<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=us-ascii"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div class="">Hi all,</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Frank Scheiner beat me to the punch and put together a GridCF presence on GitHub. Not seeing any negative responses yet, I put together a few scratch webpages and presences (<a href="https://gridcf.org" class="">https://gridcf.org</a>). Please excuse my enthusiasm.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">I propose that we should officially launch the Grid Community Forum (GridCF). The GridCF should be an organization to provide broad community-based support for core software packages in grid computing; it is a group of collaborators and not a legal entity. It will not own any copyrights or trademarks on the software it produces; copyright ownership is maintained by the contributor.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Along these lines, I propose we do the following:</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">1) Propose an initial project management committee. To involve all organizations with a stake in the health of the GridCF, I would like to have one participant in the PMC from each organization that considers themselves a stakeholder.</div><div class=""> - *However*, after the initial formation of the PMC, I propose all participants be considered individuals. They are certainly allowed (encouraged!) to advocate for their organization's interests, but we don't formally maintain a balance of organizations on the PMC.</div><div class=""> - That said, I personally think it is strongly in the PMC's interest to maintain a balance across all stakeholders. However, that is up to the PMC and I would be reluctant to codify it in any formal rules.</div><div class=""> - I propose we should feel free to nominate individuals to represent organizations. I leave it up to the organization to determine their internal process of selecting individuals.</div><div class=""> - I also propose we let organizations self-identify as wanting to participate and err on the side of inclusion. My initial thinking here is to consider grid organizations (examples including EGI, NorduGrid, OSG, PRACE, XSEDE, etc) but would be fine with a broader scope.</div><div class=""> - It's hard to manage with too-large groups: I think it would be most productive with 5-10 individuals on the PMC.</div><div class="">2) I propose we should quickly adopt a simple governance structure. I put together a draft here: <a href="https://github.com/gridcf/gridcf.github.io/pull/1" class="">https://github.com/gridcf/gridcf.github.io/pull/1</a></div><div class=""> - Comments are welcome either via mail list or GitHub. Feel free to comment on the issue or post a PR to my branch.</div><div class="">3) With a list of participants and a proposed governance structure, I claim we should vote to officially create the forum with the governance structure posted on the GitHub branch. For the initial vote, I would like the PMC to be unanimous*.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Please forgive the level of formality at the very beginning here; I think it would be useful to get this stuff out of the way as soon as possible (as opposed to when the first disagreements hit!). I aim to be less formal once things really get rolling, particularly because I'm not good at these sorts of things.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">I would also suggest that we try to not nitpick the setup or text: once the forum exists, it is less awkward to fine-tune or change the structure. We *should* make changes necessary to maximize the potential for success.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">In terms of timelines:</div><div class="">- Between now and Friday, November 3, 2018, we should discuss this proposal and try to build a list of names for the PMC.</div><div class="">- Starting Friday, November 3, 2018, we should aim to hold a vote, keeping the vote open until November 7 and posting the results on this list.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">It's a quick timeline, but I feel it will help us keep from over-thinking it.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Once we agree the forum should exist, here's an example of the actions I think we should take rather quickly:</div><div class="">- Adopt a code base for the GCT. A few of us will tinker with the repository here (<a href="https://github.com/gridcf/gct" class="">https://github.com/gridcf/gct</a>) in the meantime, but it wouldn't be official until a vote occurs.</div><div class="">- Vote on a list of code committers, being as inclusive as reasonable.</div><div class="">- Put together a timeline for a first release of the GCT. Given we're working against a January 2018 deadline, I would aim to have the first code release be prior to that and essentially consist of the current fork point from the Globus Toolkit.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Phew - thanks for staying with me! I would like to thank you in advance for enthusiastically contributing to the (hopefully) forthcoming GridCF!</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Brian</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">* It's a bit tricky to state precisely what unanimity means within a group of people that does not exist in order create their existence. I am hoping that everything I write is as widely acceptable as possible and that we all can come together constructively in order to get things off the ground.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div></body></html>