[cip-dev] f2f meeting at ELCE 2016 summary

[agustin.benito@codethink.co.uk (Agustin Benito Bethencourt)]

Dear CIP friends,

At ELCE Thursday Oct 13th, the CIP group had a f2f meeting. After having 
lunch together, Board members met for about an hour. After that the rest 
of the members joined and discussed the following topics for over an hour:

++ 4.4 kernel repository

* During the event was announced that the first CIP kernel will be 4.4. 
At the meeting we clarified where to have the repository for that kernel.
** In the past, we reached the consensus to stay as close to the kernel 
community as possible. Following this approach, there is a consensus at 
CIP on using kernel.org as the working place for the kernel. The Linux 
Foundation fully supports this decision.

* The general idea is to have the working repositories where it make 
sense and mirror them all in a central place.

* CIP will use by default the Linux kernel tools/process to 
submit/review patches.
** We are currently discussing the general maintainership policies.

++ Other tools. Repositories mirrors

* As mirroring tool we will use Gitlab (as a service for now).
** As a key advantage it was stated that this tool can be set behind the 
firewall which for big corporations can make a difference in getting 
internal traction towards working in the open. Feature wise, Gitlab has 
what CIP needs.

* Gitlab will be use for additional required software beyond the kernel.
** When the account is set up, we will announce it.

++ CIP platforms

* The goal of the discussion was to find a common ground we all can 
share, assuming each member will focus most of their energy on those 
platforms used in production.

* CIP basic requirements for selecting a platform:
** At least one ARM and one Intel board
** At least one low cost development board for each architecture.
** No matter what CIP chooses, the list can be increased when consensus 
is reached.
** If any SoC joins CIP, we will obviously strongly consider adding 
their boards to the list.

* The boards selected at this point are:
** Beaglebone Black (TI Sitara 335x). This is a low cost board we 
reached consensus upon.
** Altera Cyclone V. CIP will figure out some details about how to 
handle off-tree code from it.

* The discussion around other boards is still ongoing.

++ Delivery (release) model

* When do we plan to release the platform? How?
** Agustin Benito Bethencourt (Codethink) will present a proposal to CIP 
about this to start the discussion.

++ Whitepaper

* Since CIP was announced, in April 2016, the Group has reached 
consensus in several fundamental topics. For this reason, we agreed to
write a Whitepaper to describe the current status and considerations of 
the CIP project.

* Current main consensus points are summarised in the CIP slides 
presented at various events. The idea is to move from there to a document.

* CIP group will start working on this topic as soon as possible.

++ 2017 CIP roadmap

* In order to define 2017 activity, CIP decided to pick up some key 
dates an plan milestones around them.
** Consensus was reached around  ELC, LinuxCon Japan and ELCE, based on 
the experience from 2016.

Best Regards
-- 
Agustin Benito Bethencourt
Principal Consultant - FOSS at Codethink
agustin.benito at codethink.co.uk