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 June 2, 2006

Technical Advisory Board Conference Call Minutes

Attendees:

James Bottomley Randy Dunlap Tom Hanrahan Greg Kroah-Hartman Christoph Lameter Leann Ogasawara Ted Ts'o Arjan van de Ven Chris Wright

Agenda:

1) Review of Fellowship Fund Requests 2) Travel Fund 3) Arjan OSDL Europe Face to Face update 4) James OSDL Board Meeting Update 5) Other Orders of Business

Motions:

A motion was passed to create a general community travel fund.

Action Items:

1) Tom to respond to Fellowship Fund Requests

     * Git Maintainer, PCMCIA, and Tech Writer were the only ones which
       received recommendations for funding.

2) Leann to get public tab mailing list (tech-board-discuss@lists.osdl.org) requested and set up.

Review of Fellowship Fund Requests:

Donor agreement forms were sent out to three companies and 4 - 5 individuals who are interested in donating funds. As of today, there are no actual deposits to the fund, but Tom is actively engaged in conversations with the two companies who responded with interest in contributing. The TAB recommended two additional companies to contact.

The TAB then went through the entire Fellowship Fund request list and have made the following recommendations:

OpenSSH via OpenBSD: No - Recommendation is not to fund. They are asking for just general funding, it's not an actual fellowship request. The request is also not in the proper format. Do not ask them to resend, refer them to the Linux Fund.

Secure VOIP: No - Recommendation is not to fund. The request is not in the proper format and project is outside the scope of what the TAB is looking for.

ESQL/C Compiler: No - Recommendation is not to fund. It's an inappropriate project for a fund that is aimed at supporting the Linux kernel. Also, request is not in the proper format. Possibly refer them to the Linux Fund.

Git Maintenance: Yes - Recommendation is to provide funding. Keep this request on the pending list. Ask them to resend the request in the proper format.

Freedom Force Game: No - Recommendation is not to fund. Refer them to the Linux Fund.

Open C6: No - Recommendation is not to fund. Little leverage in the kernel. Refer them to the Linux Fund

Aprophenia: No - Recommendation is not to fund. It's just statistical analysis, not development. Also, no leverage in the Linux kernel. We are not a VC. We're not academic funding. Refer them to the Linux fund.

PAFlow: No - Recommendation is not to fund. Again they're looking for some type of VC money.

Global Education and Learning Community: No - Recommendation is not to fund. It's not exactly the area we're looking to fund projects in.

Caravel Content Management System: No - Recommendation is not to fund. Not in the proper format and this isn't filling a need in the Kernel/open source.

Linux Cafe: No - Recommendation is not to fund. There is nothing on development here. We're looking to fund developers, not just a project that needs money.

ARM Platform Distro: No - Recommendation is not to fund. This is probably a project for CELF or MLI. OSDL doesn't want to get involved with distros. They might want to become a sub project of Debian? Refer them to SPI about funding.

TCC and QEMU: No - Recommendation is not to fund. The TAB feels this is a project that will gain traction and other sources of funding on it's own as it is a hot topic area already. It fits the TAB criteria and is important but the TAB would rather dedicate funds to another project that would need more help gaining funds.

Compressed Caching: No - Recommendation is not to fund. Isn't this already a Google summer of code project?

PCMCIA: Yes - Recommendation is to provide funding. This is a specific task that will help Desktop Linux as a whole.

VUE/Prometric Test Delivery Solution: No - Recommendation is not to fund. This is a commercial entity, for profit, and a BSD product. Refer to LPI - Linux Professional Institute.

Technical Writer: Yes - Recommendation is to provide funding.

Wireless Distribution Support: No - Recommendation is not to fund. This is an area of the kernel that developers are still grappling with. 3 months from now might be an option. There are a number of Distributions already funding this work. The TAB agreed to look at it 2-3 months from now. Request them to resubmit in 3 months once the direction of the Linux kernel is clearer.

Linux in Eugene, OR: No - Recommendation is not to fund. Might be able to interest Google in it. Project does not involve any development. Also might point them to the Linux Fund.

Travel Fund:

A TAB-OSDL specific travel fund and a general community travel fund were discussed at last month's conference call. James has already taken the TAB-OSDL specific travel fund idea to the OSDL Board. The TAB feels a general community travel fund is also very necessary. The easiest thing to do is set up a separate account and budgeting line item. Any contributions go directly into that account. Tom would be the line manager and only spend the funds on travel recommendations made from the TAB. Fund contributors can't dictate how the funds they donate are spent. Once the first check comes in OSDL will set the whole thing up. Motion to create the General Community Travel Fund. Is everyone in agreement? Yes. The Travel Fund is hereby created.

Arjan OSDL Europe Face to Face Update:

There was a community face to face panel discussion and Q&A session held at the OSDL Europe Face 2 Face. The panel fielded lots of questions from the audience - for example, How do you deal with your project not being appreciated? The panel basically provided an educational session on Linux and open source. It was well received and the overall impression is that it is a very valuable thing to do. Maybe a longer, more formal, session would be better next time. Everyone in the room wanted a formal presentation. Additional news included MLI starting to get traction, CGL is pretty far along and figuring out what's next, DCL is still figuring out what they should focus on.

James OSDL Board Meeting Update:

Due to confidentiality reasons, the minutes from this discussion can not be posted publicly. For an overview of the OSDL Board Meeting, please refer to the following link.

http://www.osdl.org/about_osdl/Board_of_Directors_Report_2006

Other Orders of Business:

The letter to Xensource was sent out after last month's meeting. No news has been heard back from them.

The new public TAB mailing list “tech-board-discuss@lists.osdl.org” will be created.