Technical Charter for O-RAN Software Community

TOC Mail Lists

TOC Meeting Info

Technical Oversight Committee meetings are open to the public and held on Wednesdays at 8 AM Eastern Time USA.  World Time Zone Map

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  • Meeting ID: 654 056 8082
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2019 05 08

Zoom Meeting Recording

Agenda 

1. Call for Scribe (minutes owner) 

2. Roll Call & Quorum Check  

   Company	Contact Name	Attendance	Alternate Contact	Attendance
   AT&T	Jack Murray Co-Chair
   China Mobile	Jinri Huang Co-Chair
   Deutsche Telekom	David Streibl
   NTT DOCOMO	Toshiro Kawahara
   Orange	Vincent Danno
   Verizon	Viswa Kumar

3. Review and Agree to Minutes of Previous Meetings
4. Review of Today's Agenda
5. Status of Open Action Items (Old Business)
   1. Action Phil has the request in to LF does not have a timeline from them and will continue to push.
   2. Action Farheen set up the new committee in the wiki and new committee list
   3. Action Lusheng will post a list of proposed projects and their structure to the mailing list after the meeting.  

      1. The purpose of this email is to kick off the planning discussion for what projects* we should include for the A-release Nov 2019.  This is an action item from the ToC call on 04/30. 

         (* The term “project” is very overloaded.  Just to clarify, here we are talking about the code development projects within the O-RAN SC and O-RAN SCP “Linux Foundation projects”.  Some people call these development projects “JIRA projects”.  It is expected that each of such development project will have a PTL, runs its own meetings, manages its own Confluence pages and a set of repos, etc.)

         Below is a first draft list:

         • Near real-time RIC
           • AT&T and Nokia has contributed seed code into repos falling into the scope of this project.
         • Near real-time RIC xApps
           • AT&T and Nokia has contributed seed code into repos falling into the scope of this project.
         • Non real-time RIC
           • ONAP can function as the non real-time RIC.  But still there are artifacts to be developed by the O-RAN SC, such as documentations, integration codes, life cycle management code, etc.
         • Portal/dashboard
           • UI for operating O-RAN components and demonstration
         • OAM
         • CU/DU
         • Simulator
           • Simulators serve two purposes: if we do not have real implementation for a component, a simulator may serve as a means to completing end-to-end use cases; simulators are also extremely useful in development and testing.
           • We can start with small set of simulator in A-release, graduate adding more.
   4. Action: We will have a discussion around projects in our next meeting.
   5. Action: Need a volunteer to work with O-RAN WG.  The O-RAN Alliance TSC handles filling in the position O-RAN OFG. 
   6. Action: Jinri will push on completion of the charter.
   7. Action: Jack will push on the completion of the license.
   8. Action: ToC membership slot filling.
   9. Action Jinri post ORAN event in Japan in June to committee mail list.
   10. Action  TOC come up with a list of features or epics before the M0 start date.
   11. Action TOC come up with a naming convention for our releases.
6. Standing Agenda Items (Brief Status of Ongoing Activities)
1. Release Manager/Release Planning: Weekly TOC Scheduling
2. Report out from PTL: Stand-Up & Report Out on Blockers

3. Test & Integration Planning

4. Report Out of Sub-Committees

7. New Agenda Items (New Business): New Items Submitted (+speaker) & Open Call to TOC For Additional Items 

8. Planning for Next Meeting
9. Open Discussion
10. Any Other Business (AOB)
11. Meeting Summary (resolutions, new action items, etc.)

Minutes:

1. Call for Scribe (minutes owner)
2. Roll Call & Quorum Check
3. Review and Agree to Minutes of Previous Meetings 
4. Review of Today's Agenda 
5. Status of Open Action Items (Old Business)
6. Status of Open Action Items (Old Business)
   1. Action Phil has the request in to LF does not have a timeline from them and will continue to push.
   2. Action Farheen set up the new committee in the wiki and new committee list
   3. Action Lusheng will post a list of proposed projects and their structure to the mailing list after the meeting.  

      1. The purpose of this email is to kick off the planning discussion for what projects* we should include for the A-release Nov 2019.  This is an action item from the ToC call on 04/30. 

         (* The term “project” is very overloaded.  Just to clarify, here we are talking about the code development projects within the O-RAN SC and O-RAN SCP “Linux Foundation projects”.  Some people call these development projects “JIRA projects”.  It is expected that each of such development project will have a PTL, runs its own meetings, manages its own Confluence pages and a set of repos, etc.)

