RE: Review of DASC membership fees

Hi John:
 
I don't see the points made by asking the DASC members to pay. DASC
average volunteer is a professional who is working on EDA tools or a use
of EDA tools. Standards benefit the industry that sprung aroung EDA
tools, namely the EDA industry. The EDA industry has to be involved for
two important reasons:
 
1. Buy In, because if the EDA industry does not buy in, DASC future work
will not be seriously considered; the EDA vendor will develop own
de-facto standards;
 
2. By introducing new standards and/or standard extensions in a timely
fashion, the EDA industry that supported, or had an ibterest in the
Standard will have more potential for growth. Otherwise they stagnate
and stop to grow or even decline.
 
Once standards organization stop to produce worthwhile extensions, the
vendors will start pushing de-facto standards/extension, etc. This is
what I am referring to, going back to the dark ages of EDA. Because even
if the work of the vendors is good, the lack of universal applicability
makes it difficult to use tools from different vendors, what we here
refer to as Best In-Class.
 
People like myself who are not employed directly in EDA activities will
stop interacting with the DASC. This already is very evident in the
present membership of the DASC that is for the most part EDA with very
little users (not EDA employed) types of members.
 
Bill Hanna

        -----Original Message-----
        From: John J. Shields [mailto:jshields@ieee.org]
        Sent: Friday, July 23, 2004 4:30 PM
        To: stds-dasc@eda.org
        Subject: RE: Review of DASC membership fees
        
        

        Hi Bill,

        That is awfully dramatic. This is a more mature industry than
back in the day when vendors

        locked customers to proprietary tools indiscriminately. It is
not just customers like yourself

        that have excellent institutional memory. There are many
partnerships between the customer

        base and EDA vendors to get the whole job done. Standards have
a role where consensus

        over time has more importance than a proprietary choice. It
will survive and individuals and entities

        from both industry and user organizations will participate.

        Oz has a well-reasoned opinion, whether you disagree with it or
just his conclusion about user fees.

        I agree with not creating a DASC entity class vs. co-opting the
SA corporate membership class.

        He is also right in my opinion about all DASC members being
stakeholders and seeing value

        in that membership. IF my membership goes up as proposed in
order to demonstrate that

        the stakeholders are doing their best to self-fund the agenda
they are setting, I believe the

        debate should be agenda and the expected cost of it. I'm fine
with the agenda, and I believe

        we must tighten the way DASC operates and that proposed budget
severely

        ...because it is my money.

        We should be respectful about the interaction with the treasurer
but scrutinize the derivation

        of the projected funding. The budget wants to balanced with a
reasonable uncertainty. No

        deficit spending if at all possible. If we exceed expectations,
keep a rainy day fund or jump

        on it and spend it :-)

        Regards,

        John Shields

        
  _____

        From: owner-stds-dasc@eda.org [mailto:owner-stds-dasc@eda.org]
On Behalf Of Hanna, William A
        Sent: Friday, July 23, 2004 12:27 PM
        To: stds-dasc@eda.org
        Subject: RE: Review of DASC membership fees
        Importance: High

        DASC Team:

        This discussion is leading this volunteer organization to
extinction. The purest never invented, never developed, and never
produced. You need the money and the power/influence of the EDA
industry. If you loose that, then membership will dwindle, product
(proposed standards/updates) will go down, and no one will be een
interested in using what you produce. We will go back to before the
VHSIC/VHDL standards when every vendor of EDA tools had his own product
supported by internal documentation that was intentionally done to keep
the other guy away from the unlucky customer they caught in their Net of
misleading adds and false promises. Lord Have Mercy!

        WAHanna
        William A. (Bill) Hanna
        Boeing SDB Programs
        Boeing Technical Fellow-Advanced Avionics
        MC S500-3100 Phone: 636-925-4802
        St. Louis, MO 63166-0516 Fax: 636-925-3327
        E-mail: william.a.hanna@boeing.com

                -----Original Message-----
                From: Oz Levia [mailto:Oz.Levia@synopsys.com]
                Sent: Friday, July 23, 2004 12:24 PM
                To: stds-dasc@eda.org
                Cc: stds-dasc-sc@eda.org
                Subject: RE: Review of DASC membership fees

                Evan, All,

                On a light note, I am impressed with the attempts to
figure out the intent and motives. If some of us worked at the right
profession the US security would be guarantied :)

                On a lesser lighter note: there is no conspiracy.
Peter's suggested fee increase and entity membership format and the
'budget' I provided are not orchestrated to support each other. Also,
DASC membership is what it is: a FACT, not a 'fact'. I did not make
things up. If you do not trust my data go look at the membership roster
on the website.

