2022-03-16 Nolasco/Cavender/Wagner Check-in meeting notes

Biopolymer project plan/processes

• Current written materials:

  • https://openforcefield.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/FF/pages/202834011/Biopolymer+Force+Field → (Archived during this meeting)

  • https://openforcefield.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/FF/pages/275644614/Biopolymer+Force+Field+Discussions → (Content deleted during this meeting)

  • https://openforcefield.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/FF/pages/1937735685 → Added more detail about processes

    • CC – Some of the info here is slightly out of date. Because I’m the only page owner, I will make changes to bring them up to date.

  • CC - There are also the meeting notes, which may contain information of their own. I can be in charge of making sure that changes from those meeting notes are reflected on the main project page.

• Let’s remove as many of these as possible, and leave only statements that are verified to be true.

• DN – Is the scope of the project clear, and do you agree with it?

  • CC – Yes, I agree with Simon’s statement in the meeting - we are going to take the OpenFF fitting ecosystem and make it suitable for parameterizing biopolymers.

  • CC – I’m interested in defining people and processes to reduce uncertainty about decisions and how input is handled.

• Next steps:

  • If CC and MG agree with this new project structyre, DN will open call for stakeholders:

    • Being a stakeholder on this project is intended to keep you is notification-only.

    • “We’re polishing up the protein FF project plan, and formalizing the decisionmaking process. The meeting time is currently set

  • CC and MG will offer approvership to additional people (CC will confirm with MG, then confirm this decision and MS’s approval at beginning of next meeting)

  •  

Sage project plan

• JW – DM slacked me to ask whether we should make a project page for Sage as well as the protein FF.

• (discussion)

• (General) – This is complicated because sage is not a PROJECT, it is a PROCESS. That means that a new sage release will happen “when it’s ready, or perhaps not at all”. So we should take care to not assume that elements of normal project planning will apply here.

• JW – I wonder if we’re looking at trouble in the future, because rosemary is defined as “Sage, but it also does proteins”, but the definition of “Sage” could change at any time. So if “Sage with vsites” gets released one month before “rosemary”, do we need to go back and add vsites to rosemary? Maybe we’ll need a “feature freeze” for our force fields as we approach the Rosemary date.

• (DN + JW + DM) – We should assume that SB and LW won’t overlap to transfer knowledge. Either way, let’s assume that LW is the only person who will make a Sage or Rosemary release. We will never task a non-employee with a ff release unless they specifically volunteer.

• DN will attend ff-release calls from now on

VSites