         Below is a first draft list:

         1. Near real-time RIC
            1. AT&T and Nokia has contributed seed code into repos falling into the scope of this project.
         2. Near real-time RIC xApps
            1. AT&T and Nokia has contributed seed code into repos falling into the scope of this project.
         3. Non real-time RIC
            1. ONAP can function as the non real-time RIC.  But still there are artifacts to be developed by the O-RAN SC, such as documentations, integration codes, life cycle management code, etc.
         4. Portal/dashboard
            1. UI for operating O-RAN components and demonstration
         5. OAM
         6. CU/DU
         7. Simulator
            1. Simulators serve two purposes: if we do not have real implementation for a component, a simulator may serve as a means to completing end-to-end use cases; simulators are also extremely useful in development and testing.
            2. We can start with small set of simulator in A-release, graduate adding more.
   4. Action: We will have a discussion around projects in our next meeting.
   5. Action: Need a volunteer to work with O-RAN WG.  The O-RAN Alliance TSC handles filling in the position O-RAN OFG. 
   6. Action: Jinri will push on completion of the charter.
   7. Action: Jack will push on the completion of the license.
   8. Action: ToC membership slot filling.
   9. Action Jinri post ORAN event in Japan in June to committee mail list.
   10. Action  TOC come up with a list of features or epics before the M0 start date.
   11. Action TOC come up with a naming convention for our releases.
7. Standing Agenda Items (Brief Status of Ongoing Activities)
1. Release Manager/Release Planning: Weekly TOC Scheduling
2. Report out from PTL: Stand-Up & Report Out on Blockers

3. Test & Integration Planning

4. Report Out of Sub-Committees

8. New Agenda Items (New Business): New Items Submitted (+speaker) & Open Call to TOC For Additional Items 

9. Planning for Next Meeting
10. Open Discussion
11. Any Other Business (AOB)
12. Meeting Summary (resolutions, new action items, etc.)

2019 05 01

Zoom Meeting Recording

Agenda

1. Call for Scribe (minutes owner) 
2. Roll Call & Quorum Check 
3. Review and Agree to Minutes of Previous Meetings
4. Review of Today's Agenda
5. Status of Open Action Items (Old Business)
6. Standing Agenda Items (Brief Status of Ongoing Activities)
1. Release Manager/Release Planning: Weekly TOC Scheduling
2. Report out from PTL: Stand-Up & Report Out on Blockers

3. Test & Integration Planning

4. Report Out of Sub-Committees

7. New Agenda Items (New Business): New Items Submitted (+speaker) & Open Call to TOC For Additional Items 

8. Planning for Next Meeting
9. Open Discussion
10. Any Other Business (AOB)
11. Meeting Summary (resolutions, new action items, etc.)

Minutes:

• Call for Scribe (minutes owner)
• Roll Call & Quorum Check

• Review and Agree to Minutes of Previous Meetings 

  • The minutes of the prior meeting were reviewed, and there were no comments, questions or corrections. On motion made by Vincent and seconded by Jinri, the minutes of the May 5, 2019 meeting were the approved by the TOC members. 

