Re: Project consortium decisions

Dear Herman
Ok for this decision and good luck for the project.
with my best regards.
Wisama KHALIL.

At 14:43 07/01/01 +0100, Herman Bruyninckx wrote:
>
>Encl: 1. Decision about OROCOS project consortium
>      2. EU: `General guidelines for open source projects (update)'
>      3. EU: Answer from [email protected] to my mail
>
>Dear partners,
>
>This email contains my decisions about the OROCOS project proposal. I
>apologize for the couple of days of delay, but every day some new
>information comes in :-)
>
>I based my decisions on two very recent documents from the EU, the
>first being a general clarification for the Call for Proposals (see
>enclosed document at the end of this message), the second being a
>personal communication from the responsible EU officer, Philippe
>Aigrain, answering my questions (see other enclosed document).
>
>The organisational structure of the OROCOS project will be as follows:
> 1. Consortium
> 2. Partners (one of them being the `Coordinator')
> 3. Members
> 4. Contributors
>
>The Consortium is nothing else but the sum of the `Partners', the
>`Members' and the `Contributors'. The `Partners' receive funding from
>the project, at the amount of 1 man year in total; the `Members'
>receive travel grants, for a total of 4 meetings; the `Contributors'
>don't receive any financial support, but have access to all results of
>the project. (Since OROCOS is an open source project, the
>`Contributors' are all those interested parties that contribute to the
>software and documentation base of OROCOS; the distinction between
>`Contributors' and the other members of the OROCOS project exists only
>within the framework of the IST Project, and not in the day-to-day
>working of the project. Hence, this naming will not show up on the
>OROCOS website <www.orocos.org>, except for the `IST proposal' page.)
>
>The `Partners' receive funding, and hence have more responsibilities
>than the `Members': `Partners' make sure _all_ Work Packages get
>appropriate attention (that is, the parts for which insufficient input
>is received from the whole consortium must be filled in by the
>partners). The three partners are responsible _together_ to reach the
>deliverables; it's the responsibility of the Coordinator to assign and
>motivate responsible people from the `Partners' for each of the
>project's Deliverables.
>
>My concrete implementation from this general structure is that:
>- the number of `Partners' will be limited to 3, each getting
>  0.5 man year/year, for a duration of two years.
>- I'll ask for a travel budget for 15 `Members', for two meetings per
>  year.
>
>From the above, it is clear that the largest, most experienced groups
>should become the `Partners', in order to increase the chances for
>acceptance (in the sense that only large groups can be expected to be
>able to do decent contract work with only incomplete funding). I'll
>also stress the fact that there are 15 `founding partners', that have
>contributed in defining the OROCOS project, and to which travel
>budgets will be allocated, in order to improve the collaboration (this
>is in line with the spirit of a Network proposal, which OROCOS should
>be after all, see general EU guidelines below). Hence:
>
>Partners:
> - Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium (Coordinator)
> - Laboratoire d'Analyse et d'Architecture des Systemes, France
> - Kungliga Tekniska Hogskolan, Sweden
>Members:
> - Technische Universitaet Wien, Austria
> - Ecole Centrale de Nantes, France
> - Universita' di Verona, Italy
> - Universita' di Bologna, Italy
> - Forschungsinstitut fuer anwendungsorientierte Wissensverarbeitung
>   Ulm, Germany
> - German National Research Center for Information Technolog, Germany
> - Profactor Produktionsforschungs GmbH, Austria
> - Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Hungary
> - Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Spain
> - Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique, France
> - Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal
> - Deutsches Zentrum fuer Luft- und Raumfahrt, Germany
>
>
>So, at this moment I have to thank you all for your interest,
>suggestions and enthousiasm. I do feel very sorry to have to make a
>choice, but anyway, the funding is minor :-) At the same time, I am
>very optimistic about the OROCOS project: I am convinced we will be
>able to realise something, in a collaborative open spirit, and with
>(no doubt about that) a quickly growing number of other interested
>groups.
