Greetings DPDK Project Community:
We hope you are managing okay and remaining safe and healthy as the coronavirus crisis has thrown the world into a frenzy. While many of us are used to working remotely and using online collaborative tools, we are having to adapt to new circumstances at home. It’s hard on everyone.
The DPDK Governing Board, Technical Board, and Marketing Committee have been hard at work locking down our final 2020 budget, crafting plans around worldwide DPDK Summit events, and exploring hosting a broader data plane projects developer event. However, upcoming public gatherings and events have been cancelled or postponed and are no longer an option in the near term. DPDK has not yet migrated to virtual events. For now, our plans around DPDK Summit events are in flux:
- China and Japan events are on hold. As things develop further we will see if we can make something happen, perhaps in Q3 or Q4.
- The US DPDK Summit event is pushed out to Q1 of 2021. The team made this decision before the pandemic emerged in order to create some calendar space between the Summit and Userspace events. We have targeted the second half of September for the Userspace event, continuing to host it in Bordeaux. As of now this is still our intent. But as we’re sure you can understand, the situation remains fluid until the pandemic subsides. Please bear with us.
We have also continued to explore options to increase the value and role of the DPDK Community Lab that is currently hosted at the University of New Hampshire, InterOperability Lab, also known as UNH/IoL. We’d like to acknowledge Lincoln Lavoie and team’s continued efforts here, especially as he remains in the lab to triage hardware issues. However, we’ve struggled to find community volunteers to step up and lead the lab effort. We are now looking at alternatives including a minimum set of activities and regression tests that the Technical Board recommends we maintain. Other efforts to expand the use of the lab will likely require additional budget. We are trying to converge on a solution. Help is still welcome should anyone want to get more involved.
The community continues to be amazing. This year we’ve delivered our 20.02 release with few time accommodations. Work is underway for the 20.05 release with several new features and improvements. https://core.dpdk.org/roadmap/ 20.08 and 20.11 will follow. We are confident the community collaboration and execution capability will serve us well during these times. We are not expecting too much delay in releases. Of note, while most git maintainers do have a back-up in place, please let us know if you are able to help fill in any gaps.
Overall we want to ensure you prioritize yourself and your family; your personal health and safety are paramount to us. Rest assured the DPDK community is here for you – whether it be help on a features, code, or guidance on how to handle a challenging home dilemma, please do reach out. The DPDK family is strong and tremendously supportive. We are glad to be part of it.
Stay safe and healthy.
All the best,
Thomas and Jim