group address feature. The chair explains that reintroducing the FI_AV_MAP could enable optimizations (particularly around locking and address-vector table operations), and no providers currently support the peer-group feature. The group must weigh benefits against compatibility. Discussion leans toward deferring revival now because recent provider-side optimizations reduce the original motivation.

  *   Working Group Chair explains FI_AV_MAP was deprecated in v2.0 to simplify implementations and because v2.0 introduced peer-group addressing that changed AV semantics.
  *   Working Group Chair points out that peer-group addressing reduces usable fi_addr bits (from 64 to 32) and makes the old FI_AV_MAP incompatible with the new semantics.
  *   Working Group Chair argues FI_AV_MAP could enable locking and performance optimizations for shared AV tables.
  *   Shi Jin (AWS) states providers have recently optimized FI_AV_TABLE locking and implemented an AV array structure that allows lock-free lookups and concurrent inserts with proper memory barriers.
  *   Shi Jin (AWS) says the original performance bottleneck motivating FI_AV_MAP revival appears addressed and the revival is not a must-have at this moment.
  *   Working Group Chair records a neutral follow-up that the group will table the FI_AV_MAP revival for now and revisit if similar requirements arise in the future.
OpenFabrics Alliance Closure
The chair informs the working group that the OpenFabrics Alliance (OFA) is winding down operations by year-end, which impacts hosting of the biweekly meetings and the mailing list currently provided by OFA. The group needs to decide a new hosting and governance approach (options discussed include joining the Linux Foundation or the High-Performance Software Foundation (HPSF) sub-foundation) and must produce a recommendation by end of October to coordinate transition with the OFA board. The current state is exploratory: members will research options, evaluate governance and operational implications, and plan a vote to finalize direction.

  *   Working Group Chair announces OFA plans to end operations by the end of the year and that the group's meeting and mailing-list hosting are affected.
  *   Working Group Chair requests input on alternative hosting options and suggests looking at larger organizations such as the Linux Foundation or its sub-foundations.
  *   Shi Jin (AWS) and others reference the HPSF as an option and note awareness of projects joining HPSF.
  *   Ken Raffenetti (Cornelis) explains the typical transition involves formalizing project governance, adopting a code of conduct, and defining maintainers, while project membership does not require every participating organization to join the parent foundation.
  *   Ken Raffenetti (Cornelis) notes that HPSF took ownership of trademark and GitHub repo in their discussions and that project proposals and examples are publicly available for review.
  *   Working Group Chair sets a timeline that the group will research options and make a decision by the end of October, then inform the OFA board so the transition completes by year-end.
Working Group Chair flags a follow-up task to investigate whether OFA preserves historical meeting and mailing-list archives or to copy necessary data prior to shutdown.

Jianxin Xiong
Fabric Software
Intel Corporation
Jianxin.xiong at intel.com

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