The System JTAG Working Group

Minutes of Weekly Meeting, 2009-04-06

Meeting called to order at 10:35 AM EDT

1. Roll Call

Eric Cormack
Ian McIntosh
Adam Ley
Tim Pender
Carl Walker
Patrick Au (joined 10:36)
Heiko Ehrenberg (joined 10:42)
Brad Van Treuren (joined 10:42)

Excused:
Harrison Miles
Peter Horwood

2. Review and approve previous minutes:

3/23/2009 minutes:

• Draft circulated on 23rd March:
• Corrections (noted last week):
  In section 3, delete two comments attributed to [Harrison] as these have been copied from the preceding week's notes.
• Brad moved to approve with these amendments, Eric seconded, no objections.

3/30/2009 minutes:

• Updated draft circulated on 1st April:
• No further corrections noted.
• Eric moved to approve, Patrick seconded, no objections.

3. Review old action items

• Adam proposed we cover the following at the next meeting:
  • Establish consensus on goals and constraints
  • What are we trying to achieve?
  • What restrictions are we faced with?
• Establish whether TRST needs to be addressed as requirements in the ATCA specification if it is not going to be managed globally (All)
• Adam review ATCA standard document for FRU's states
• Patrick contact Cadence for EDA support person.
• All to consider what data items are missing from Data Elements diagram
• All: do we feel SJTAG is requiring a new test language to obtain the information needed for diagnostics or is STAPL/SVF sufficient?
  see also Gunnar's presentation, in particular the new information he'd be looking for in a test language (http://files.sjtag.org/Ericsson-Nov2006/STAPL-Ideas.pdf)
• Adam: (continue) revise wording of section 5 - Ongoing
• Carl W/Andrew: Set up conference call to organise review of Vol. 3 - Ongoing
• Andrew: Make contact with VXI Consortium/Charles Greenberg. - Ongoing
• Ian/Brad: Draft "straw man" Volume 4 for review - Ongoing
• All: Review "Role of Languages" in White Paper Volume 4 - Ongoing
• All: Consider structure/content of survey - Ongoing
• Harrison: Virtual system exploiting Configuration/Tuning/Instrumentation and Root Cause Analysis/Failure Mode Analysis Use Cases. - Ongoing
• Brad: Virtual system exploiting POST and BIST Use Cases. - Ongoing
• Ian: Virtual system exploiting Environmental Stress Test Use Cases. - Ongoing
• Adam: Circulate section of 1149.7 draft which considers system level behaviour. - COMPLETE
• Ian: Add section to Newsletter on Virtual Systems activity, and re- circulate. - COMPLETE

4. Discussion Topics

1. 2009 Survey - Use Case examinations
   • [Ian] We'll defer this topic for now as neither Brad nor Harrison are on the call at the moment. We may come back to this if they join later.


2. Group Operating Procedures
   • [Ian] I circulated PDFs of the main text of the Procedures as it stands now and the contents of the discussion page from the wiki. I felt it might make it easier to compare things side-by-side.
   • [Ian] I'll go through things in the order of the comments from the Discussion page.
      
   • Section 2.7
   • [Ian] This had a discussion on the replacement of officers. The text of the procedures seems to have largely taken on Adam's suggestions, the only real difference I can see is that the draft text states a requirement for approval of the motion by a "simple majority" of the voting eligible members, while Adam had suggested "50% + 1". Is there any isse with "simple majority"?
   • [Adam] I think the wording as it is works just fine.
      
   • Section 2.3
   • [Ian] This was a section where I started to worry about the efect of Fringe Meetings, but Adam pointed out that there was no reason to create a special case here, as voting eligibilty was not really influenced.
   • [Ian] We'd previously concluded that there was no change required here. Any further comments?
   • {None voiced}
      
   • Section 3.1
   • [Ian] This was re-worded to avoid using terms like "commercially sensitive" in describing material that we keep in the "private" sections of the website.
   • [Brad] I think the wording we have here now captures the spirit and intent of the section.
   • [Adam] Re-reading this now, I feel that the word "yet" in a) is superfluous: It implies that all material will at some point be fit for publication, which will not be the case.
   • [Brad] Yeah, that's a good point.
   • [Adam] I also wonder if, after removing "yet", we should swap the order of "not" and "considered" so it reads "which is considered not fit for public circulation". Maybe it's OK as it is.
   • [Brad] I think it's better to leave it as "not considered fit" as it sets the default case; we then make a conscious decision to release something.
   • [Adam] Yes, agreed.
   • [Ian] OK, I'll amend 3.1 a) by striking out "yet". {ACTION}
      
   • Section 3.4
   • [Ian] Brad had suggested adding bullets for the wiki and the forums. The wiki was really to bring people to the White Paper, which is our key document. The text now has the White Paper at the top of the list, and the forum discussions are listed further down.
   • [Brad] These were just my suggestions: I'd like to hear what other think.
   • [Patrick] I like what Brad has proposed.
   • [Ian] Initially I wasn't convinced, as I thought of the wiki and forums as "tools" but when I realised Brad was referring to the content of the wiki and forums, I changed my mind.
      
