Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups,comp.parallel.pvm,comp.parallel
From: rdippold@qualcomm.com (Ron "Asbestos" Dippold)
Reply-To: voting@qualcomm.com (Ron Dippold Voting Alias)
Subject: CFV: comp.parallel.mpi
Organization: Usenet Volunteer Votetakers
Date: 15 Jun 1994 11:37:18 -0400
Message-ID: <comp.parallel.mpi-CFV1@uunet.uu.net>

		     FIRST CALL FOR VOTES (of 2)
		 unmoderated group comp.parallel.mpi

Newsgroups line:
comp.parallel.mpi	Message Passing Interface (MPI).

Votes must be received by 23:59:59 UTC, 6 July 1994.

After this CFV appears on news.announce.newgroups it will be sent to
the mailing lists <mpi-comm@cs.utk.edu>, <mpi-users@mcs.anl.gov>, and 
<dwf@lanl.gov> (David Forslund's moderated distributed computing list).

This vote is being conducted by a neutral third party.  For voting
questions only contact rdippold@qualcomm.com.  For questions about the
proposed group contact Tony Skjellum <tony@aurora.cs.msstate.edu>.



CHARTER

The newsgroup 'comp.parallel.mpi' would be a forum for discussing
issues related to the use and interpretation of MPI (Message Passing
Interface), an informal standard for writing message-passing programs.

MPI was created by the MPI Forum, a group of University, Industry, and
National Laboratory representatives including significant
international representation.  The MPI standard can be obtained from
netlib by sending the message "send draft-final.ps from mpi" to
netlib@ornl.gov.  Alternatively, one can anonymous ftp to
netlib2.cs.utk.edu.

More information about MPI can be obtained by reading the MPI FAQ which
is available by anonymous ftp at aurora.cs.msstate.edu in 
pub/mpi/faq/mpi-faq.ascii.   The FAQ is also available through the WWW at 
URL:
	http://www.cs.msstate.edu/dist_computing/mpi-faq.html

Furthermore, the URL for the full online manual of the standard, and
reference implementation is as follows:
	http://www.mcs.anl.gov/mpi/


RATIONALE

Discussion of MPI questions currently has no single home.
Discussion has appeared in newsgroups such as

        comp.parallel
        comp.parallel.pvm

A single group will centralize discussion and target the intended
audience of such posts more accurately.

It is also expected that there will be a wide audience for this
newsgroup as a result of the participation by many vendors, national
labs, and universities in the development of MPI.


CONTENT

Appropriate discussion in the group will include both general MPI
issues, platform-specific questions, and discussion comparing MPI to
other systems.  Some examples:


  General MPI Issues
        Answers to novices' questions
        Clarification of the standard document
        Exchange of public-domain MPI source code
        Implementation of various applications
        etc.

  Platform-specific issues
        Implementations available
		Peculiarities and bugs found in various implementations
        etc.

  Comparison to other systems
        P4, Express, LINDA, PVM, etc


HOW TO VOTE

Send MAIL to:   voting@qualcomm.com
Just Replying should work if you are not reading this on a mailing list.

Your mail message should contain one of the following statements:
      I vote YES on comp.parallel.mpi
      I vote NO on comp.parallel.mpi

You may also ABSTAIN in place of YES/NO - this will not affect the outcome.
Anything else may be rejected by the automatic vote counting program.  The
votetaker will respond to your received ballots with a personal acknowledge-
ment by mail - if you do not receive one within several days, try again.
It's your responsibility to make sure your vote is registered correctly.

One vote counted per person, no more than one per account. Addresses and
votes of all voters will be published in the final voting results list.

