Minutes of the Geant4 Technical Steering Board Meeting

Attendance:

At Triumf: John Apostolakis (chairman), Pedro Arce, Gabriele Cosmo, Andrea Dell'Acqua, Gunter Folger, Vladimir Ivantchenko, Maria Grazia Pia, Aatos Heikkinen, Serguei Sadilov, Michel Maire Katsuya Amako, Takashi Sasaki, Hisaya Kurashige Hajime Yoshida, Peter Truscott Makoto Asai, Dennis Wright, Peter Gumplinger

Minutes: D.H. Wright - 13 September 2003

Revised: J. Apostolakis - 23 Sept 2003

Reports from other meetings

Report from the July CB meeting

• The collaboration agreement was the only item discussed. Feedback from some signing party representatives was discussed. A proposal to create a revised proposal clarifying a small set of issues was agreed upon. The issues include the unclear composition of the SB and its relation with the OB, The next meeting was scheduled for September 4th, but it has been moved to September 11th, 2003.
• The TSB asked John Apostolakis to request the CB to bring forth a final proposal for the collaboration agreement by December 1st.

Proto-technical forum

• Makoto agreed to organize the forum. Input requirements have been submitted by users.
• Suggestions for how forum should be run:
  • Start with report from developers
  • Next, open discussion
  • Category coordinators should sit at table facing audience
  • Arrange for proposals from absent people to be presented
  • The next forum date and venue must be confirmed and announced (J.Ap.)
  • A chairman of the forum should be appointed

Release schedule for the rest of 2003

• Major release December 12th.
• It was noted that most individual developers are not well-aware of the release schedule. In addition to the neccessary communication by category coordinators, it was agreed that they should be notified via the email-list by the release manager (action Gabriele Cosmo).
• A poll of category coordinators present indicated that all major goals for the release are likely to be met.
  • Geometry: a couple of non-critical items may not be completed on time
  • Electromagnetic: on time
  • Low energy EM : new advanced example on Radiation protection will not be included - the group responsible left Geant4.
  • Tracking and particles: cleanup and some changes of interfaces - should be on time.
  • Run, event, detector response : on time
• Absent coordinators should be queried.

Potential New Projects

• Physics Book
  • This was discussed at a meeting in June.
  • It will involve a lot of work, but it is too soon to commit to a plan
  • More discussion is required and a proposal will eventually be made.
  • Action item: Maria Grazia will make an estimate of the effort required and report to the November TSB meeting.
• Acceptance suite
  • Differences in validation results have varied from release to release. An acceptance suite is needed to resolve this problem.
  • This was touched upon at the last TSB meeting and the workshop.
  • An estimate of the scope and the effort to complete this task is required.
  • Is a review group needed to look over tests and examples?
  • Action item: John Apostolakis will find someone to develop a proposal
• A review of the examples
  • Makoto will lead a review of the novice examples.
  • Initial goals are expected to include better connection with the documentation, improved consistency with the most up-to-date practice in using G4 and the presence of appropriate comments.
  • Authors of all example are encouraged to obtain the assistance of a colleague in examining their example and providing suggestions.

AOB

Performance

• An ongoing meeting has been organized to address this issue. The first was held on July 16th at CERN.