[dpdk-dev] technical board meeting minutes 2017-01-25

[dpdk-dev] technical board meeting minutes 2017-01-25

[Thomas Monjalon]

There was a DPDK technical board meeting yesterday.
The goal was to reply questions asked recently in the community.
Most of them originate from the meetings about moving to Linux Foundation.
Here are the minutes.

* Should we change the size of the tech board?
Yes we must increase the number of members to have a better
representation of the community.
It is reminded that board positions are held by individuals, not companies.
Members can move to a new company and keep their seat as long as they
are actively involved in the community.

* Should we remove some members?
Panu Matilainen resigned because he is not involved anymore.
This is different of a removal by the board.
However, we must define the removal process. Here it is:
It can be decided to remove a member if there is an approval of 2/3 of
the whole technical board.
It can be decided either to replace the member, or to redefine the size
of the board.

* Should we add new members?
The Linux Foundation draft charter specifies that employees of a single
company should not occupy more than 50% of board seats.
The technical board feels that this should be reduced to 40%.
So with a board of 8 or 9 members, the maximum for any company is 3.
We have chosen (with global consensus) 3 new members to join the technical board.
They will be announced soon when we will have their agreement.
The new board will probably count 9 members.

* Should we have a process to renew the board?
There will be some renewal when it will be felt as needed.
We would like to open a session at the next userspace meeting to get
some feedbacks about the composition of the technical board, and more
generally about its role.
This annual session at the userspace meeting might be the opportunity to
vote for the composition of the technical board.

* Should we have regular meetings?
We do not want to spend too many time in meetings.
However a short meeting (less than a hour) every two weeks may be relevant.

* What could be discussed at regular meetings?
Any contributor can ask to add a topic in the agenda by sending an email
to techboard@dpdk.org.
The board members will add any topic of interest in the agenda.
If a technical discussion lacks of explanation, details or evidence, it will
be asked on the mailing list.
If a patch does not receive any or enough comment, we will help to make it
progressing on the mailing list.
If there is no consensus in a discussion, a decision can be taken by the
technical board and explained on the mailing list.
If there is nothing to discuss, the meeting will be hopefully really short.

* Should we organize regular public IRC meetings?
It does not scale to have too many participants in a meeting.
In order to keep meetings short, they will be private.
Everybody can discuss on the mailing list.

* How to report the meeting minutes?
The meetings happen on IRC and may use voice if needed.
The role of meeting leader - whose role involves taking the meeting minutes -
will be rotated among the members so as to share the workload.
Minutes will be sent to dev@dpdk.org so anyone can comment.
However, the technical discussions should happen in the original thread.

Feel free to comment.
The next meeting should happen in less than three weeks.

Re: [dpdk-dev] technical board meeting minutes 2017-01-25

[St Leger, Jim]

Comments inline below.
Jim

-----Original Message-----
From: dev [mailto:dev-bounces@dpdk.org] On Behalf Of Thomas Monjalon
Sent: Thursday, January 26, 2017 3:14 PM
To: dev@dpdk.org
Cc: techboard@dpdk.org
Subject: [dpdk-dev] technical board meeting minutes 2017-01-25

There was a DPDK technical board meeting yesterday.
The goal was to reply questions asked recently in the community.
Most of them originate from the meetings about moving to Linux Foundation.
Here are the minutes.

* Should we change the size of the tech board?
Yes we must increase the number of members to have a better representation of the community.
It is reminded that board positions are held by individuals, not companies.
Members can move to a new company and keep their seat as long as they are actively involved in the community.

* Should we remove some members?
Panu Matilainen resigned because he is not involved anymore.
This is different of a removal by the board.
However, we must define the removal process. Here it is:
It can be decided to remove a member if there is an approval of 2/3 of the whole technical board.
It can be decided either to replace the member, or to redefine the size of the board.
[<JSL>>] Did you decide how the discussion or topic to remove a board member ever even comes up to begin with?
[<JSL>>] For example, does someone propose "I think we should remove so-and-so from the TSC/TechBoard" and then the board votes? 
I think this step will be very rare (maybe never), but it's important to know how/when the removal process can be initiated and if limited by who? (e.g. can anyone in the community suggest to remove someone? Can only TechBoard/TSC members suggest to remove someone? What board member behavior would justify removal?)

* Should we add new members?
The Linux Foundation draft charter specifies that employees of a single company should not occupy more than 50% of board seats.
The technical board feels that this should be reduced to 40%.
So with a board of 8 or 9 members, the maximum for any company is 3.
We have chosen (with global consensus) 3 new members to join the technical board.
They will be announced soon when we will have their agreement.
The new board will probably count 9 members.
[<JSL>>] What is the delay in announcing the new members? 
Does "global consensus" mean within the globe or world of just the TechBoard/TSC members, e.g. it needs to be a unanimous vote by the TSC members?
Is this 100% global consensus/unanimous decision process what will be used in the future?
If that's the case, what happens if 5 members say yes and 4 say no? The candidate is then not added as a new TSC member?

