AB Meeting/April 2014 Minutes
Attendees
- Lars Kurth (chair)
- Guido Trotter (Google, voting)
- Mark Hinkle (Citrix, voting)
- Demetrios Coulis (CA Technologies, voting)
- Konrad R Wilk (Oracle, voting)
- Matt Wilson (Amazon Web Services, voting)
- Richard Phelan (ARM, voting)
- Antony Messerli (Rackspace, voting)
- Brian Warner (Linux Foundation)
- Sarah Conway (Linux Foundation)
7 voting members : quorum
Action Summary
Action All: Please reach out to your development teams regarding the Xen Project Developer Summit CfP via http://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/xen-project-developer-summit/program/cfp
Action All: If you (or members of your teams) do want to attend the Hackathon, please register now before we hit capacity. Invites are requested via http://xenproject.org/component/content/article/98-developers/vote/166-request-invite-hackathon-2014.html
Action All: Pass on information about Xen project Summit sponsorships to your marketing departments (see http://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/xen-project-developer-summit/sponsor & http://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/xen-project-user-summit/sponsor)
Action Sarah: Remove Calxeda from press boilerplate
Action Sarah: share a template and example for a Analysts Presentation with the AB (have to check NDAs)
Action Sarah: propose a working time-line/project plan for Analysts Presentation
Action All: Socialize within your organization whether you want to participate in the Analysts Presentation / Preparation and contact Sarah or Lars
Agenda
Updates
Google Summer of Code and OPW
We have a total of 5 GSoC students and 2 OPW interns that we intend to accept.
- Mindy Preston working with Mort (Univ of Nottingham) and Anil: Mirage OS contributions and improvements => OPW ACCEPT
- Arianna Avanzini working with Konrad (Oracle): Multi-queue support for the block I/O paravirtualized Xen drivers => OPW ACCEPT
- Jyotsna Prakash working with Anil (Univ of Cambridge) and Dave Scott: Mirage OS cloud API support => GSoC ACCEPT
- Tülin İzer working with Boris (Oracle): Parallel xenwatch kthread => GSoC ACCEPT
- Bo Cao working with George (Citrix) and Pasi: Implement Xen PVUSB support in xl/libxl toolstack => GSoc ACCEPT
- Dushyant Behl working with Andres (GridCentric): Lazy Restore Using Memory Paging => GSoc ACCEPT
- Yandong Han working with Paul (Citrix): Xen Hypervisor-- HVM per-event-channel interrupts => GSoC ACCEPT
Budget impact: approved in March
- Approved: $18,750 from 2014.4e - Skills Programs (OPW and similar)
- Actual needed: $12,500
Didn’t get who asked the question: the question was raised whether we could not get one more applicant Lars: We didn’t have enough mentors to cover an extra intern. The issue was that we couldn’t map mentors (with the right domain expertise) to all the relevant proposals. Also, we did get slots for the best applications and students. There was only one more, which we could c
Lars (ASIDE): we do also have a number of applicants, which applied for Xen work in other projects and distros such as openSUSE. However, we won’t know who will be accepted until the final list is published..
Sarah: Are any of the students likely to attend the Xen Project Developer Summit? Lars: Yes, what we have done in the past, is to fund the best applicants through project budget and through the mentors fee of GSoC. Also OPW attendees have been funded to attend events (and some of the cost per OPW applicant is covered)
Community Dashboard
Early draft at http://www.bitergia.com/projects/xen-project-dashboard/browser/
Items to fix:
- Per subproject views
- Company/domain views : sort by activity in the last 12 months instead of the lifetime of the project (including pre-open source history); investigate some issues
- Include stats from PVOPS Linux kernel contributions
Lars: Citrix is funding the development cost for the Dashboard and 6 months subscription fee. After that the project will cover the cost as agreed in the budget (subscription fee $279 per month)
Upcoming Deadlines
- CfP for Xen Project Developer Summit (May 2). See http://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/xen-project-developer-summit/program/cfp
Lars: please reach out to your respective development teams and remind them of the CfP. I will probably extend the deadline by 2-3 weeks, but do not want to announce it until a few days before the deadline passes.
