2016 06 09 TSC Minutes

Hyperledger Project

Technical Steering Committee (TSC) Meeting

June 9, 2016 (7:00am - 8:30am PT) via GoToMeeting

TSC Members

Resources:

Agenda

Action Item Review

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hmZY5LnZydTiYmkbtwyEYEkHEsSedlUhJbnlXGFrEP0/edit#heading=h.f4lv7usw6jp5
Discussion

Mic: Consider having project proposals start articulating project-specific exit criteria as part of proposal (also, go back to previously accepted projects and include this). This gives TSC option to evaluate project, as well as project’s notion of graduation. Some community activity and engagement are universal, however each project should have some specific things that they are held accountable for maturation.
Hart: Consider having some concept of “production ready.” It seems like a project may be mature, but may not be ready to move lots of money (i.e. needs a security review).

CF: Agree -- but, this is a different conversation from whether it is still incubating or not. This is more along the lines of steady release cadence, and whether you have an LTS release. As a community, the HLP would anoint something as production ready. Take Docker for example, they had a number of dot release before 1.0.
Hart: Agree -- however, this is probably the next discussion then, after incubation and maturation.

Ram: Given importance of security in this space, probably think through early security-related criteria and should be added to this process.

CF: Important to do this, but to Mic’s point, this may be best suited on a project-by-project basis. If something is permissionless, for example, the blockchain itself needs to be hardened and secured, but anyone can join. That example is a different function of security. Nonetheless, agree this should be top of mind.

Mic: Possibly, at end of maturity, need to have an evaluation plan (i.e. security evaluation plan). Execution of that plan gets you out of maturity into production ready.
Dave V: Like the idea of a set of questions associated with different pieces. From Whitepaper WG point of view, something around how well the platform meets the vision and criteria of premise, as well. It may do a couple things well, but, if it misses something from the overall vision, that should be considered.
Oshima: Depending on use cases, should have some guidelines. Agree with the other feedback.
Arnaud: Will this be two docs? One doc for exit criteria and a reference to proposal template? ...or are we creating one output?

CF: suggest integrating this into the proposal template. As people present proposal, they can fill out criteria needed to be met for when they are done.
Murali: previously talked about a test network, think that is a good idea to be part of criteria for maturity.
CF: so that would be for top-level project, not subordinate, but great idea.

July - week of 7/25 (Bay Area, TBD)
August - gauging interest for week of 8/22 (co-located with LinuxCon North America, Toronto)

Preference for a virtual Hackathon, instead, to reduce so much travel… and then consider holding a F2F in September/October in Europe

WG Updates

IBM team put together a thorough doc for next generation of consensus, still continuing this discussion into next meeting, likely will hold an off-cycle meeting during vHack next week

Whitepaper Draft v1.0.0 (published June 9, 2016)
Please provide feedback to the Whitepaper working group through our Feedback Form
Feedback submissions are available for view here
Comment: may be good to find a different term than “fabric” as to not cause confusion
Recommendation for Whitepaper WG to hold office hours durign vHack next week

Jenkins is now working for Fabric
FYI -- Immersion into Gerrit
CF: Both TLPs let’s work with Maintainers to transition over to Gerrit… get really precise about reviews, and enforce a number of other checks using Gerrit in connection with Jenkins (i.e. ensure sign of for DCO, break off testing into multiple checks, enforce multiple reviews)

Discussion

Tamas: would like a meeting with Maintainers, as TSC is more high-level governance. Need to find a forum for decisions on very technical matters, going through pull requests, etc.
CF: Fabric has this on Mondays (https://github.com/hyperledger/hyperledger/wiki/PublicMeetingCalendar)

Action Items

ACTION: Arnaud to refine Exit Criteria for next week.
ACTION: Technical Community -- continue to flesh out draft agenda for virtual Hackathon next week
ACTION: Todd to finalize plan proposal for next several Hackathons: July (west coast), August (virtual), September/October (EU)