Open Mainframe Project TAC Meeting - May 23, 2024

All meetings are listed on the Open Mainframe Project calendar at https://lists.openmainframeproject.org/calendar, subject to the mailing lists to which you are subscribed.

Conference call details

Meetings are hosted on the LFX Meeting Management platform. More details on how to register are at https://tac.openmainframeproject.org/meetings.

Meeting Recording

A recording of the meeting and the transcript are both available at the link below: Recording

Attendance

Voting Member Attendance

  • Sean Grady - Zowe Representative
  • Giancarlo Frix - Rocket Software

Voting Members Not in Attendance

  • Mike Friesenegger - Feilong Representative
  • Andrea Orth - GenevaERS Representative
  • Sudharsana Srinivasan - COBOL Programming Course Representative
  • Phil Tully - Citi
  • Lauren Valenti - Open Mainframe Education Representative
  • Joe Bostian - International Business Machines Corporation
  • Gregory MacKinnon - Broadcom Corporation

Other attendees

  • John Mertic, The Linux Foundation
  • Yarille Ortiz, The Linux Foundation
  • Tom Slanda, The Linux Foundation
  • Elizabeth Joseph
  • Daniel Horak
  • Divya Goswami
  • Cam Seay

Agenda

  • Software Discovery Tool [#580]
  • Mentorship Program Submissions [#629]
  • Mainframe Infrastructure Status [#596]
  • Improve the security posture of our projects [#541]
  • New calendar for LFX Meetings [#656]

Mentorship Program Submissions

John Mertic provided a brief update on the mentorship program. Mertic said there are over 1500 applications to date and mentors are selecting mentees this week.

Yarille Ortiz provided additional updates, reporting that Ortiz has been sending out letters to accepted and declined mentees. Ortiz and Tom Slanda are also responding to and answering mentee questions.

Mertic added that the team is working on reaching out to all mentees, while prioritizing the selected mentees first.

Elizabeth Joseph provided feedback from the Finalize React Front-End mentorship project. Joseph said that too many applicants applied and it was difficult to review all of the applications. Joseph believes the name of the project (React Front-End) contributed to this, since many applicants have experience in React. Ortiz responded that Joseph provided great feedback and encouraged Joseph to attend the retrospective meeting that Ortiz and Slanda will host at the end of the term and will collect feedback from the mentors in order to make improvements for next year.

Mainframe Infrastructure Status

John Mertic reported that the project is behind due to an unexpected, additional agreement that must be signed. Mertic said this agreement is due to the hardware being previously used. Mertic said that it is unlikely that the Mainframe will be ready for the mentees to use on June 1, and as such, OMP has secured a mainframe for the mentees to use.

Improve the security posture of our projects

John Mertic said that the Governing Board will work more actively with projects over the summer to improve security.

New Calendar for LFX Meetings

John Mertic shared the feedback received regarding a feature to send email reminders. Mertic said this feature has been requested by multiple parties and the dev team is currently scoping the enhancement. Mertic added that if projects are comfortable, they can request to switch off of Groups.io calendar, in favor of the new calendar.

Software Discovery Tool Annual Review

Elizabeth Joseph presented the Software Discovery Tool Annual Review. Joseph showed the development work done by mentees last summer during the mentorship project. Joseph previewed the new front-end that will be developed this summer. Joseph also requested an updated software list from Rocket Software to load into the discovery tool.

Due to the lack of a quorum, a vote to renew the project will be taken via LFX.

Cobol Working Group

Cam Seay reported that the Cobol Working Group is still alive and kicking. Seay said they are working on identifying code blocks that can be refactored and modernized.