First Meeting

Location: MC4041
Date: Thursday, February 5, 1998
Time: 5:30 PM

Agenda

What is the SPP?
Intellectual Property
Decide on next meeting time
Brainstorm on possible project ideas
Vote on which project(s) to work on

Summary

Some 34 people attended the first meeting. After a brief introduction about the goals and structure of the SPP, a short discussion of intellectual property took place. Everyone agreed that the Berkeley license would be adequate. Then, the group discussed meeting times. It was decided that 5:45 on Thursdays was a good time. Afterwards, the group brainstormed for ideas for about 40 minutes. Although quiet at times, the brainstorming session produced many good ideas. Many people had projects which they had been wanting to do for a long time and pitched it to the rest of the group. Finally, voting took place. People were allowed to vote as many times as possible. The Radiosity Solver project was eventually chosen as the project.

Minutes

What is the SPP?

Ming welcomes everyone to the SPP
Brief explanation of what the SPP
Stresses that this is the first time that a SPP has been run and that no procedures etc. have been worked out yet.
Things are running on an ad hoc basis
Ming discusses his role as moderator

Organize the meetings
Manage the web page
Build management and source control
NOT a technical lead

Moderator not necessarily a technical whiz-kid and may not be suitable for the role
A technical lead may not be the best structure for the SPP. As the project progresses, team leaders, architecture committees, etc. may be found to be the best design

Pause for questions and comments
Moderator again stresses the fact that this is the first time that the SPP has been run
People encouraged to comment, criticise, question, or give suggestions to the moderator at any time

Intellectual Property

Important to cover intellectual property now before any coding starts
Moderator thinks that following the Berkeley license is a good idea
University of California, Berkeley produces a lot of public projects such as FreeBSD, Berkeley sockets, various databases etc.
Less restrictive than the GNU license
Under the license, everyone would be free to use their own source code and others' source code with few restrictions (ok to use them in commercial products etc.)
Section three will be left out
Everyone agrees

Summary of Berkeley license

Redistribution w/ or w/o modification is allowed provided that

1+2. This notice is included
3. All advertising mentions the University of Waterloo
4. The University of Waterloo does not endorse or promote products using this code

If your computer blows up, it's not our fault.

Actual License to be Used

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
Redistributions is binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE UNIVERSITY AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE UNIVERSITY OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

Next Meeting Time

Various days considered
5:45 on Thursdays was deemed best
People with problems with this time were encouraged to e-mail the moderator
Another pause for comments and questions

Brainstorming Sessions and Voting

To aid with brainstorming, people were encouraged to think up of general ideas, interesting topics, and specific projects
Some engineers were part of the project, making hardware stuff possible as well
Want a project big enough for lots of people to work on, but small enough to do in one term
Lack of knowledge about a topic isn't important, someone is the group would likely know about it, or a talk could be given on the topic
Many people went to the front of the class to discuss ideas they had
Voting was done by show of hands with people being allowed to vote as many times as they wanted

General Ideas

Operating systems
Distributed AI system
Languages

Interesting Topics

DSP
AI
Fourier Analysis
MFC
C/C++
Java
Graphics
CORBA/DCOM

Specific Projects (Votes)

Unix Clone for Macs
Radiosity Solver (22): Proposal from Mark Visser. Method for calculating shading and shadows in a 3-d scene.
Anime-style project (1): Proposal from the floor. Anime animation created on a computer.
Speaker recognition system (13): Proposal from the floor. AI system that can recognize who the speaker is when it is spoken to.
Turn-based strategy game for X (1): Proposal from someone who couldn't attend.
Bridge game (1): AI program for playing bridge
Interactive 3-d modeller (10): Program for designing 3-d graphics interactively
Win32 layer for UNIX (8): Proposal from the floor. API for UNIX to allow it to run Windows programs.
CAD (1): Proposal from the floor. Program that can generate 3-d geometry info from 2-d drawings.
AI pattern matcher (distributed) (4): Proposal from the floor. Generic AI algorithm for solving anything with patterns in it
Internet processing distributor (12): Java web site which distributes processing jobs to all computers that visit it.
Compiler for an improved C++ (1): New language that's easier than C++.
Mechanics simulator (3): Physics simulation where mechanical parts are modeled and can be put together for experiments / design (like the Incredible Machine game).
Graphics adventure game (8): Adventure game where non-player characters are controlled by a scripting language.
3-d chess game over a network (2): Chess game with AI that can also be played over a network.
Encryption program (1): Design a new encryption algorithm.
Realtime 3-d engine (8): Create a program for quickly displaying 3-d scenes like the ones used in Quake etc.
Source level optimizer (4): Program for optimizing code.
AI person "tamagotchi" (9): A computer friend which will react to things said to it as if it has emotions. Face on-screen will continually turn to face the user.

Postscript

Radiosity solver chosen as the project
Design process will likely be started at next meeting
Moderator notes that although there may be too many people to work on just one project, he notes that in most "clubs," a large percentage of member inevitably drop out (plus many people only have enough time to contribute a little)
Someone notes that although close to 40 people are at the meeting only 22 people voted for the project
Moderator suggests that anyone with strong reservations about the project should e-mail the moderator, and a second project could possibly be started at the next meeting

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Last updated February 7, 1998.
Maintained by Ming-Yee Iu.