>
>The OROCOS mailing list
>  <http://mail.mech.kuleuven.ac.be/mailman/listinfo/orocos>
>will remain the major communication channel for OROCOS, but will from
>now on be focussing on the real technical work. Hence, I will come
>back very shortly with concrete brainstorming material, because I
>don't think it is a good idea to wait for the project to be approved
>and started before getting our brains together (at least through the
>Internet) :-) Of course, you don't have to wait for me at all: all
>good ideas are welcome all the time!
>
>Best regards,
>
>Herman
>
>
>
>-----------General guidelines for open source projects (update) ----------
>It is foreseen that most of the projects will be implemented through
>thematic networks - networks of excellence. Proposals are expected to
>follow the normal structure for thematic networks [...]
>
>The choice of thematic networks for the proposal form is justified by
>the fact that free / open source software has a strong element of
>networking of competences, and the fact that the participant status of
>"member" is well adapted to the inclusion of the very diverse players
>that can contribute to a project in its initiation phase.
>
>Our attention has been drawn to the fact, that "in principle",
>personnel costs in thematic network contracts cover only
>administrative work.  This would of course not be adapted to the
>objective of the action line: though some proposals may simply put in
>place a network providing services to other developers, most proposals
>will actually conduct development until initial release. After
>consultation of our legal services, it has been approved that, when
>needed, the contract that will be used for successful proposals will
>be a take-up type of contract, in which:
>- It is possible to include participants with the member status
>- Personnel costs can be charged for technical work
>
>Please note that this does not change anything to the proposal
>presentation: proposals should follow the prescriptions of the guide
>of proposers and its appendix 6, but they can include personnel costs
>for technical work when needed to achieve the objectives of the
>action.
>
>In accordance with the objectives of the action, these technical
>development work and costs should be kept to the minimum allowing to
>reach the first threshold of usefulness, at which first release can
>occur, and from which the community-based development process can
>proceed.
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>------------Answer from [email protected] to my mail--------------
>Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2001 12:32:02 +0100
>From: [email protected]
>To: [email protected]
>Subject: RE: IST proposal: number of partners...
>
>Dear Herman,
>
>Some disclaiming first:
>- I am trying to answer your questions as best as possible, but I hope
>  you fully understand that my comments can not commit in any way the
>  independent evaluators on how they will assess your proposal.
>- I have not mentioned 10 person-years as an order of magnitude. If I
>  am correct, I mentioned 3-5 person-years as the indication that was
>  given to us by the experts in the European Working Group on Libre
>  Software on the range of funding which would be most useful. And I
>  have indicated that these figures are not strict limits, but must be
>  interpreted in the frame of what is needed to bring a particular
>  development project to the "first threshold of usefulness".
>
>On number of partners, the choice is really yours, taking in account
>needed expertise (including for dissemination), complexity of
>management and overheads, etc. The most important thing is to explain
>clearly your choices in the proposal.
>
>On travel budget, the figures you are mentioning do not raise
>particular questions in comparison to our usual experience.
>
>Best regards,
>
>Philippe Aigrain
>Head of Sector "Software Technologies"
>European Commission DG INFSO/E2 Office N105 3/54
>[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
>
>-- 
>[email protected]
>We hire Linux programmer: <http://www.mech.kuleuven.ac.be/~bruyninc/jobs>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>Orocos mailing list
>[email protected]
>http://mail.mech.kuleuven.ac.be/mailman/listinfo/orocos
> 
*********************************
Prof. Wisama KHALIL
Ecole Centrale de Nantes
IRCCyN (Institut de Recherche en Communication et Cybernétique de Nantes)
1 rue de la Noë
B.P 92 101
44321 Nantes cedex 03
France.
Tel: +(33) 2 40 37 69 46
Fax:  +(33) 2 40 37 69 30
E-mail : [email protected]
Web :    http://www.irccyn.ec-nantes.fr
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