Meeting 45 Minutes

Teleconference, October 6, 2008

A quorum of seven out of seven voting members present. Four non-voting members are also present. Attendance and voter status indicated on the roster web page.

Monday, October 6, 2008, 1600 UTC; 9 am Pacific Daylight Time

Attendees: Andrew Piziali, Darren Galpin, Joseph Hupcey, Mark Strickland, Michael McNamara, Serrie Chapman, Yaron Kashai, Joe Daniels, Manikandan Panchapakesan, Stylianos Diamantidis, Matan Vax

1. Call to Order

• Call to order on September 6, 2008 at 9:03 am PDT (17:03 UTC)

• Andrew reminded members to mail a message to rollcall@ieee1647.org and the database will record their presence for future voting purposes.

2. Approval of August 4 Meeting 44 Minutes

• Darren made a motion to approve the meeting 44 minutes.

• Yaron seconded the motion.

• Motion approved.

3. Status Update

Andrew: The 1647-2008 PDF was mailed to all active contributers of the working group on September 26^th, so you should have received a copy let me know if you didn't as that was mailed out by the IEEE standards association, handy records to keep in mind. Other Status: Looking forward to the next revision of 1647, potentially called P1647-2010. The first thing I’d like to talk about is the voting membership so right now we’ve got seven members with voting privileges and I want to open the floor to some discussion on how to motivate regular attendance. I recognize that attendance will probably increase as we start digging into the technical material that we will be available shortly for the next revision of the standard. But, any other ideas? Especially for the subsequent meetings and perhaps December this year? We need to make sure that people attend and try to preserve their voting privileges to also maintain the legitimacy of the working group.

Joe H: Mac, you've been involved in other groups. What's been your experience with encouraging people to sign in and take time, not necessarily on the fun stuff but also in the administrative stuff too?

Mac: It really comes down to the fact that people have other demands on their time. If there is something that’s worrying people about the standard, they will dial in to voice their concerns. People will state them. But, if things are going well, then they won’t. There’s a difference between a dead standard that nobody cares about anymore and a standard that’s working just fine and there isn’t any controversy and people would just like it to continue to exist. It’s hard to differentiate between those. If things are working and if you have a meeting every month for something that there isn't much going on, then not many people are going to show up. Let's stir up some controversy to get people interested …

Andrew: I agree that it’s difficult to differentiate between a standard in which there is very little interest and one that is meeting its objectives for its tool vendors and users and whose working group is addressing what needs to be done and is moving on smoothly. We are only meeting bimonthly right now, so I would hope that people could spare half an hour or 45 minutes every 60 days. Perhaps I need to encourage people one-on-one because we obviously need to keep a quorum.

Yaron: The opportunity to boost the membership is when operations start commencing next year. Right now I think that, having one additional meeting [this year], maybe the goal should be to maintain membership for the rest of 2008. Is that reasonable?

Andrew: Our plan has been to actually check out certain activities after the first of the year which would be a good time to increase membership by soliciting contributions by people, right? When they start investing in task groups. Any other thoughts on membership and what we need to do and how to motivate people?

Joe H: I think the key is to promote the technical discussion and what you’re planning with some of those proposals with what has been put on the table. That would draw more people. Just make sure that we announce this.

Andrew: Good point. The next point is the revision PAR authorization request. The revision PAR was approved by DASC at their last meeting and submitted to NesCom . NesCom will be considering that PAR at their October 24^th meeting. It is traditional to submit a revision PAR after a standard has been approved and that will extend the life of the working group for another few years.

Mac: At this point between PARs we are just supposed to meet and discuss if there are any requests. We’re not supposed to do much. We’re supposed to meet and talk about what things are … errors or keynote questions about what chapter seven meant, whatever. We can just answer those things with just our opinion. We are not meant to do new work until we get the revision PAR.

Andrew : So, what you’re saying is that although we keep the current working group active that development activity should commence under the revision PAR?

Mac : I think that we’ve affectively completed the work that was authorized under the first PAR. So, we are at that point where we are there to help people understand the current standard and that’s about it. We have now proposed a new revision which has to be approved and, once that’s approved, then we can go back to debating.

