VSO Minutes

Resort Suites, Scottsdale, AZ

September 17-18, 2003

Wednesday, September 17, 2003

Elwood Parsons, VSO Chair, called the meeting to order at 8:36 AM and asked members to introduce themselves. After introductions the agenda was reviewed and several changes were made. The agenda was approved as amended. No announcements were made. The minutes from the previous meeting were approved as written.

Ray Alderman, VITA, gave the VITA report. Plans are moving forward for the 2004 Bus&Board conference. The conference will be held January 19-20 in Long Beach, California, at the Hyatt Regency ≠ Long Beach. Ray also noted that Sun Microsystems has donated two Sun V100 servers to VITA. These servers will be configured and deployed in October.

John Rynearson, VITA, gave the standards report. See presentation. John presented awards to Bob Paterson, Tyco, Greg Novak, Motorola, and Mac Rush, Motorola, for their efforts as working group chairs in making VITA 1.7, VITA 32, and VITA 1.5 American National Standards.

John Rynearson reviewed the VSO and ANSI patent policies and asked for patent disclosures. See presentation.

Jim Koser, Foxconn, stated that he had asked for the terms and conditions for licensing the RT multigig connector to be used in VITA 41 and that he had not yet received any information. Jim expressed frustration with the delay and asked the group to consider instituting a time limit for replying to such a request. After some discussion it was decided to table the issue and discuss it in the afternoon.

John reviewed a patent from Teradyne (US 6,607,402) with claims that cover differential connector antipads. See presentation.

John discussed the status of revisions to the VSO Policies and Procedures. ANSI now requires its accredited standards developers to establish their own procedures for the development of ANSI standards. See presentation.

*** BREAK ***

Bruce Rosenkrantz, Motorola, gave a presentation on IPMI. The VITA 42, XMC, working group is trying to determine how best to integrate IPMI requirements into XMC. See presentation.

Several speakers were invited to address the group on parallel optical interconnects.

Harald Hamster, Xanoptix, gave a presentation on parallel optical interconnects. See presentation.

Jim Kevern, Tyco, gave a presentation on parallel optical interconnects. See presentation.

*** LUNCH ***

Stephane Renaud, Harting, gave a presentation on parallel optical interconnects. See presentation.

Bob Downing, Consultant to APW, discussed the status of VITA 34. Bob is going to revised the latest draft for discussion at the November meeting.

Bob Tufford, Motorola, gave a status update on VITA 41, VXS. See presentation.

Andy Reddig, Tek Microsystems, discussed the status of VITA 41 9U format. He has agreed to be the draft editor.

*** BREAK ***

Stewart Dewar, DY4, discussed the status of VITA 46. See presentation.

Greg Novak, Motorola, reviewed the status of VITA 42, XMC. A working group meeting was scheduled for Thursday morning. See presentation.

Ivan Straznicky, DY4, gave a presentation for Jim Robles, Boeing. Jim would like to start a working group to develop a standard to cover other requirements. See presentation. A signup list was circulated. See list.

*** BREAK ***

Elwood Parsons led the membership in a discussion of setting a time limit for companies to provide terms and conditions for patented technology.

A motion was made to request that specific contact information be included in the letter stating that a company was willing to provide RAND terms for patented technology included in a standard. The motion was seconded and after discussion was approved.

Regarding setting a time limit, the following motion was made by Bob Downing and seconded by Dick Somes.

Resolved, to add a 50 day time limit for issuance of the terms and conditions to any and all requesters. The time limit to start at the time of selection of patented technology. The requestor to cc: VITA exec@vita.com regarding the time of initial request and time of receipt of the terms and conditions. Note that the actual terms and conditions should not be provided to VITA.

Non-compliance by a patent holder will result in the patented item being automatically removed from the draft standard. The standards committee will then resolve the issue by conducting a new selection process. The original patented material may be a candidate for reselection.

After discussion the motion was passed.

The membership discussed how this new rule should affect the current situation. A motion was made to apply the new rule starting today so that any company who has RAND request outstanding needs to comply with a 50 day time limit. This motion received a second and was passed after discussion.

The meeting was adjourned for the day.

Thursday, September 18, 2003

Elwood Parsons called the meeting to order at 8:35 AM. No announcements were made.

The working group reports were made.

John Rynearson reviewed the upcoming meeting schedule for 2004. See presentation.

There being no further business the meeting was adjourned.

Submitted by

/s/ John Rynearson, Secretariat