[Mpi-forum] Errata handling

Wed Dec 5 16:04:44 CST 2012

Additionally, I must say that an MPI-3.0.1 would be directly
against the final result of the discussion from last meeting.
We said that a standard must have a meaningful stability 
of at least two years.
I do not want to reopen this discussion, but based on exactly
this result, our center decided to take the risk to print 
the MPI-3.0 and to sell it at costs as a service for the 
whole MPI community. 
We had to print all books for the next two years and to pay them.
Print-on-demand has shown that it does not work with 852 
pages in hardcover.

An MPI-3.0.1 would completely kill this service combined with
a significant loss. 
Result: Errata should never touch the numbering of our standard.

I hope that the whole Forum supports our print service
and does not continue with this errata numbering discussion.

Best regards
Rolf

Sorry Tony,

but in the past we did errata without incrementing anything,
and it worked.
Errata change the original document because there is a bug
that must be fixed. Only this bug is fixed.
Errata never change the title page of a document,
and MPI-3.0 from Sep 21, 2012 is part of the title page
and this is not a bug, therefore not changed by errata.

If an implementor did not detect an inconsistency and
implemented something that is wrong, then it is a bug in his
software and it needs to be fixed, latest when the
errata is voted in, better when the inconsistency is
reolved by the chapter committee and published in a ticket.
The software is always MPI-3.0 compliant, but with some bugs.

Please keep it simple!

Best regards
Rolf

----- Original Message -----
> From: "Anthony Skjellum" <tony at cis.uab.edu>
> To: "Main MPI Forum mailing list" <mpi-forum at lists.mpi-forum.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, December 5, 2012 6:42:07 PM
> Subject: Re: [Mpi-forum] Errata handling
> We need to increment the third digit of the standard each time errata
> are accepted in this way.
> "3.0 + errata compliant" is too vague.
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Rolf Rabenseifner" <rabenseifner at hlrs.de>
> To: "Main MPI Forum mailing list" <mpi-forum at lists.mpi-forum.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, December 5, 2012 11:23:56 AM
> Subject: [Mpi-forum] Errata handling
>
> Dear all,
>
> I detected that there seems to be a discussion.
> >From my viewpoint based on experience since MPI-2.0,
> the processing should be very simple and clear:
>
> - only important errata are published, not the typos.
> - important is that the interface was definitely inconsistent
> or obviously wrong.
> - enough review by committee members, i.e., it is clear that
> the correction is correct.
> - real reading in the forum, because it is about the interface.
> - single reading + vote for corrections of inconsistencies.
>
> Errata should pass always in the next meeting after they
> were detected.
>
> Errata are voted and "3.0 compiant" always means 3.0+errata compliant.
> Errata are for obvious bugs and inconsistencies.
>
> Reason:
> - Being compliant to a bug is stupied and must be corrected
> as soon as detected.
> (Example: It was never intented that you are MPI-2.2 compliant
> when having BOOL with 4 bytes in the external32 datarep.)
> - Being compliant to an inconsistency is impossible,
> because MPI-3.0 says A and not-A;
> you can never be compliant to both A and not-A.
>
> There should be only ONE errata document, which is
> updated after each meeting if new errata are added.
> The errata should be sorted by page and linenumbers in MPI-3.0.
>
> By this, there are older versions (visible at the date)
> of the errata document, but only the newest is binding.
>
> If we want to have the history in, we can add for each
> erratum the following parantheses:
>
> "(detected in ticket #nnn on May 1, 2099, voted in on Jun 16, 2099)".
>
> Because we always should try to circulate errata in a ticket,
> all implementors have early access to the information.
> It should be voted in in the same meeting as it was read.
> That's enough. This should need 30-60 minutes in a forum meeting.
> That's fast compared to a lot of emailing or email-voting.
>
> That's the way we did it in the past for all corrections
> in the voted Fortran interface - and it worked.
>
> My strong recommendation:
> - Do it simple and effective!
> - And start it now!
> - Use the meeting time for content of the MPI standard
> and not for complicating the errata process.
>
> Best regards
> Rolf
>
> --
> Dr. Rolf Rabenseifner . . . . . . . . . .. email rabenseifner at hlrs.de
> High Performance Computing Center (HLRS) . phone ++49(0)711/685-65530
> University of Stuttgart . . . . . . . . .. fax ++49(0)711 / 685-65832
> Head of Dpmt Parallel Computing . . . www.hlrs.de/people/rabenseifner
> Nobelstr. 19, D-70550 Stuttgart, Germany . (Office: Room 1.307)
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-- 
Dr. Rolf Rabenseifner . . . . . . . . . .. email rabenseifner at hlrs.de
High Performance Computing Center (HLRS) . phone ++49(0)711/685-65530
University of Stuttgart . . . . . . . . .. fax ++49(0)711 / 685-65832
Head of Dpmt Parallel Computing . . . www.hlrs.de/people/rabenseifner
Nobelstr. 19, D-70550 Stuttgart, Germany . (Office: Room 1.307)
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