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DIRAC Consortium Board of representatives, 18th October 2023

Agenda:

1. Consortium news
2. Board approval of the DiracX software project
3. Election of the Consortium Coordinator
4. Election of the Consortium Technical Coordinator
5. AOB

Present: A.Tsaregorodtsev, F.Stagni, A.Sailer(visio), X.Zhang, I.Ueda, D.Bauer, V.Hamar(visio)

• Andrei reported that Amendment II to the DIRAC Consortium Agreement is finally signed by all the Consortium partners and now goes into effect. The Consortium Agreement is thus extended till February 2027. The paper copies of the Amendment II document signed were handed over to the Consortium Board representatives of all the partners.

• Andrei and Federico reminded the main reasons for starting the new software project DiracX as a successor to the DIRAC software project. The DiracX project will inherit the strong features of the DIRAC software architecture that ensured the project success over about 20 years of its existence. However, the new DiracX project will reimplement the DIRAC functionality based on modern software technologies and development practices. This is necessary to continue providing high quality software and high performance services to multiple user communities while being appealing for the new developers to contribute to the project.    

It was noted (Daniela) that the DiracX project was started very quickly without the Consortium Board being involved in this decision. Federico answered that the decision had to be done promptly in order to overcome failures of several major developments in DIRAC based on obsoleted technologies. The proposed DiracX features were extensively discussed at 2 workshops (hackathons) in May and July 2023. DiracX was also discussed at several BiLDx meetings where the Consortium Board members were present. Andrei suggested that the Consortium Board endorse the DiracX project. The Consortium Board members unanimously voted for the approval of the project.

• Vanessa proposed that Andrei and Federico continue in their capacity of the Coordinator and Technical Coordinator for the next 2 years period. The Consortium Board unanimously voted for this proposal.

• AOB: no other points of discussion were raised.