All -

The signatories of this letter represent the majority of MPI implementors participating in the MPI Forum. We are concerned that proposal #140 ("Add const Keyword to the C bindings") has a number of issues which suggest delaying to MPI-3 would be appropriate.
 
In particular, the proposal:

- Is likely to pass a simple majority vote, but does not carry the support of the majority of MPI implementors, suggesting consensus has not been reached.
- Changes 90+ MPI API interfaces, which is not a "trivial" change and therefore does not meet the intent of the MPI-2.2 process.
- Is not needed to fix any serious bug in the standard text or to solve an issue that cannot easily be avoided by the MPI application.
- Does not offer any demonstrable optimization opportunities for implementation or application, but may constrain future implementation opportunities.

Therefore, we ask for your assistance in deferring proposal #140 to the MPI-3 process, where more time can be spent assessing its impact.

Thank you,

- Cisco: Jeff Squires
- Intel: Alexander Supalov & Keith Underwood
- Sandia: Brian Barrett
- IBM: Richard Treumann
- QLogic: Avneesh Pant
- UTenn: George Bosilca
- HP: David George Solt
- UHouston: Edgar Gabriel
- Myricom: Patrick Geoffray
- ORNL: Richard Graham
- Sun: Terry Dontje
- NEC: Hubert Ritzdorf & Jesper Traeff



Dick Treumann - MPI Team
IBM Systems & Technology Group
Dept X2ZA / MS P963 -- 2455 South Road -- Poughkeepsie, NY 12601
Tele (845) 433-7846 Fax (845) 433-8363