Minutes of the Steering Board Meeting, 19 September 2007

K. Amako, J. Apostolakis, M. Asai, G. Cosmo, G. Folger, A. Heikkinen, V. Ivantchenko, I. McLaren, J. Perl, T. Sasaki, D. Wright, H. Yoshida

Minutes taken by D. Wright. Further editing: J. Apostolakis

Version 0.3, of 19 October 2007, 17:20 UTC

Minutes of previous meeting

Parallel navigation: fixes and improvements ongoing. Uncertain whether it can be default;
The ABLA module is not yet ready and is potentially at risk of being late.
Physics list per region not ready
GUI packages and modules using wxPython or Pythonized wxWidgets
GUI toolkit (?-to be clarified)

Known issues
- Bertini cascade: lack of Coulomb barrier is becoming a risk. Not sure if first version of charge exchange will be ready.
- New INCL code needs significant testing before it is released. A dedicated system test must be developed for it.
- Requirements on iteration snapshot (?) need to be investigated
Features whose status was not known:
- Completion of Root I/O object persistency
- First version of charge exchange (related to Bertini cascade ?)
New capabilities, requests:
- Strong request from users for ICRU 73. This is being looked at. Additional resources needed for early delivery.
The release date of December 14 has been been confirmed.

Agreed to have the report of the Geant4 review 2007 linked to the collaboration web page, if Oversight Board proposes.
Assessing and acting on the review recommendations will require concentrated effort and a clear, comprehensive strategy:
- Agreed to establish a small team which will assess the report and recommend actions. Makoto volunteered to contribute in a leading capacity.
- Action item for Makoto: develop full mandate for team.

G4 review recommendations
manpower and resources: in order to seek more resources some members requested a development plan, potentially in the form of a Gant chart spanning high-level milestones over the next years.

Age of parts of Geant4 system/code is now an issue. Key interfaces and designs have remained unchanged since 1996-1997. Many classes' implementations have been revised significantly, and many new large classes have created, resulting in some code which is harder to understand and maintain.
Review in 2008 should examine the architecture, concentrating on the design of key interfaces. The addition of new functionality utilising existing interfaces (cuts per region, biasing/scoring, parallel navigation) has complicated the overall design and should be taken into account in the assessment.
The implementation of many classes is aging. Concentrated work to identify important classes 'at risk', and review their code is significant priority for 2008 and 2009.
Action item for Makoto: reinvigorate architecture group and create a proposal for the first 'target' issues by 31 January 2008.

Problems with existing installation used especially for testing (and also to demonstrate in examples) and new user requirements for analysis use and installation for tests
- Proposal to include in Geant4 native, simple (1D, 2D), ascii output only histogramming
  - Agreed to include simple native histogramming outputing to text, if requirements and constraints can be met.
    - Makoto and Pete proposed to contribute.
Proposal for physics vector using spline interpolation

Leadership re-organization: changed from two co-coordinators to a coordinator and deputy. For the next two years Dennis will be coordinator and Gunter deputy coordinator.
Action item for Dennis: inform group members of result and solicit comments from group members who could not be present at discussion of leadership change and election.
Vladimir Ivantchenko proposed installing cuts for recoiling nuclei in hadronic code

Alain Boudard, Jose Manuel Quesada-Molina and Pekka Kaitaniemi (student member) were approved for collaboration membership

Ian McLaren is retiring in April 2008. He is not only System Testing coordinator but also the person who is undertaking the system integration testing for Geant4. He has been in this position for the past two years.
- Replacement of his effort and expertise is required. This issued should be raised to the Oversight Board.

In 0.5 to 1.5 years, several Geant4 members will retire. In order to create an official channel for their continued participation, John Allison, Hajimi Yoshida, Michel Maire and Katsuya Amako propose to organize a new group called Geant4 Associates. It will be a non-profit organization designed to support Geant4.