RE: Review of DASC membership fees

Thoughtful reply, Bill. Comments below.

  _____

From: owner-stds-dasc@eda.org [mailto:owner-stds-dasc@eda.org] On Behalf Of
Hanna, William A
Sent: Friday, July 23, 2004 1:57 PM
To: stds-dasc@eda.org
Subject: RE: Review of DASC membership fees
Importance: High

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.

I agree that they do and they will buy in. In fact, they are placing a
priority on industry standards via Accellera, where they fund and drive the
results. You

pay to play in Accellera. Some user organization see it worth paying to be
an Accellera stakeholder, too. This is not a regressive step to fallback to
defacto standards from one EDA vendor. It is recognizing the value in
getting consensus faster than the DASC process does. Perhaps that will
result in better tool sets. It has been a wakeup call to the DASC to define
its place EDA standards in the face of Accellera and its own problems( with
money, participation, pace of progress, relevance of work, .).

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.

I believe the vote will swing in favor of the customers who vote with their
pocket book by buying tools. That vote is not merely reactive to

defacto standards. Key customers make coordinated demands of the whole tool
supply chain in order to have a production worthy design

flow. I can agree with you that there is some likelihood of regressive
behavior by EDA vendors. I think the user community (the stakeholders, the
purchasers,

not just some individuals with a technical interest) has to push the vendors
to fund open standards development. Is Accellera the place

or is the DASC or somewhere else. And, since it is your money when you buy
the tools, consider investing or pushing your company

to invest in protecting the standards process.

Otherwise, protect your money as a personal investment in DASC by
providing/fostering budget oversight. Don't let the DASC leadership

price you out of a role you personally want to play.

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.

I am very concerned about this, and I wish I knew how to improve it. On the
other hand, I have seen it backfire where some users who do not have the
expertise that goes with being employed in the EDA industry, contribute
misguided requirements (or solutions) that lead to development of features
in EDA tools that have little value or rejection of the "standard" by the
industry leaders. In my final analysis, I want a blend of individuals and
entities from the industry and user community involved. That is why I
support Oz's suggestion to recognize CAG corporate entities.

 I also want a process that runs more reliably. I know it takes a larger
budget. As an individual, I want to protect my money and improve the DASC's
effectiveness, so I am willing to pay "a little" more. (Need I say that I
would prefer to pay less and support all initiatives to keep the cost the
same or lower it?) As a startup entity, I am cash poor. I do not see an
important enough stake to spend my money on an entity contribution yet.

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 21:09:11 2004