Hi All,

Please find minutes/actions from last week's TF TSC below.

If any questions or corrections, please let me know.

Best regards,

Don Harbin - sent on behalf of TF TSC Chair

Attendees:  Don Harbin, Abhishek Pandit, Kevin Oerton, Dave Cocca, Eric Finco, Julius Werner, Joakim Bech, Kevin Townsend, Dan Handley, Michael Thomas(Renesas), David Brown

Action Items:

• Abhishek:  Keep the TSC informed of important decisions made.

• Abhishek:  Check to see if Tech Leads can come in and present plans. 

• Don: Ask the board if they need items from TSC.

• Abhishek: Discuss with Tech Leads about participating in the TSC and informing about major changes. Present results at next TSC.

• Abhishek: Plan bi-annual roadmap discussions and the possibility of public versions in TSC

• Abhishek:  Add “Phabricator transition planning” as a future TSC agenda item.

• Abhishek: Create a wiki space for TSC members to provide ideas on what they would like to see in the TSC meeting.

Minutes:

• TF-M Patchlist proposal

• AP:  Should this be left for today?  About TF-M tightening up the wording?

• DC: Sounds OK.  It seemed OK, the main issue is that we would like to tackle the LTS issue - as brought up in the Board meeting.  Understood this may require additional funding

• AP: Waiting for TF-M PL team to approve.  Once they confirm, Plan to move forward.  Haven’t heard, so I will bring up in the next meeting.

• TSC Feedback

• AP: Will create a page for members to comment on.  Would like comments

• https://developer.trustedfirmware.org/w/collaboration/community_development/tsc_feedback/

• TSC decision for returning TF projects to Github

• DanH: Agree a good idea, but want to continue Gerrit use.  May want to re-look given feedback.

• JB: Summary - don’t have technical agenda or discussions - taking place in other forums and 1:1’s.  The items are happening in other places.  Much is around CI and testing, so if not leading Architecture and testing, should we change goals of TF?

• JW: Agree, processes in other meetings.  Perhaps accept that and evaluate the value of this TSC.  

• EF: Mentions iotmint comment he made.  We could give it a try and use meeting for lookahead?  Or is open forum a better format?  Should these open forum items be discussed in this TSC? 

• AP:  The technical top level SC to have lightweight topics that cross projects?  There are multiple issues that are common and need to be handled.  If push to board, that’s fine.  Having more technical topics in this TSC - a good thing in general, but they need to be proposed.  Between Dan and Abhishek, they can handle most topics.  So how should Technical proposals come into TSC?

• EF: Miss a place where we can discuss what we’re thinking.  Sometimes in Open Forums, but not always in the best format.  Where topics come from - most of the inputs coming from Arm on significant developments.  

• DanH: Some things that Arm can bring to the table, but they are semi-periodical.  After that, for example, we could discuss the outputs of CCA event happening next week. 

• AP: IF someone asks for an Arm expert to present, this is reasonable.  But we need to have members proposing desired topics.  Roadmap is a good round robin topic - need to have tech leads attend.  But deeper technical topics are still unclear.  All TSC members can invite outside people to present.  Agenda comes from members

• DanH: Roadmaps could be a recurring topic.  

• AP: Roadmaps are on a 6 month cadence, so not a monthly thing

• MT: TF.org handles tf-m and tf-a.  TF-M is more self contained regarding dependencies vs TF-A.  

• AP: Yes, A has multiple projects in the stack

• MT: For TF-A, is there coordination between the multiple stacks?  OP TEE for example.  Are there cross project discussions?

• JB: Tends to be 1:1 communications.  Is this the forum to add others?

• MT: Is there a benefit to at least present this in TSC?

• JB: Makes sense to present merged roadmap views.

• MT: Probably other examples.

• AP: Purpose of TSC previously discussed and wanted to keep it light.  If multiple methods, discuss in TSC, else don't get involved.  Should TSC steer any decision making?

• EF: Back to Michaels example on mbedtls - where should this take place.

• MT: A summary of changes being made to x or y project, would help.

• AP: Where should we have these active conversations?  In TSC or elsewhere?  

• MT: Don’t want tech leads to come in regularly, but occasionally not a bad idea.  As SC, to steer at the right time with right information, SC can provide the input.

• AP: Can make a draft to suggest how the TSC could get involved at the suggested level.  So Cortex-A discussions every few months?

• MT: How does it happen now?  Decisions made autonomously per project?

• DanH: Tech Leads for solutions do discuss in Arm, but a case that some of these discussions could be brought outside of Arm to TSC.

• AP: Multiple components.

• DanH; A proposal to look at solutions in TF.org.  Step changes may be required. 

• AP: Action: Have TSC remain informed of important decisions?

• DC: Also important topics on the table that want SC and Members to shape the decision.  Aligns with Roadmap - as decisions made, vet with TSC to meet member objectives.

• AP: Possibly if TSC is interested in OP TEE, then join OP TEE Tech Forum.  Or discuss in TSC?  Two possibilities.

• DC: Have resource conflicts.  TSC must have enough about overall org to steer.  

• AP: Agree. Shouldn’t just be informed afterwards, but get involved earlier to “steer”  Have discussed MISRA compliance in the past. 

• MT: A roadmap discussion is a good starting point.  

• DC:  Key off milestones in roadmaps can determine when a topic should be discussed.

• AP: Action: Need to see if Tech Leads can come in and present plans. 

• DanH: Comes back to how a project is driven forward.  By Arm?  By others?  A roadmap can be lopsided.  What is missing is Tech Mgr/Roadmap owners across all projects.  Arm Tech Mgrs may not always be receptive to requested changes

• DC: If someone is not participating, then inputs carry less weight. 

• JB: A look at the product today, mainly Arm/Linaro that drives much of it.  OP TEE roadmap is driven from Linaro Members, for example, so what does it mean for TF to own a project?

• AP: There is an opportunity where if someone brings a topic in, then a different model.  A proposal comes to the table.  Then discussed.

• JB: OP TEE - “can I see roadmaps?”   “Talking to Linaro” doesn’t seem like a good answer.  

• AP: OK with roadmaps to be driven from other orgs.  

• AP: 2 Actions:

• What do we ask Tech leads to inform

• How to discuss items in advance on roadmap

• Think Matteo/Shebu post roadmaps, but can ask if don’t

• JW:  Still not sure how affective the TSC can be with external activities driving things

• AP: Aligning w/ Eric’s input and take votes to the board.

• EF: Still see some potential value on what is happening.  

• JW: Could be emails?

• AP: Could take this to Tech Leads in Arm and get their thoughts on willingness to discuss work items.

• DC: worth a try to see if it could add value.

• JB: Once example if companies presenting Security incidents on their own pace.  Wanted to publish June 24th, Joakim explained and they pushed to July 10th

• DanH: Need to add Phabricator to the future agenda.  

• AP: Action: Ask the board if they need items from TSC.

• DanH: Off line feedback would be OK.

• AP: May create a Q & A.