9810 Management Board Minutes

1 WELCOME AND REVIEW OF AGENDA, MINUTES AND ACTIONS

Andy Lingard took the chair in the absence of Bill O'Riordan was unable to attend due to pressing family commitments.

Apologies were noted from CNET and Fujitsu who were unable to send representatives to the meeting.

The minutes of the last MB meeting were approved and signed. There were no matters arising.

The action on Andrew Herbert and Will Harwood to produce a paper on "mobile objects applied to secure payment schemes and active networks" remains outstanding. [ACTION AJH].

2 STATUS OF ANSA CONSORTIUM - Andrew Herbert

There have been no changes in Consortium Membership. An application from OpenConnexion was thought to be a "long shot". It was agreed that if they join it should be before March 1999 and that they should pay two years fees at the current rate plus the fees owing from their previous membership to qualify for exploitation rights to ANSA results.

3 TECHNICAL PROGRESS - Andrew Herbert

Andrew summarised the Technical Board meeting and overall progress against budget. In broad terms the 1998 programme is on schedule. The work on binding has caught up with Peter Bagnall’s contribution. The work on Information Spaces has been completed and FollowMe is will be essentially on care and maintenance once the final Architecture document is completed in December.

The Management Board noted Peter Bagnall's excellent work and thanked BT for seconding him to the ANSA team.

It was also noted that Douglas Donaldson who had developed the Persistent Information Space has now left APM Ltd to seek his fortune working as a financial services IT consultant in London.

4 MANAGEMENT REPORT - Andrew Herbert

Andrew reported on cost and effort against budget and availability of deliverables against schedule, correcting a transcription error in the papers handed out at the meeting. Eric Palmer had not been able to review the figures as Andrew had been out of Cambridge, but it was confirmed Eric would do a final "audit" at the end of the year.

All members are up to date with payments.

Andrew noted that the team was starting to catch up on the backlog of effort that had built up during the summer.

5 PATENTS

Andrew described Citrix's interest in investigating patent opportunities in the ANSA IPR. The ANSA Contract allows the Management Board to define a patenting policy. In discussion, it was agreed that in general terms if Citrix were to secure patents, other sponsors should be allowed free use of the protected IPR, and that if sponsors wished to join in funding the patent process, it might be possible to co-ordinate "defensive" use of patent applications that are successful.

Andrew was authorised to ask the Citrix legal department to make a formal proposal for discussion by the Management Board. [ACTION AJH]

6 PROJECT END

It was agreed that there should be a Management Board and Technical Board in January to formally accept the final deliverables and management report from APM Ltd.

A high profile "PR" event was proposed as a fitting means to mark the end of the ANSA Programme, scheduled to follow the end of the FollowMe project in March.

A combination of a workshop and party was agreed upon. Guest speakers such as Richard Soley of the OMG and other important figures in the project's history and immediate sphere of influence will be asked to give keynote presentations. Former Management Board, Technical Board, related ESPRIT project and ANSA team members would be invited with Bill O'Riordan as Master-of-Ceremonies.

Neil Mason noted the Science correspondent of the Economist might be interested in attending and gave Andrew his contact information.

Andrew Herbert indicated he had the support and encouragement of Citrix in setting up the event and would undertake the planning and invitations. [ACTION AJH]

The GEC Staff College at Dunchurch was suggested as a possible venue.

As discussed in the previous meeting, APM would be making an indexed, tidied up CD-ROM archive of the online ANSA reports and software available at the project end to sponsors. Bob Briscoe asked if the contents would be made publicly available after a suitable time period (e.g., 12 months) and offered BT as a host site. There was general consensus this was a good idea.

Andy Lingard requested that if possible the team should add good "high level appreciations" of the technology they have produced to help newcomers navigate the archive. [ACTION AJH].

Neil Mason raised the question of a "ANSA Survivor's Club" as a vehicle for continuing to allow ANSA sponsors to receive regular research technology briefings. It was agreed he and Andrew Herbert should talk to the Cambridge Computer Lab about the possibility of them assuming the co-ordination function. [ACTION NM, AJH].

To enable the Consortium to supervise the various aspects of closing down the project it was agreed the Management Board would remain in operation until at least June 1999, although the technical workprogramme would stop in December 1998 and no further fees would be charged from that time.

7 Any Other Business

Andrew noted he now had a new administrative assistant, Tosha Seymour, who had just joined APM and made an excellent job of setting her first ANSA meeting while Andrew had been away from the office. Tosha can be contacted on 01223 568911 and by email, tosha.seymour@citrix.com.

9 Date of Next Meeting

Andrew was asked to contact members to find a convenient date in January.

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