    • VOTE: Vote taken, item passed.
• Review of Today's Agenda
• Status of Open Action Items (Old Business)
  • Phil will go ahead and make the change to o-ran-sc.org and move away from oran-osc.org and provide feedback from IT team in two days.
    • Action Phil has the request in to LF does not have a timeline from them and will continue to push.
  • Vincent will lead TOC based effort to identify and recommend what sub committees we want for the A release cycle.
    • Vincent shared O-RAN SC TOC Subcommittees presentation.
    • The action I took is we got in subcommittees we may want to launch.  This is a proposal and open to discussion.
    • Preliminary: We are kicking off work and starting out.  We want to delegate some tasks to subcommittees.
    • Help us focus on topics through subcommittees. 
      • Cautioning not to launch too many sub-committees. 
      • Launching will not insure right level of competencies.
    • TOC must approve subcommittees as consultants.
    • We are linked to ORAN Alliance.  All new sub-committees must be reviewed by the ORAN Alliance.
    • Proposal
      • Launch one sub-committee to make proposal to TOC for use cases & requirements of the O-RAN Software Community releases.  This sub-committee will embark any software architecture & security considerations
      • Launch new sub-committees as needed.  Start simple but stay flexible.
      • Feedback / Comments
        • Jinri under working group 1 there is a use case task group.  From TOC what Vince just presented use cases again.  What will be the difference between the use cases task team and subcommittee.
          • In our software community we are working with releases such as "A".  We have our own schedule and ORAN Alliance has their own.  There must be strong links between ORAN Alliance and ORNA SC TOC.  The Software community must inherit from ORAN Alliance.  However we have release A but may not embark on all ORAN Alliance use cases.  This subcommittee needs to define which use cases we will embark in release A.
          • Jinri - ORAN SC sub-committee is a subset of ORAN Alliance task force?
          • Jack - I agree to make the software work there are use cases that are more functionally addressed here.  Whereas ORAN Alliance is looking at overall functionality. As we break the task down.  The use case will be more specific around software.  There may be implementational use cases and not functional use cases.
          • Rittwik - There are use cases that WG1 has that straddles across the whole stack.  There are also use cases that each individual  work group has sanctioned.   example use cases in WG2 that are being used by WG3. 2 use cases are sanctioned by WG2 and being used by WG3.  My confusion is when you say use cases for the software community for each part of the stack you will need to exercise the use cases the use cases that are sanctioned by each group.  Because there is not one use case that will straddle across the whole board.  The interoperability across WG1 - 8 is not there. for first release Instead work through individual use cases.  
          • Jack - we may have to have end to end use cases that will connect the stack together.  but thats the challenge for this team we have to agree on some subset of requirements that drive the software, architecture and implementation of this release.  We at least have to have clear goals for each release.  
          • Jinri- Rittwik suggests use case per developing group.  Even in this case the use case in our subcommittee in software community is not a subset of the use cases by working groups.  For our community we are describing use cases from software development perspective but use cases of working groups are in line with functional perspective.  are we in line?
          • Rittwik - Each working group has interfaces.  Your use cases revolve around API and interfaces.  But the end to end use cases I don't think this team constructs. Or is that a part of the scope?
          • Only if software plays a part of the role.  If that gets targeted as a software capability that their use case drives.
          • Rittwik - as a product does this team drive the end to end?
          • Jack - Yes if the community feels it's a driver for evaluating the software.  We are a long way away from a full stack use case.  For people outside to see value will have to have end to end use cases.  Deploy the software, deploy the RIC.  (MACD).  This will bring people together to show broader interested parties.  We'll talk more as this committee brings together.
          • Jack - Rittwik is a part of the committee.  He is involved in working groups and RIC.  Lusheng has proposals of project structure.  Action Lusheng will post that up to the email list after the meeting.  Dave from AT&T as somebody who can participate and start working on this first sub committee that is being proposed.  He is a software and RAN architect that will help to work in that space.  This meeting will continue to grow in participants.  As we form subcommittees they will break off from this committee.  We have two zoom bridges to coordinate meetings between subcommittees. At this point we are being pressed. Please start the subcommittee but 
          • Jack - Proposal to name subcommittee to requirements and software architecture and remove the word use cases.
            • David agrees to remove use cases from the name of the subcommittee.  We already have a lot in ORAN.  The work of the subcommittee into ORAN as a whole into functional and non-functional requirements for software development.
            • Part of it we use jira.  This committee worries about the epic level and the project or working groups will do the user stories to break down the epics into details.  There is a natural tracking process in jira.
            • Is there a reason why security is a part of software architecture?
              • All topics are grouped into one sub-committee for now.  The committee will decide to recommend to subdivide in the future.
              • Phil- You will want to have a process for external groups to report and react to vulnerabilities.
          • Jinri - I am not receiving mail.
            • Jack- other people in China mobile that are getting emails to other projects.
            • Action Jinri - Reach out to Phil directly.  
            • Jack - Everything can be posted to the mail list.
          • Do we have the a place to put the proposal on the website?
            • Action Farheen Create a directory on the wiki for the proposal deck.

• • • • The proposal to create subcommittee called Requirements and Software Architecture was reviewed, and there are comments, questions or corrections above. On motion made by Vincent and seconded by Jinri, the proposal for our first subcommittee was approved by the TOC voting members. 

