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 September 1, 2006

Technical Advisory Board Conference Call Minutes

Attendees:

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

Action Items:

    1. James to write Tech Writer proposal and post to the tech-board
       mailing list.
    2. Leann to check with Tim Golden about distributing his LUAC
       presentation given at the OSDL Board meeting to the TAB
    3. Leann will forward OSDL SAS topology to the TAB.

Agenda:

    1. Status on Tech Writer candidates
    2. Report from the OSDL board meeting
    3. NDA Program and Hardware Lending Library
    4. TAB's recommendation regarding driver writer certification
    5. Other items of business

1. Status on Tech Writer candidates

James issued a call for volunteers on the tech-board mailing list to write a proposal for the Tech Writer. No one has stepped forward so James will write the proposal and distribute it to the mailing list for review. Once that is approved, OSDL will run the proposal past Diane as well as HR. The proposal will then be distributed to public mailing lists as well as appropriate PR firms.

2. Report from the OSDL board meeting

<confidential>

3. NDA Program and Hardware Lending Library

Tom gave an update. Tom's expecting equipment through Adaptec via Jack Hammer and will make that available to selected community members. He'll go though the TAB to ask for who should receive the equipment. He's fine with either sending it directly to them or installing it at OSDL and giving them access to it. He also went to Duane Grigsby with Qlogic to begin working with them and the NDA program. He hasn't had a chance to take a look at the networking list Chris sent out. Jack Hammer sounded enthusiastic about this. If he can donate some cards, it might be a possibility to leverage some work from Christoph Hellwig. We will probably have to wait until after the Labor Day holiday to accelerate this. The TAB also wants to set their expectations that they might want to come back with more requests. On a side note, Leann will forward the OSDL SAS topology to the TAB.

4. TAB's recommendation regarding driver writer certification

It is the TAB's wishes to not become heavily involved with driver writer certifications. Greg agreed with this and Arjan seconded it. The TAB might be able to advise, but is not interested in driving nor approving this type of effort. Conversations with LPI focused towards them wanting the TAB to drive this through them which is something the TAB does not want to do. Everything has been said on the mailing list and the TAB will let this matter die quietly.

5. Other items of business

Tom wanted to give a quick update on the Japan Linux Symposium. The September program is pretty much locked down. Ted will attend and talk about file systems, Rusty will discuss some of the hypervisor integration work he's been involved with, Diego Novillo will talk about GCC, and Craig Ross will give a historical review of LKS and OLS. The second day will revolve around bofs targeting the topics which the speakers presented about the day before. September 11 and 12 are the dates. The November mtg is looking good as well. Tom is anticipating both James and Greg to talk about drivers. Ted will be there again to talk about LF and LSB. Martin Bligh has also agreed to come and talk about kernel testing. November 9 and 10 are the projected dates.

It was also asked how the LWE sessions went? Everyone felt that the attendance was lite. James had maybe 40 people on Tuesday and 10 on Thursday. Nothing huge. Greg also had about 10. The TAB felt this was not worth doing again and wouldn't recommend it. The TAB felt the organization was poor. They did not make it in the official show guide and the tall placards had the wrong room # and time. Also it didn't seem to attract the right audience. Possibly might have better luck in the south bay at Linux user groups? So the question still remains, how do we reach the correct audience? Maybe just listen and go where they are. Another idea is to team up with Google. The Ubuntu conference looked promising. Also, Google has the ability to attract high profile speakers and generate a good attendance and audience.