all, I put together some questions/comments that can help drive the telecon this morning. Jeff

ABI WG telecon agenga/notes/questions

- what is the motivation for this effort? ISVs cannot distribute a single binary that includes MPI code - must have either a translation layer or separate binaries for each mpi implementation (and compiler?) sites must maintain a separate "module" for every compiler/mpi combination on the system users must recompile for every compiler/mpi combination

- what are we trying to accomplish? app compiled with a "standard" mpi.h/mpif.h is compatible with standard compliant mpi implementations compiled on that same platform this would allow for run-time dynamic linking does not address items external to the binary such as environment variables and command line arguments

- what do we mean by an "ABI"

- comments on a translation layer may be somewhat viable for an ISV, but not acceptable for a user site just another layer of software to maintain may or may not track what we have on site

- what work is involved? "standard" mpi.h anything else?

- how do we integrate into the standard?

- what is the process to extend "standard" mpi.h content?

- what's the proposal process?

- what do we present at the March meeting?