[J3] (SC22WG5.6195) [EXTERNAL] RE: [ukfortran] October meeting visa invitation letter

[Bill Long]

> On Apr 29, 2020, at 10:34 AM, Clune, Thomas L. (GSFC-6101) <thomas.l.clune at nasa.gov> wrote:
> 
> Hi Bill,
> 
> I think it is way too late for J3 to reinvent tools for collaborative development of documents.  Several excellent and free options are available:  GitHub, BitBucket, GitLab, …     I am fine with the J3 site being a portal.
> 
> I doubt anyone on this list is wed to GitHub, if the MS ownership is truly a concern.  (Thus far there seem to be no ill effects, and MS stated reasoning for the acquisition to facilitate improved scalability for large projects appears to hold true.   I’ve seen no adds nor elimination of desirable features.)  


> And to compare MS to nuclear weapons is a bit of a stretch in any event.      

I tried to write the reply in such a way that the MS question was completely separate from the weapons issue.  They are certainly unrelated.  

I would point out that I have no issues with LANL and similar entities.  In fact, I work for a company that is a supplier (of very expensive systems)  to these labs. And over the years have a long list of friends and colleagues who work there. Indeed, many of my childhood heroes worked at LANL in its early days as the focus of the Manhattan Project. 

I raised the point because our activity, especially WG5, is international, and there are countries with laws against cooperation between their citizens and US nuclear weapons facilities (quite understandably).  I was just pointing out that if we want to set up a collaboration facility, it would be advisable to avoid having it hosted at either LANL or Sandia, to avoid any possibility of difficulty for people from certain countries.   Having the J3 website host a portal avoids this issue. 


> Using one of the alternative platforms should be just fine for our purposes.   GitHub is merely the most common hosting service and thus the most familiar to a large segment of our community.
> 
> I don’t mean to make assumptions, but your message suggests  that you’ve not experienced collaborative development within something like GitHub    There is a synergy that is hard to do justice by listing the features.

Actually, I have used GitHub.  And find it really jargon-laden in the areas used for software development. But it is a widely used platform for distributing open source software.  However,  collaborative software development and discussions about wording in the standard are pretty different animals.   Arguably, GitHub is too complicated for what we need. 

(One alternative, Google Docs, is even worse. Its registration process asks for personal information that is only requested for purposes of later ad spamming.  The company privacy and cyber security policies pretty much ban the use of Google Docs. )

Cheers,
Bill

> 
> - Tom
> 
> 
> 
>> On Apr 29, 2020, at 11:10 AM, Bill Long via J3 <j3 at mailman.j3-fortran.org> wrote:
>> 
>> Soo many postings it’s hard to pick one to reply to  But this one hit on some important issues...
>> 
>>> On Apr 29, 2020, at 3:31 AM, Malcolm Cohen via J3 <j3 at mailman.j3-fortran.org> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> The community is on GitHub. 
>>> 
>>> Well, *a* community is on GitHub. A substantial one even.
>> 
>> 
>> Agreed.  I would point out that some people have an aversion to, and concerns about,  products from Microsoft (of which GitHub is one, and Skype another).   Google and Facebook have acquired tarnished reputations  as well.  And don’t get the cyber security folks started about ZOOM. 
>> 
>> Also, some countries have an aversion to US facilities involved with nuclear weapons (Japan comes to mind, understandably).  As an example, we cannot install a system at (at least parts of) LANL that uses Fujitsu-made processors.  (Unfortunate, since their new ARM chips look very good. Hopefully an alternate ARM-SVE vendor will appear.)   Ties to Sandia would be similarly problematic.  However, some large US DoE labs, such as LBNL (Berkeley Lab), would be in the clear on this issue.
>> 
>> As an alternative, I suspect there would be less concern if off-line discussions could be facilitated through the J3 website.  This does not address concerns about such a mode of operation in general (of which several have been discussed in this thread), but at least the J3 website is something we control, and it avoids the issues mentioned above.   Of course, it is unfair to “volunteer” Stave to do work here, so such a path would require further discussion. 
>> 
>> Cheers,
>> Bill
>> 
>> 
>>> 
>>>> I'm afraid I don't think this sweeping generalisation is productive, or fair.
>>> 
>>> Neither is being told we’re not part of The community.
>>> 
>>> Now, I don’t think this was the intended meaning of the first poster, but it was a natural and obvious interpretation, so I understand Anton’s poor reaction. Of course the committee has already started to take this “GitHub community” seriously, and welcomed its input. That welcome is absolutely *not* being withdrawn.
>>> 
>>> However, at this point I am not convinced that GitHub should become the central way that committee work should be done, and I agree with Bill that switching over to it right away seems more like a revolution than evolution.
>>> 
>>>> works just fine with teams spread over many timezones
>>> 
>>> Well, no. it does not work “just fine” for in-depth discussions the way we have traditionally done with subgroups. GitHub and all other technological solutions do not in fact solve the basic timezone issues that Bill pointed out. Such technologies can certainly help, but they cannot do everything, and furthermore are not “neutral” in their effect – not everyone is comfortable *or effective* with them.
>>> 
>>> Maybe in the end we will end up doing everything on GitHub, and maybe not. But for now, I would prefer that we “hasten slowly”.
>>> 
>>> Cheers,
>>> -- 
>>> ..............Malcolm Cohen, NAG Oxford/Tokyo.
>> 
>> Bill Long                                                                       longb at cray.com
>> Principal Engineer, Fortran Technical Support &   voice:  651-605-9024
>> Bioinformatics Software Development                      fax:  651-605-9143
>> Cray, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company/ 2131 Lindau Lane/  Suite 1000/  Bloomington, MN  55425
>> 
>> 
>> 

Bill Long                                                                       longb at cray.com
Principal Engineer, Fortran Technical Support &   voice:  651-605-9024
Bioinformatics Software Development                      fax:  651-605-9143
Cray, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company/ 2131 Lindau Lane/  Suite 1000/  Bloomington, MN  55425