OpenMPE Board of Directors Meeting Minutes

29 Mar 2007

Present: Birket Foster, John Wolff, Paul Edwards, Donna Hofmeister, Matt Perdue, Tracy Johnson, Anne Howard, Jennifer Fisher
Absent: Chuck Ciesinski
Guests: Mike Paivinen, Gavin Scott

2007-03-29-01
MPE Emulation
Gavin was invited to speak to the Board about recent interest in MPE (PA-RISC) emulation. Two large companies have approached Allegro regarding developing an emulator. These companies are not the ones that have already approached OpenMPE. Among all the concerns, licensing may be the largest hurdle. What HP has said so far about emulator licensing is vague and seems to create a 'catch 22' situation. Funding is of course an issue. Naturally, source code access is an issue. Allegro may be interested in working with other existing emulator vendors (SRI, Strobe) to develop a joint product. Platform/runtime decisions need to be made. Performance and functionality are of course an issue. Allegro has already raised the subject with HP. Issues brought up by Allegro to HP include: cost/pricing, obtaining licenses (think demo), intellectual property, what MPE versions, subsystems, 3rd-party software (SUSAN number checking, absent vs. active vendors). It seems that HP is willing to work with Allegro. Given Allegro's estimates, a product wouldn't be ready before December 2008. Anticipated clients are companies that have no real plans to get off of MPE, not companies that see leaving in 3-5 years. Allegro's source code interest is based in research (how does this driver work) rather than to exploit any intellectual property.
2007-03-29-02
Meeting w/ HP
Mike Paivinen was invited to join the meeting. The Board entered Executive session.
2007-03-29-03
Jennifer Fisher
J. Fisher apologized the Board for her extended absence. She reiterated that she wants to work actively with OpenMPE. She mentioned that meeting later would be better for her. B. Foster asked if any other board members had strong opinions about changing meeting times. The proposal is to move the meeting time out/later by one hour. D. Hofmeister to send e-mail out to the Board for electronic voting.
2007-03-29-04
Vendor List
T. Johnson sent his partially revised vendor list to the board. P. Edwards, B. Foster and J. Fisher all offered to send him additional data.
2007-03-29-05
Next Meeting
The next Board meeting will be on 12 Apr 2008. time to be determined.
Minutes Prev 08 Mar 2007 Next 12 Apr 2007

Unless otherwise noted, all resolutions were carried by the unanimous vote of all members present.
Minutes ratified 11 May 2007