2013-04-12 Full Committee

In attendance

Graham Heyes, Bob Michaels, Javier Gomez, Mark Ito, Maurizio Ungaro, Sandy Philpott

Action items from the last meeting

  • Clean up data.jlab.org and start adding meeting information, notes and general information for the users.
    • Meeting info and agenda was added with some notes for users.
  • Sandy to provide CCPR information.
    • Did this happen?
  • Give the committee members editing access to the websites as required.
    • Nobody has asked for access to data.jlab.org, has anyone looked at the IT maintained pages?
  • Sub committee to look at software setup and version management will report next time.

Agenda

  • Reminder of minutes from last meeting.
  • Continue the discussion of software setup and version management. (I recall that a sub group was supposed to look into this in more detail but haven't seen any emails on the subject, what is going on?).
  • Discuss the CCPR system, how is this working? What else do we need from IT?
  • Documentation progress. Access to websites etc, who needs it?
  • Discussion points from committee members.
  • How often should we meet?
  • AOB

Minutes

  • The CCPR system seems to have been working as advertised and requests from users have been handled.
    • Mark asked if it was possible to add people to CCPR thread (conversation). The example used was an expert who isn't normally on the list. Sandy replied that it isn't a feature of the CCPR system. The workaround is to remember that a third party invited into a CCPR thread will not automatically receive any replies sent to the CCPR system and they need to be forwarded manually.
    • Sandy pointed out that most members of the committee are not able to log into the web interface to CCPR that the IT division uses. Our interaction with the system is via email and Sandy moderates using the web interface.
    • Sandy will write a short email reminding committee members how the CCPR works in the context of requests for our help.
  • Maurizio presented a scheme that he is using for software setup that allows for the management of several versions of the same package for different operating systems and architectures. Bob has been using a similar scheme for ROOT.
    • Mark commented on the usefulness of the existing scheme using the /apps directory structure. After some discussion it was agreed that, at least for the near future, any new scheme should be implemented so as not to break the old. At a future date the committee may want to declare that the old will become obsolete but that is open to debate.
    • Sandy and Bob both suggested that the old /apps scheme could be implemented using symbolic links to the appropriate directories in the new system.
    • Maurizio will work with Bob and then with the other software maintainers to implement his scheme in a consistent way for all of the supported packages.
  • Documentation on this website data.jlab.org was discussed. The link on the IT wiki will be replaced with a link to this site. The maintainers of the software packages will receive instructions via email on how to access this site as an editor and add content.
    • Sandy gave a quick preview of the new SciComp site which will also use Drupal.
  • Mark commented that we should make it clear to the users that this committee exists and tell them how to contact us with feedback.
    • The website will be updated so that it contains more useful content.
    • An email will go out to all users.
    • We should get a mention in the weekly JLab Brief email. 
  • It was agreed that in the near term we should try to meet once a month.

 

Action items from this meeting

  • More work on the web site functionality and content.
    • Email to the software maintainers with instructions on how to edit content.
  • Email from Sandy on CCPR system.
  • Maurizio and Bob to work on package and version management.
  • Sandy, Bob and Maurizio to look into backwards compatibility with /apps.
  • Add other supported packages to the scheme.
  • Sandy to link IT wiki to this website.
  • Draft an email and JLab Brief article for discussion and review next time.
  • Meet in a month - added to Zimbra calendar for May 24th.