[Mpi-forum] MPI Ain't and MPI 3.1

[Schulz, Martin]

Hi Jim, all,

On Jul 16, 2013, at 3:40 PM, Jim Dinan <james.dinan at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi All,
> 
> I apologize for the long-delayed follow-up from our last meeting on how to handle the MPI Aint arithmetic ticket (tt #349).  At the last meeting, we all agreed that this is an important fix that we would like to get out ASAP, but we weren't sure how to do it.  I wanted to resume that discussion on the mailing list to get broader feedback and help move the discussion along in between meetings, if we can.
> 
> We discussed incorporating this ticket as a 3.0 erratum, and there were concerns that this change might be too big for an erratum.  To recap, ticket #349 adds a function, which would need to be included in the proper places in appendices and indexes.  We would ideally also want to reference the function from the RMA text and update RMA examples to use the new function.
> 
> Another option that we have not yet discussed is pushing out an MPI 3.1 spec.  This would be another way of getting this change out before MPI 4.0.  What is the general feeling on how soon we can release a 3.1 spec?  Is this more palatable than handling this ticket as an erratum?

A few other people have brought that up as well - I think we should have this discussion, but I fear it probably doesn't make sense to do this before the Chicago meeting, since many regular attendees will probably miss the Madrid meeting (I could be wrong, which would be great, of course). If we want to go that way, we should think about what is "permissible" for 3.1 and what should be 4.0.

However, an MPI 3.1 wouldn't be that soon, either - even assuming (and this is VERY optimistic) all smaller changes that we would like to include are on the table and are "successfully" read and found consensus in Chicago, we still need three meetings after that (two votes and one full standard vote) before we can release an MPI 3.1, which would at least take us to September next year during the Japan meeting, i.e., a release at SC14. I am not saying this to suggest we shouldn't do a 3.1, but it is not a fast option to get important fixes out.

Martin

> 
> Thanks,
>  ~Jim.
> 
> PS- https://svn.mpi-forum.org/trac/mpi-forum-web/ticket/349
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________________________________________________________________________
Martin Schulz, schulzm at llnl.gov, http://people.llnl.gov/schulzm
CASC @ Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, USA