RE: [vhdl-200x] 1076 & Entity balloting

Bob,

Responses below:

-- Bob Myers wrote:

> Steve and Peter;
>
> Out of curiosity, how many members of the DASC actually have
> corporate IEEE-SA memberships?

Since DASC only has individual memberships, there is currently zero overlap. Anyone is welcome to imply whatever overlap they think there is based on individuals' affiliations and SA corporate membership. The DASC roster is at:

www.dasc.org/DASC-roster.html

The IEEE SA corporate membership is listed at:

http://standards.ieee.org/sa-mem/corpmemlist.html

> If this membership structure is adopted, do either of you
> envision still having the same number of people actively
> involved in DASC efforts (which also includes VASG)?

Yes. I think those who have an interest will retain an interest. All I need do is look at the 1076 roster to see how many voting members vs. observers and email subscribers there are. Clearly, there's already a significant group of people who, at a minimum, want to stay informed without having voting rights.

If the future of VHDL is important or of interest to an individual or company, they will participate. If something goes wrong to drive out participation such that no work can be done, then that is a big clue that we did something wrong. I would also expect repercussions from DASC and IEEE SA under such circumstances.

> Unless I was mistaken, I thought that there was a movement
> afoot to try to attract people to join the SA and become
> involved, in a sense to "bring in fresh meat" -- what I'm
> reading in the recent email traffic over the last day or two
> seems to be somewhat contradictory to this.

We need participation to get the work done. Speaking for myself and presuming the same applies to Peter and others that believe organizational entity membership is preferred, I do not believe that there will be a significant change in participation levels (especially not downward). There may be some who drop out and others who come in. I find it hard to believe that those who are currently participating in 1076 will drop out over this change (if it is adopted). To do so, especially at this point in time, would be a tacit admission that the future of VHDL does not matter to them.

I personally appreciate the contributions we have received from many people. We could not have made the progress we have with VHDL-200x to-date without their contribution. While many active contributors come from EDA companies, there is *significant* contribution from end users (consultants and employees of companies). Again, these contributions are at the sub-group level prior to any votes (on language change proposals) at the WG level. These people have had great influence on what will be in VHDL-200x. I don't see that changing because of the PAR (balloting & WG-level) membership. I'm hopeful that more end user companies will become members and provide additional resources.

-Steve Bailey
Received on Wed Jun 23 16:11:16 2004