The minutes of TAB meetings are provided for informational purposes only. Discussions and decisions described in the minutes should not be interpreted as official or definitive TAB or OSDL policy. While efforts are made to ensure their accuracy and completeness, we regret we cannot guarantee that they are. If you have corrections or additions, please contact tech-board at lists.osdl.org

Friday August 4, 2006

Technical Advisory Board Conference Call Minutes

Attendees:

James Bottomley Stuart Cohen Tom Hanrahan Greg Kroah-Hartman Matt Mackall Andrew Morton Leann Ogasawara Arjan van de Ven Chris Wright

Motions Passed:

1) Add the Bug Tracker Fellowship Fund proposal to the pending queue and carry over for one month. 2) Make a recommendation to the Technical and Marketing Sub-Committee of the OSDL Board to fund a Technical Writer.

Action Items:

1) James to run Tech Writer proposal past Linus for approval. 2) OSDL will have their HR Department price out a ball park figure for a Tech Writer. 3) Leann to ask Kathy Anderson to add Tech Writer recommendation as an agenda item to the next Technical and Marketing Sub-Committee. 4) Tom to send out email asking to identify key community developers that should be invited to speak at the Japan Linux Symposium. Also propose a list of topics. 5) Via email, document a list of companies to approach with the NDA program. Also list specific hardware. 6a) Send list to tech-board mailing list of hardware wanted for the hardware lending library. 6b) Ping John Linville and David Arlie to solicit info for hardware wanted in regards to the hardware lending library. 7) Add Andrew to tech-board mailing list

Agenda:

1) Review of Fellowship Fund Request 2) OSDL Japan Linux Symposium 3) LWE Kernel Dev Sessions 4) NDA Program 5) Any new issues the TAB wants addressed 6) Other items of business

Review of Fellowship Fund Request

It was discussed at the Kernel summit for the need to have a bug coordinator/triage manager. Dave is still trying to work it out so bugs are reported to the OSDL bugzilla. Martin Bligh admins the current bugzilla and Kees Cook has helped out as well. Kees administers the tool, Martin handles the actual content. Andrew has also been thinking of asking google to get someone to work with him on this bug tracking issue. The TAB feels that this proposal meets their criteria. It would have a broad and useful impact on the community. The TAB suggested it be accepted into the pending proposal queue, however placed below the git proposal regarding it's level of urgency. The TAB will carry over the proposal one more month until Andrew can find out more information from Google. Missing from proposal is someone to do the triage as well. It does mention rates as well as possible contractors. If the TAB can provide names of individuals who would be interested in filling this position, that would be helpful. However, ideally someone will come forward. Bryce Harrington, the submitter of the proposal will not be involved in developing this proposal. A motion to carry this proposal over for one month was presented and passed.

A motion to make a recommendation to the Technical and Marketing Sub-Committee of the OSDL Board to fund tech writer passed. They will need more information on how much and how long to fund the Tech Writer. One of the TAB members thought the fellowship fund is managed by the TAB itself? This is not the case, the TAB recommends to the OSDL Board about fund allocation. However, they do not anticipate that the Technical and Marketing Sub-Committee will overturn their request. The other small piece is that this needs to be run by Linus. It was thought that either Linus or Andrew would suffice, but in the actual TAB charter it specifies Linus. James will run this by him. If that can be pulled together quickly, the next Technical and Marketing Sub-Committee is on Wednesday. There are about 4 candidates to do the work. Funding for a year will have to be a reasonable price point for a tech writer for a year. It's recommended that the TAB go to the Technical and Marketing Sub-Committee with as much information as possible. OSDL will have their HR Department price out a ball park figure for a Tech Writer. Leann will ask Kathy Anderson to add this as an agenda item for the next Technical and Marketing Sub-Committee meeting.

OSDL Japan Linux Symposium

This is scheduled for Sept 11 and 12. The subject matter is file systems, testing or gcc, and debugging. Ted is committed to attending and speaking about file systems as well as being a representative from the TAB. Tom has a good list of names to talk about gcc. If testing is a topic, Martin is unable to attend, but Andy Whitcroft has been invited but hasn't replied. Fernando will cover the 3rd slot on debugging. There is also a symposium scheduled for November and the key topic for that is device drivers. Ted will attend that as well. Tom is trying to get new faces at each symposium. What Tom would really like help with is identifying key people they should make sure to invite. He would like the TAB's help in recruiting people. It would be helpful to people when Tom approaches them that they know the TAB is supporting this effort. They've had trouble getting attendance to the September meeting partly because of a late start in the recruiting process but also because some people are skeptical about wanting to participate. If they could get good support from the TAB, it would be helpful. Chris and James would be good advocates. On the tech-board mailing list, identify key community devs we'd want to have invite. Also propose a list of topics. Tom will send out mail. It would be good to take advantage of the pool of talent who will already be there for other functions - OSDL Board, LF Board.

LWE Kernel Dev Sessions

Just wanted to inform everyone of the date and times of this session - Thursday August 17, 10:30am - 1:30pm.

http://www.linuxworldexpo.com/live/12/events/12SFO06A/conference/CC895961

OSDL will work with LWE and Greg to get his travel reimbursed.

NDA Program

What other companies would the TAB like to approach about NDA's? Freescale is excited about getting involved. HP is still stuck on an external legal issue. The TAB has to wait on a resolution until that happens. The TAB should possibly move forward with Freesacle? On the other side, is there a list of companies from the kernel developer side that they would like to get engaged with? TAB members do have a list but no direct contacts with those companies. Greg and James both mentioned they can provide names. It was noted that we need to list everything for starters and record status of each so we can make progress. The TAB will capture names via email and also specifically list hardware.

Any new issues the TAB wants addressed

Back in January there seemed like there were 5 big issues. Coming out of Ottowa is there any hot topic on the list that is not there today? The bug tracking was a big issue but that is now being addressed via the Fellowship Fund request. There's also a fair amount of interest in the hardware lending library. It just needs some organization and a small amount of funding for things like shipping. Freescale is very interested in donating hardware if it could be distributed to appropriate developers and returned. It would be good to put together a proposal listing hardware wanted from developers but also hardware that vendors want to donate. It came up in March to see if OSDL could help fund this, the answer came back no. Has this changed? OSDL has a series of companies that could be approached. Companies are much more open to fund this as the TAB has made good progress. They're willing to take on more activity now. If we can build a list of hardware needed/coming in, OSDL can build a program around it. Send a wish list of hardware (critical hardware) needed. James and Greg can send in what they want. Every vendor has a different idea of what they think is critical. HP had a process of throwing out random hardware and seeing if any developers were interested.

Continuing practices like that would help.  The TAB can tab can also

solicit a list from Jeff Garzik. Chis pinged him. John Linville might be good to solicit as well. Talk to Aryan about hardware needed from intel. Ping David Arlie about graphics domain.

Other items of business

• Re-electing Randy back to the TAB. As of the posting of these minutes,

Randy has been elected as the 10th member of the TAB.

• Going back to Wim about funding for fellowship fund. We now have very

specific things we want to do and have an opportunity to go get donations for them.

• Everyone probably saw the article about Andrew going from Digio and

sponsored by OSDL to now working at Google but continuing to be sponsored by OSDL. He's still doing the same activities. Stuart just wanted to make sure everyone was aware. Please relay this information if any question about it is brought up.

• About two months ago there was semi informal request from Simon via

James about some Xen testing. The response crafted from the TAB did make it back to Simon. Both James and Chris talked with him at OLS