2023-11-16

Attending: Sanket Verma (SV), Josh Moore (JM), Ward Fisher (WF), Norman Rzepka (NR), Jeremy Maitin-Shephard (JMS)

TL;DR:

In this meeting, updates were provided on various pull requests, including PR#281 to update ZEP2 status. Discussions revolved around ZEP8, with Jeremy tasked to update the corresponding pull request. Davis provided an update on ZEP6, and topics included cleaning the zarr-specs documentation, considerations about version numbers in codecs and stores, and discussions on refining the ZEP process, including the duration of voting periods and the championing process for new ZEPs. John Bogovic’s potential involvement in future meetings for ZEP8 discussions was mentioned.

Updates:

Meeting Minutes:

  • Cleaning of zarr-specs.readthedocs.io
    • Remove ‘Under construction’
    • Remove ‘Array storage transformers’
    • Maybe rename data types to extension data types?
    • JMS: bfloat16 dtype should be in core spec under data type table - required and optional table separately
    • NR: May need some explanation on the data type
  • NR: Remove version number from the codecs and stores
    • JMS: Could track down the implementations adopting the different versions of codecs/stores
    • NR: No version number in metadata, so not useful
    • JMS: But you’d not be allowed to change the metadata
    • JM: Helps to write down this; for example a ZEP
    • JMS: Implementations might not implement all the versions
    • JMS: How about STAC?
    • SV: STAC uses incremental versions to evolve the specification
    • NR: Zarr V2 & V3 compatbility issues may arise in the future
    • JM: Flip side if we’re dealing with a long list of codecs - versions may help here
    • JM: For example: Bumping the Blosc2 codec
    • JMS: Pretty rare to change the versions
  • JMS: Having a shorter voting period may help
    • JM: Having a step voting period may be troublesome - experience from NGFF and OME-Zarr - strong word for the first phase
    • NR: Silence in the second phase?
    • JM: It’ll be good!
    • NR: How do we make the vote earlier?
    • JM: Once month for roll call - done reading, start implementing. finish implementing, also no vetos
    • JM: Graph for the progress
    • JMS: Make revisions after the voting - working for now but not great
    • JMS: A word for grace period: Final revision deadline
  • NR: Finding 1-2 champion for starting a new ZEP
    • JM: Having a mailing list to ask for champion
    • JM: Close the ZEP proposal if it’s not active for sometime
    • JMS: C++ standard is much complicated than Zarr - only some people capable of changing the wording
    • SV: If someone is not able to find a champion should they not proceed with the ZEP? - Not in favour of the champion process to be the only condition to move forward
    • JM: List of endorses and endorsement for the ZEP process
  • FYI: John Bogovic may join future ZEP meeting for ZEP8 discussions
  • TABLED