Action All: Please reach out to your development teams regarding the Xen Project Developer Summit CfP via http://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/xen-project-developer-summit/program/cfp
- Xen Project Hackathon (May 29 & 30) > 50% full.
Lars: We have 40 spaces (maybe an option to increase to 45). For current confirmed attendees, see http://wiki.xen.org/wiki/Hackathon/May2014#Confirmed_attendees
Action All: If you (or members of your teams) do want to attend the Hackathon, please register now before we hit capacity. Invites are requested via http://xenproject.org/component/content/article/98-developers/vote/166-request-invite-hackathon-2014.html
Approvals
Xen Project – CentOS Press release for Xen Project leadership of Virtualization SIG
Waiting for modifications from CentOS board. Then ready for AB approval.
Lars: because we are close to Easter, we will go for a working week for approval. The release is likely to go out *after* Easter
Xen Project Hackathon
Total Cost Estimate: $1.5K (could be less) for T-Shirts and Registration Site Budget item to be used: 2014.7e - T-Shirts and swag for Xen Project at OSS events
- Total projected spending in 2014: $9K
- Total spent to date: $0K
Still open budget item on evening social event for Hackathon: not likely to be more than $2.5K
Vote|Motion: Approve spending for T-Shirts and Registration Site
✓ Motion agreed
Xen Project User Summit Approval
See attached presentation: XenUserSummit2014.ppt Total Cost Estimate: $35K Secured Sponsorships: Diamond: Citrix $15K Expected attendees (minus free sponsorships): 100 (according to Russell Pavlicek’s prediction) => income from attendance fees: $7.9K
Projected risk for Xen Project to underwrite if there is any shortfall: $12.1 K Budget item(s) to be used to cover risk, if needed:
- $10K from 2014.6e - Xen Project Booth and Banners for Events (one-off)
- Total projected spending in 2014: $10K
- Total spent to date: $0K (note that these had been updated last year and I didn’t know)
- $2.1 K from 2014.5e - Slush Fund for Xen Project Developer Events
- Total projected spending in 2014: 20K
- Total spent to date: $0K
Konrad: asked whether we have any data related to last year’s event.
Lars:
- Last year we had 50 attendees, but had less than 6 weeks to promote the event.
- Also the location was not ideal we do not get a lot of Xen users at LinuxCon’s and last year’s LinuxCon location in New Orleans was not ideal for a Xen Event.
- Russell ran a survey to identify the best location for a Xen Event and NYC came out top (ASIDE: we have had past user facing events with > 100 attendees). Also there is a cluster of Xen Users in the wider NY area
- We do not have any data on sponsorship, as we never attempted to sign up sponsors in the past. So this is somewhat of an unknown.
Actions taken to sign up sponsorship: mailshot sent to 100 Xen Project eco-system directory vendors for sponsorship Further actions: reach out to non-AB members regarding sponsorship (e.g. GlobalLogic, SUSE and others) Ask to AB members: check with your marketing departments whether any of you would want to sponsor the event – more information at http://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/xen-project-developer-summit/sponsor
Vote|Motion: Agree for Xen Project to take on remaining risk out of budget items as outlined above
✓ Motion agreed
Action Lars: Inform Angela about vote result ✓
Xen Project Developer Summit Approval
See attached presentation: XenProjectDevSummit2014.ppt Total Cost Estimate: $45K Secured Sponsorships: Diamond: Citrix $15K, Platinum: BitDefender $5K Expected attendees (minus free sponsorships): 100 (conservatively based on past record) => income from attendee fees: $9.9K
Projected risk for Xen Project to underwrite if there is any shortfall: $15.1 K Budget item(s) to be used to cover risk, if needed:
- $15.1 K from 2014.5e - Slush Fund for Xen Project Developer Events
- Total projected spending in 2014: 20K
- Total spent to date: $0K
Actions taken to sign up sponsorship: mailshot sent to 100 Xen Project eco-system directory vendors for sponsorship Further actions: reach out to non-AB members regarding sponsorship (e.g. GlobalLogic, SUSE and others) Ask to AB members: check with your marketing departments whether any of you would want to sponsor the event – more information at http://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/xen-project-user-summit/sponsor
Vote|Motion: Agree for Xen Project to take on remaining risk out of budget items as outlined above
✓ Motion agreed
Summary: Affected Budget Item Projections (pre-approved and as of today)
Remaining budget items after projected spending (approved off-line in March and today)
- 2014.4e - Skills Programs (OPW and similar): $27,500
- 2014.6e - Xen Project Booth and Banners for Events (one-off): $0
- 2014.5e - Slush Fund for Xen Project Developer Events: $2,800
- 2014.7e - T-Shirts and swag for Xen Project at OSS events: $7,500
Membership
Calxeda’s website has gone off-line. All our contacts do not work for Calxeda anymore.