   • Section 5.2
   • [Ian] I think this part on Quorum was going to move into section 4, as part of the larger update to section 5?
   • [Adam] Yes, that was they way I was thinking on this.
      
   • Section 5
   • [Ian] The issue here was agreeing what constitutes a quorum.
   • [Adam] I can make the time to work on this if this discussion comes up with a clear direction.
   • [Ian] For approval of minutes, we're currently using the rule that 50% of the rostered atendees of the meeting, not including the chair, are required for approval. In effect, the quorum and the approval criteria are the same.
   • [Brad] The concern I had with 50% of all active members was that in a number of cases we wouldn't get 50% in attendance.
   • [Adam] To clarify, most items of substance will defer to a formal vote, which may be outside of a physical meeting. Typically, informal votes are for things like approval of minutes or approving publications, like the newsletter.
   • [Brad] I think I understand.
   • [Adam] A quorum doesn't really apply for a formal vote, since everyone who is rostered is able to vote. In the informal case, a quorum may be some percentage of the eligible members.
   • [Brad] Yes, the intent of my comment was more for the informal votes. We had some minutes go a few weeks without approval.
   • [Ian] So far this year we've had better attendance at most meetings, so maybe it's less of a problem now. Worst we've had on a call recently is five people.
   • [Brad] Yes, attendance is more consistent.
   • [Adam] If the minutes were procedural, then anyone could vote on approval, but our minutes contain more of the discussion.
   • [Brad] Minutes are more context sensitive.
   • [Ian] That's right. It's the point Brad made previously: Our minutes are a record of narrative, so only people who were in attendance can say whether that record is accurate or not.
   • [Adam] Minutes could be amended at any time I suppose, but I don't disagree with 50% of the attending eligible members.
   • [Ian] Maybe the approval of minutes should be a specific case handled in section 4.
   • [Adam] I guess you could do that. But you still need to have a quorum of some minimum number to be able to conduct business. You can discuss things without a quorum, of course, but you couldn't take decisions.
   • [Adam] If you have 50% of active members to make a quorum and then allow a vote to be approved by some other percentage of that quorum, then that approval could be made by a very small number of people. With 8 active members and 50% attending and then 50% voting for approval means that only two are approving on behalf of the whole group.
   • [Ian] I'm looking at the recent attendance records: We have 9 rostered members and that's been fairly static for the last while, so 50% including the chair to form a quorum looks like it would work.
   • [Adam] In order to approve an item of informal business then a simple majority of the rostered members in attendance need to vote in favour.
   • [Brad] I could accept that.
   • [Adam] For a formal vote, with a minimum quorum, then that would need all of the rostered attendees to vote in favour. Most things here, that's not an issue, I guess. If there's someone dissenting then there's something wrong.
   • [Ian] I agree that's probably not going to be a problem. From our attendance, I think a workable scheme is that a majority of the voting eligible members must approve a motion. At least that way we can be assured that the vote reflects the opinion of the group as a whole.
   • [Adam] OK, I think I have enough here to be able to write something up. {ACTION}


3. Core Group Membership
   • [Ian] The quarter ended last week, and on the attendance metrics, Harrison now qualifies as a Core Group Member.
   • [Ian] The slight anomaly we have is that Carl Nielsen still qualifies as a Core member even though he is no longer attending. I propose that we keep Carl listed as a Core member, on the basis that he may be able to rejoin the group sometime during this quarter.
   • [Eric] That seems OK: He's really on a leave of absence rather than having left the group.
   • {No dissent}

5. Schedule next meeting

Schedule for April 2009:
Monday Apr. 13, 2009, 10:30 AM EDT - Patrick and Peter will be unable to attend.
Monday Apr. 20, 2009, 10:30 AM EDT
Monday Apr. 27, 2009, 10:30 AM EDT

6. Any other business

None.

7. Review new action items

• Adam: Prepare revised text for section 5 of Operating Procedures, as discussed today (replaces previous action).
• Ian: Amend section 3.1 of Operating Procedures as discussed today.

8. Adjourn

Moved to adjourn at 11:32 AM EDT by Brad, seconded by Heiko.

Respectfully submitted,
Ian McIntosh