                Seriously now:

                I think entity based working group and ballots are very
useful. That is the best way to take business interest into
consideration when a standard is created. At the same time individuals
are essential mix of the technology of standards. Technical experts are
required to ensure a standard is feasible and implementable.

                I also think that DASC does need a realistic budget. Is
it $45K or not? I agree that it is debatable but $0 is not the right
number. There are costs and it is unfair to ask some one else to bare
the cost just because some of us don't want to. I think EVERY
participant in DASC derives a direct or indirect value from his or her
membership. If they tell you otherwise they are not being honest with
themselves. I think the question to be asked is "what value?"

                 Another point (some what disjoint) is that, in my
opinion, while DASC should support entity participation and ballot, we
don't need to have an entity membership class. I think doing so now will
only put us in competition with SA corporate membership. I would suggest
that we co-opt the entity membership of SA to our benefit and allow any
and all corporate entity members to participate and ballot DASC
sponsored PARs.

                In my view DASC has a value: it is a group of
individuals that are knowledgeable about EDA and standards. We should
capitalize on this strength.

                Proposal:

                Keep membership in DASC limited to individuals. Increase
individual fees (annual) to the range of $300-$500. We can expect the
number of participants to drop by at lease a 1/3 (70-110) or more. Even
at the low end of the scale, DASC membership dues will amount to some
$20K a year. While this is not in line with the 'budget', I think we
will have more credibility asking for help (meeting rooms, equipment,
etc) when we have taken some steps to account for our real expenditures.
I would also suggest other classes of membership: 5 year membership at
30% discount and life membership capped at $5000. DASC should have
provisions to allow for membership at reduced cost for individuals that
need such help.

                At the same time, we should allow DASC to support
(sponsor) WG that are entity XOR individually balloted provided that
entities are members of SC corporate.

                -Oz.

                -----Original Message-----
                From: owner-stds-dasc@eda.org
[mailto:owner-stds-dasc@eda.org] On Behalf Of Evan Lavelle
                Sent: Friday, July 23, 2004 2:02 AM
                To: stds-dasc@eda.org
                Subject: Re: Review of DASC membership fees

                Oz, thanks for the figures.

                (1) Your budget assumes:

                Corporations: ~16

                Over 1B: 9

                Over 100M: 3

                Over 10M 4

                Individuals: ~45

                Even with these assumptions, and individuals paying
$200, you only get

                $34K, not $45K. With individuals paying $40, you only
get $27K.

                (2) Who are the 9 companies with revenues over $1B? The
entire EDA

                industry is only worth $4B, and only *2* companies have
revenues at

                about $1B. Your potential revenues, using Peter's
suggested

                subscriptions, seem to me to be *way* out.

                (3) You make the point (at length) that DASC is
dominated by tool

                providers, and this 'fact' is presumably used to justify
the proposed

                fee structure. However, this is basically wrong; it's
not that simple.

                You only name 4 providers: the top 3 and Verisity.
However, the

                presentation doesn't take into account that the 54
Verisity members are

                a single-interest group: they have joined as
individuals, to get 1647

                through. If they'd started a year later, they'd have
gone through on the

                CAG, and we'd have 1 or 2 Verisity members, not 54. If
you exclude

                Verisity, you get a much clearer picture, which
indicates to me that

                DASC is essentially individual-driven: Synopsys 14,
Cadence 17, Mentor

                8, other vendors 16, the rest of us 40.

                (4) Not your area, I know, but nobody has yet, after
what seems to be an

                eternity of discussions, made a business case for entity
membership. Is

                anyone even going to try? As I said in my last mail,
it's completely

                pointless having this discussion until that case has
been made and

                accepted. If the DASC can make that case, then you can
charge the

                providers whatever you want.

                Evan
Received on Fri Jul 23 14:56:47 2004