Andrew: Okay. I guess that leads us to the next item in the status: a call for the donations. A call-for-donations (CFD) was announced by the working group on March 24th and there was a six month period, finishing on September 24^th. During that period the following donations were received for consideration by the working group: Define-as-computed macros, interface ports, named constraints, parameterized types, real data types, temporal coverage and type constraints. So, that’s the working list I have at this point. Matan, I hope I have captured the last two that you have sent to the working group.

Matan: I have filed an issue and added to an open issue about the things I mentioned in my email message.

Andrew: Any comments on this?

[SILENCE]

Andrew: Schedule: in the fall we are between PARs. There is one working group position that we need to fill and that’s the currently appointed vice-chair position. Darren was appointed when the vice-chair resigned and he graciously offered to accept that position. Victor Berman made the appointment. So, this would be a point to hold that election where a couple of potential returning officers could draft that election for us. I am looking for some news on that shortly. The other thing would be the organization of any technical task forces. At that point we would start working on any technical activities. Any questions?

4. Editor

Joe D: Need to update the four items which we carried over from P1647-2008. Semicolons and some others [issues 836, 886, 888 and 891]. I'm not sure what is happening in 2009 and we'll see whether I am involved then.

Andrew: Thanks for coming here and giving advice. I’m here – not sure about 2009 ….

5. Other Business

Andrew: Any other business that anyone present would like to go through today?

[SILENCE]

Andrew: Please remember to mail rollcall@ieee1647.org to record attendance.

6. Call For Essential Patents

The IEEE-SA updated the patent policy effective April 2008. The details are available in the updated slide set at http://standards.ieee.org/board/pat/pat-slideset.pdf (See “Patent related” from the IEEE 1647 home page, "Slides about IEEE Patent Policy"). If you believe that any patent claims are essential patent claims, please inform the working group. Review the posted slides for more information.

7. Next Meeting

Andrew: Proposed 1^st December, 1700 UTC, 0900 PDT.

Joe H: It is the Monday after thanksgiving in the US, so the 8^th might be better.

Andrew: The 8^th wouldn't work for me. Let's try the first and if any particular person can't make it let me know via the reflector. And, if there are many people who cannot attend, we can rearrange.

Joe H: There are a lot of submissions we might need to read through. Can we cross-reference where material exists so that people can read or play with it?

Andrew: I can make it available in the downloads section so that people can look at it, read and suggest changes.

Joe H: That's good. I talked to Matan and have asked if there is anything that people are really interested in.

Andrew: So, tool users that have things available in their current version and could be made available in the new version.

Joe H: Yes. Get them to look at what is proposed, to get a flavor of what is on the list.

Matan: People have been using [define-as-computed] macros for ages and it's all captured well in the Specman documentation manuals. This part has improved over the last year and a half. With types Andy, if you have the document then put it on the site. It's a good idea. I think that the two features with the biggest impact or most interest from users are interface ports and TLM ports. It's only early adopters who are using this. It isn't in general Specman but should be in a month or so. We have a very strong interest to put this in the next revision of the LRM. It is extremely important for a wide range of users and we don't have very mature documentation for it at this moment in time. It will all be finalized with the early adopters in the coming weeks and the next Specman release with documentation. I don't know if any document can be available for this feature now.

Joe H: If we use the preliminary document, we definitely want to share it with the working group.

Mac: We won't have a revision PAR approval until December. Are we actually working here? There is a process in place. Let's follow the process as you get people worried otherwise …

Joe H: Fair enough.

Andrew: The current PAR is broad enough that, although the standard has been published, couldn't we continue with subsequent revisions?

Mac: The PAR actually ceases to have authority once a single revision is approved. There is nothing we can do with new donations until the new PAR is approved. Things aren't quite polished for release anyway from listening to Matan. So, why rush?

Andrew: Good advice. Assuming the PAR is approved on October 24^th, we could make documents available between then and the December meeting.

8. Adjourn

Darren made a motion to adjourn the meeting.

Matan seconded the motion.

Motion approved.

Meeting adjourned at 9:28 am PDT.