* Should we have a process to renew the board?
There will be some renewal when it will be felt as needed.
We would like to open a session at the next userspace meeting to get some feedbacks about the composition of the technical board, and more generally about its role.
This annual session at the userspace meeting might be the opportunity to vote for the composition of the technical board.
[<JSL>>] Not to be flippant, but the LF governance discussion and especially budget includes line items for funding events such as DPDK Summit Userspace. But if we can't get a point of agreement on the budget, get to an agreement on membership fees, and recruit enough member companies to the project, then future events will be dependent on our ability to raise sponsorship funds across the community.  Efforts to do this in the past have only shown support from Intel, Red Hat, and Cisco. No other company has yet agreed to help financially sponsor any of the Summit events.

* Should we have regular meetings?
We do not want to spend too many time in meetings.
However a short meeting (less than a hour) every two weeks may be relevant.
[<JSL>>] I assume you are referring solely to the TechBoard/TSC meeting.

* What could be discussed at regular meetings?
Any contributor can ask to add a topic in the agenda by sending an email to techboard@dpdk.org.
The board members will add any topic of interest in the agenda.
If a technical discussion lacks of explanation, details or evidence, it will be asked on the mailing list.
If a patch does not receive any or enough comment, we will help to make it progressing on the mailing list.
If there is no consensus in a discussion, a decision can be taken by the technical board and explained on the mailing list.
If there is nothing to discuss, the meeting will be hopefully really short.

* Should we organize regular public IRC meetings?
It does not scale to have too many participants in a meeting.
In order to keep meetings short, they will be private.
Everybody can discuss on the mailing list.
[<JSL>>] Are you referring to TSC/TechBoard meetings here too? Or are you referring to regular community calls?
If community calls, I disagree and believe there should be a regular community project call to discuss any/all issues.  Items that go back and forth many times on the mailing list could be resolved in a community call with verbal discussion in just a few minutes. Other key topics such as RFCs and others could also be discussed to help drive better resource alignment and priorities for the community.  There are many benefits of a DPDK Project weekly community call, though some meetings might be quite short while others longer (but all less than an hour.)

* How to report the meeting minutes?
The meetings happen on IRC and may use voice if needed.
The role of meeting leader - whose role involves taking the meeting minutes - will be rotated among the members so as to share the workload.
Minutes will be sent to dev@dpdk.org so anyone can comment.
However, the technical discussions should happen in the original thread.

Feel free to comment.
The next meeting should happen in less than three weeks.

Re: [dpdk-dev] technical board meeting minutes 2017-01-25

[Thomas Monjalon]

2017-01-26 23:14, St Leger, Jim:
> It can be decided to remove a member if there is an approval of 2/3 of the whole technical board.
> It can be decided either to replace the member, or to redefine the size of the board.
> 
> > [<JSL>>] Did you decide how the discussion or topic to remove a board member ever even comes up to begin with?
> > [<JSL>>] For example, does someone propose "I think we should remove so-and-so from the TSC/TechBoard" and then the board votes? 
> > I think this step will be very rare (maybe never), but it's important to know how/when the removal process can be initiated and if limited by who? (e.g. can anyone in the community suggest to remove someone? Can only TechBoard/TSC members suggest to remove someone? What board member behavior would justify removal?)

The global idea of the technical board is to discuss and answer to the
questions asked by anyone.
So yes, anyone can suggest the removal of any member of the technical board.
We will write the process on the website.

> We have chosen (with global consensus) 3 new members to join the technical board.
> They will be announced soon when we will have their agreement.
> The new board will probably count 9 members.
> 
> > [<JSL>>] What is the delay in announcing the new members?

Is it so important to have a formal delay?
We just need to get an agreement from the new members,
and sometimes (as today) people may be in holidays.

> [<JSL>>] Not to be flippant, but the LF governance discussion and especially budget includes line items for funding events such as DPDK Summit Userspace. But if we can't get a point of agreement on the budget, get to an agreement on membership fees, and recruit enough member companies to the project, then future events will be dependent on our ability to raise sponsorship funds across the community.  Efforts to do this in the past have only shown support from Intel, Red Hat, and Cisco. No other company has yet agreed to help financially sponsor any of the Summit events.

Got it.

> * Should we have regular meetings?
> We do not want to spend too many time in meetings.
> However a short meeting (less than a hour) every two weeks may be relevant.
> 
> [<JSL>>] I assume you are referring solely to the TechBoard/TSC meeting.

Yes, this whole discussion is only about the technical board.

> * Should we organize regular public IRC meetings?
> It does not scale to have too many participants in a meeting.
> In order to keep meetings short, they will be private.
> Everybody can discuss on the mailing list.
> 
> [<JSL>>] Are you referring to TSC/TechBoard meetings here too? Or are you referring to regular community calls?
> If community calls, I disagree and believe there should be a regular community project call to discuss any/all issues.  Items that go back and forth many times on the mailing list could be resolved in a community call with verbal discussion in just a few minutes. Other key topics such as RFCs and others could also be discussed to help drive better resource alignment and priorities for the community.  There are many benefits of a DPDK Project weekly community call, though some meetings might be quite short while others longer (but all less than an hour.)

We were talking about technical board meetings.
The community calls are different things.