[Mpi-forum] Process towards MPI 4.0 / Final Steps

[Martin Schulz]

Hi all,

For those of you who had to miss the virtual MPI Forum meeting today, we had a discussion on the updated process towards MPI 4.0 and how to handle the final tickets.

The recording is at (with the right time-marker to this discussion):
https://youtu.be/h9MO-BmbfdQ?t=2125

The slides are at:
https://github.com/mpi-forum/mpi-forum.github.io/raw/master/slides/2021/03/2021-03-24-rcm-frm-procedures.pptx

The quick summary is that we will limit the tickets that are still considered for MPI 4.0 to only emergency fixes that avoid breaking the standard and that are directly related to new items/procedures/concepts/text added specifically for MPI 4.0. Otherwise we fear (and we are seeing this already) that we may get clogged up with more and more changes that will not get the needed vetting and - equally important - that we run the risk of some issues not being accepted during the vote, which means the FRM is not the final document, which is problematic.

Wesley will be going through the board and classifying all issues based on that (see also slide 11) and then move tickets that do not meet the criteria to MPI 4.1 (changes that are already in, will stay , though). For this, we agreed to temporarily assume the role of a release manager that will advance tickets once they are ready (and that includes sufficient reviews by the CCs) and meet the criteria.

Note, though, this does not mean that the items tagged as 4.1 are postponed indefinitely - the plan is to start working on them right after MPI 4.0, if time permits, already in the June meeting. We should strive for getting a cleaned-up MPI 4.1 out the door soon, preferably before we add (m)any new items, but that part we will also discuss in the June meeting.

Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns - we will also address this in the meeting next week.

Thanks!

Martin
(also in the name of Bill and Wesley)



-- 
Prof. Dr. Martin Schulz, Chair of Computer Architecture and Parallel Systems
Department of Informatics, TU-Munich, Boltzmannstraße 3, D-85748 Garching
Member of the Board of Directors at the Leibniz Supercomputing Centre (LRZ)
Email: schulzm at in.tum.de