Motion: remove Calxeda from Budget, Press Release Footer and Membership Directory. Budget Impact: none, as Rackspace has become a member and has not been budgeted for in the 2014 budget
Vote|Motion: Remove Calxeda
✓ Motion carried
Action Lars: Remove Calxeda from list and directory ✓
Action Sarah: Remove Calxeda from press boilerplate ✓
Samsung “didn't get approval to sign membership, but Ibrahim Haddad and Jjiyon Han assured me it was due to internal issues, not confidence in the project. At this point it's ok to pull their logo until they get it.”
Motions:
- Option 1: Remove Samsung from Budget, Press Release Footer and Membership Directory
- I want to discuss alternatives as removing something could be noticed be the media and have negative implications for the project
- Option 2: Leaving Samsung in the board as a voting members affects voting dynamics. We should remove them until they have paid
Sarah: believes that there is not likely to be a media impact, if we quietly drop Samsung Konrad: Could this result in a perception issue that the Xen Project is backing away from ARM. Lars: We have enough activity on xen-devel (grown to 20-25%) and enough active vendors to explain that this is not the case
Action Brian: go back to Samsung and explain that there may be a media impact as Samsung was part of the launch press release
Vote|Motion: take Samsung out of the voting tally
✓ Carried
Action Lars: to follow up by e-mail afterwards, based on Samsung’s reply
Budget Impact:
- Our annual run-rate is currently $295K (with an annual projected income including Samsung of $350K – that income would reduce to $325 per annum).
- Note that our cash reserve of $145,795 after expenses remains unaffected by the change as I anticipated that Samsung was not going to pay the 2013 dues
Planning & Strategic
Analyst Meeting
Goal: Re-introduce Xen Project to a few industry analysts -- late May? Start with analysts like Red Monk, GigaOM, ESG, 451 Group.
Sarah:
- This is important because circumstances of the Xen Project have changed
- Lots of questions were raised a year ago when the project moved the LF, which have only partly been involved. Such as
- Are we going to get back users? How are the prospects?
- If the meeting goes well, we could expect buying recommendations and positive endorsements from Analysts
Lars: What the format be? What prep work is needed?
Sarah:
- PPT presentations : 12-20 slides
- Starts with company/project introduction and background
- Then: Where we are now + roadmap? Next couple of releases
- A couple of examples how Xen is being used
- There are likely questions about AB board
- Participation: 3 people from the board who can/want to participate
- At least: Someone technical, Someone who can cover the go to market perspective
MarkH:
- maybe one slide from each AB member to provide one slide on WHY AB member X invests into the project
- there may be questions related to revenue, install base or similar: anything like this will be valuable
Lars: what would the timing be?
Sarah:
- Get presentation and material together and into good shape *before* we agree a date
- phone based or face-2-face at a conferenceis OK
ACTIONs:
Action Sarah: share a template and example for a Analysts Presentation with the AB (have to check NDAs)
Action Sarah: propose a working time-line/project plan for Analysts Presentation
Action All: Socialize within your organization whether you want to participate in the Analysts Presentation / Preparation and contact Sarah or Lars
To do this, we need to:
- Identify key stake-holders from the AB that would participate
- Identify key stake-holders from the AB that are willing to provide market context
- Agree review process
Xen Project 4.4 Retrospective
Deferred to next meeting
AOB
None