        • VOTE: Vote taken, item passed.
      • Action: Farheen work with Phil and team to set up the new committee in the wiki and new committee list.
      • David will be the lead of the subcommittee in that space and will start preparing the guidelines for our first release.  We can talk more about that in the mail.  
  • Projects: Jinri is leading.  Action: Lusheng will post to the TOC email list some of our proposal for the projects.
    • What do we set up for future use?  Setting up the structure to attract people to certain projects even though the release is minimal.  Such as RU and DU is minimal but helpful to people to understand the active areas for people to be involved in.  The meeting is used to summarize in the forum.  Action Farheen add discussion of initial project to next weeks agenda.  Longer discussion that will take a few weeks to get sorted out.
  • Charter and License for Specification Code Project
    • I didn't see anything from Stefan this week.  Jinri didn't see anything. 
    • Jinri- I don't mind much because there are minor gaps to fill.  I focus on license.  I asked Hank Steve and Umesh are talking to Ericsson and Samsung.  Expecting to get the finalized job by the end of this week and then after that will send the draft to others for a second round of reviews.  The progress is huge because it is almost done.  Wait until the end of this week for the feedback.
      • Action Jinri Software license status
      • Jinri - May 17th was the goal for the license.
      • Jack - Yes, I've been involved with internal calls that Hank was referring.  We had a call with Ericsson with responses so there was progress there.   Much of this is tied to ORAN business as an enabler for projects.
    • We had a goal to finalize the charter this week because we thought we were so close.
      • Concerned that we have not seen emails or feedback from Stefan.
      • Action: Jinri will push Stefan on the charter.
      • Action: Jack will push on the license.
  • ToC membership slot filling.
    • Concerned that Viswa has not been able to attend because it's an early time slot
    • Jinri - Last week on the EC call I brought this TOC membership issue to EC.
      • Feedback  
        • EC does not recommend telecom Italia mobile because there is no response from Italia mobile.
        • EC is concerned about Nokia.  They put 22 employees on software dev.  other concern ORAN WG3 where Nokia is co-chairing and are not actively participating.  Concerned that the software developed in this community by Nokia is probably not in line with software architecture pushed and defined in WG3. 
        • Peter from Dutch Telecom will talk to a Nokia representative first to see the approach to develop this near line break and to make sure there is alignment between software community and WG3.  Concerned about Nokia in the TOC position. 
        • Jack - Clarifiying AT&T has a conflict of interest.  AT&T is contributing seed code for non-real time RIC along with Nokia.  The do have 20 people working with us.  They're working on the seed code.  We are generally happy with their work on near real time RIC.  We are satisfied with their work.  The challenge is in the E2 interface.  That will be tricky with all the vendors.  Trying to pull their generic implementation is a journey.  We are not at the destination yet.  The relationship has been good.  There are challenges.  But that is how it will be with the larger vendors.  They are bringing a significant team to work on this.  It is better to get them into the open source community and work on it in the open community than not.  We plan to drive and contribute to the near real time RIC in this release.  They have been working on this since the calendar year.  I can give you that information and you can see it in the seed code. We have comparable number of resources working in this space.  That's why you're seeing Rittwik, David, and Lusheng come from. 
        • Jinri- I don't have concern with Nokias commitment with Nokia's software development work for RIC.  But my message is WG3 and insure alignment with two Nokia groups WG3 and software development.  One is Nokia group in the Software community and the Nokia team in WG3.
          • We have to get beyond the politics and get moving on developing.
          • David If Nokia is working on the software level great but they need to back end on the specification side.  ORAN is the initiator.  If there is no spec work potentially we will have a discrepency between the two projects.  If we don't solve this problem here at this moment it will be harder to solve it later.  If you could warn the Nokia team that this needs to be aligned.
          • There will be a multi group talk between the two parties.  It will happen very soon.  Hank is on the EC.  
          • Hank left early last Friday
          • Open source community is and open source community.  We keep politics out of if.  It's about who participates and what they bring.  The challenge is how much do we drag how people are working in one community into another community.  It should be driven by the open source community.
          • Align the work between groups but keep it open to all communities.  We don't want to focus on who is doing the work.  We want to take all contributions.  
          • Jack - We need to push on the TOC with slots of people who are bringing developers.  

• Standing Agenda Items (Brief Status of Ongoing Activities)
  • Release Manager/Release Planning: Weekly TOC Scheduling
  • Report out from PTL: Stand-Up & Report Out on Blockers
  • Test & Integration Planning
  • Report Out of Sub-Committees
• New Agenda Items (New Business): New Items Submitted (+speaker) & Open Call to TOC For Additional Items
  • There is an ORAN Alliance meeting in June in Japan.  Action Jinri post the ORAN Alliance meeting information to the TOC mail list.
  • Release calendar
  • M0 starts in a few weeks and we have to recruit working. 
    • We need people to pull together the requirements that will lead to epics, and user stories and start sprints. 
    • We need to have the main goals and a list of requirements pooled into one place.  In  a normal cycle in planning M1 a community can work on preparing for the B release.  F
    • We have to come up with Naming convention for our releases.  Cities, rivers, etc...
• Planning for Next Meeting
• Open Discussion
• Any Other Business (AOB)
• Meeting Summary (resolutions, new action items, etc.)
  • Resolutions
    • Selected first sub-committee called Requirements and Architecture.
  • Action Items
    • Action Phil has the request in to LF does not have a timeline from them and will continue to push.
    • Action Farheen set up the new committee in the wiki and new committee list
    • Action Lusheng will post a list of proposed projects and their structure to the mailing list after the meeting.  
    • Action: We will have a discussion around projects in our next meeting.
    • Action: Need a volunteer to work with O-RAN WG.  The O-RAN Alliance TSC handles filling in the position O-RAN OFG. 
    • Action: Jinri will push on completion of the charter.
    • Action: Jack will push on the completion of the license.
    • Action: ToC membership slot filling.
    • Action Jinri post ORAN event in Japan in June to committee mail list.
    • Action  TOC come up with a list of features or epics before the M0 start date.
    • Action TOC come up with a naming convention for our releases.

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