[Mpi-forum] Voting results

[Jeff Squyres]

Voting results from the May 2012 Japan MPI Forum meeting are now up:

    http://meetings.mpi-forum.org/secretary/2012/05/votes.php

Interesting points:

1. 3 tickets were withdrawn:

- https://svn.mpi-forum.org/trac/mpi-forum-web/ticket/194
  Ensure MPI_Dims_create is really suitable for MPI_Cart_create
- https://svn.mpi-forum.org/trac/mpi-forum-web/ticket/326
  MPI3 Fault Tolerance - Files
- https://svn.mpi-forum.org/trac/mpi-forum-web/ticket/327
  MPI3 Fault Tolerance - Dynamic process management

2. The definition of "simple majority" was changed from how I have computed whether ballots passed or failed in the past.  I don't know offhand how past ballot results would have fared with the new definition; I am guessing that their results wouldn't have changed because most past ballots were not as close as some of the ones from this week.

>From my understanding, "simple majority" (i.e., what a vote needs to pass) was defined as the following:

    floor(total_eligible_orgs_attending / 2) + 1 "yes" votes

Meaning: abstains and misses count as "not yes", or (effectively) "no".

*** With these rules, I see no meaning for "abstain" (or "miss").  There is effectively only "yes" and "no".  
*** Meaning: everyone who thought they were abstaining at this past meeting were actually voting "no".

I understand that this was discussed in Japan and everyone in the room agreed to these rules.  ***It is not what I would have advocated***, but I was not there.  :-\

In all prior meetings, I used the following computation to determine if a ballot passed:

    floor(total_yes_and_no_votes / 2) + 1 "yes" votes

or, effectively:

    more "yes" votes than "no" votes

Meaning: abstains and misses do not count towards the result.

3. 16 organizations were eligible to vote at this meeting.

4. In this meeting, 12 first votes passed.  8 of those 12 had good consensus (max of 3 (no+abstain)), but 4 did not:

- #278 (fix deprecated examples): 6 abstains
- #281 (remove C++): 5 no votes
- #303 (removed interface chapter): 5 no votes, 2 abstains
- #313 (INIT/FINALIZE): 1 no vote, 4 abstains

5. In this meeting, 5 first votes failed:

- https://svn.mpi-forum.org/trac/mpi-forum-web/ticket/195
  Topology awareness in MPI_Dims_create
- https://svn.mpi-forum.org/trac/mpi-forum-web/ticket/217
  MPI3 Hybrid Programming: Proposal for Helper Threads
- https://svn.mpi-forum.org/trac/mpi-forum-web/ticket/273
  Add Immediate versions of nonblocking collective I/O routines
- https://svn.mpi-forum.org/trac/mpi-forum-web/ticket/310
  clarify MPI behavior when multiple MPI processes run in the same address space
- https://svn.mpi-forum.org/trac/mpi-forum-web/ticket/323
  User-Level Failure Mitigation

6. In this meeting, 8 second votes passed (i.e., all of them).  Good consensus on all of them (max of 3 (no+abstain) votes).

-- 
Jeff Squyres
jsquyres at cisco.com
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