OSLC Core Meeting January 5, 2010

Last week's meeting

Link to OSLC Core spec: OslcCoreSpecification

Meeting logistics

How to dial-in to our telecon and login to our screen-sharing session (when we need it).

Telecon Info

• USA Toll-Free: 888-426-6840
• USA Caller Paid: 215-861-6239
• Participant Code: 6867265

• Other numbers:
  • https://www.teleconference.att.com/servlet/glbAccess?process=1&accessCode=6867265&accessNumber=2158616239

Online meeting

(when we need it)

• For IBM employees, use the following link:
  • https://lli.ibm.com/meeting/join/?schedid=4446009 (IBM intranet authentication required)
• For people outside IBM, use the following link:
  • https://apps.lotuslive.com/meetings/join?id=4446009

Agenda

• Quick status
  • Happy New Year 2011!
  • OSLC Tools project now live at SourceForge?
    • http://oslc-tools.sourceforge.net/
  • Minor changes to workgroup schedule
    • http://open-services.net/pipermail/community_open-services.net/2011-January/000349.html

• Baselining discussion lead by Nick Crossley: see Baselines in Oslc.

Minutes

Attendees and notes from the meeting

Attendees

• DaveJohnson
• NickCrossley
• SteveSpeicher
• ScottBosworth
• PaulMacMahan?
• PaulSlauenwhite
• MikeLoeffler
• FrankBudinski?

Regrets:

• JimConallen

Topics discussed

Nick reviewed the definition of baseline from the OSLC SCM spec, explained the use cases of baseline creation and modification. Scott pointed out that Nick did not mention that resources might be owned by different products, and Nick said that was intentional.

Mike pointed out that, in TeamCenter? , a baseline is nothing more than a special type of release. When a baseline as created, TeamCenter? spins off a release of all resources, marks them as a release. This freezes all assets, creates a kind of branch that cannot be modified. In a PLM world, we deal with many binary files that must be stored complete and changed can't be stored as small diffs within a versioning system. Paul M remarked that is sounds very much like snapshots in Rational's QM product, where each file in the snapshot is a copy and essentially a dead end.

Scott asked if creating a baseline will create new URIs for resources, for example if a "task" links to a "requirement" could creating a baseline break links or cause problems later? Nick responded that creating baselines will usually result in new URIs, but creating baselines should not break existing links.

Mike pointed out that a link to a resource does not mean anything unless it has a context. Nick responded that OSLC does not define the structure of links, but that context information can be encoded in links, e.g. a link can include information about the branch, revision, baseline of resource.

Nick continued to lead us through the baselines document that he provided. At the end, the consensus seemed to be that it is easy for us to define interfaces for consuming baselines, but its unclear how much value that will have. We may not need to define a Baselining Service as part of OSLC, but we may need to define how services offer baseline creation. Scott suggested that we may need something like we have in OSLC Reporting. A spec that lays out what features must be supported in an OSLC service if that service wishes to be "baselineable." Nick and Dave will coordinate next steps.