----------------------------------------------------------------------- 26th International Conference on Rewriting, Techniques and Applications (RTA 2015) 13th International Conference on Typed Lambda Calculi and Applications (TLCA 2015) Minutes on the Business Meeting - July 1st, 2015, 2pm (Warsaw, Poland) Chair: Gilles Dowek Secretary: Ugo Dal Lago ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Agenda: 1. Report from the organisers and from RDP, RTA PC and TLCA PC. 2. Proposal for a new conference. 3. The new conference's SC. 4. Announcement of the new conference(s) in 2016. 5. Proposals for 2017. 6. RTA General Assembly. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Report from the organisers and from RDP, RTA PC and TLCA PC. A. Report on the organisation of RDP 2015 (by Alesky Schubert) Some statistical information about the conference has been given by Aleksy Schubert (see attached slides), including numbers about the last four RDP editions, the distribution of attendants over days and countries, etc. The audience raised no questions. B. Report from the RTA 2015 PC (by Maribel Fernandez) Some information about the RTA 2015 PC has been given by Maribel Fernandez (see attached slides), including the list of PC and SC members, statistics about submissions, best paper awards, etc. The following questions and observations were raised by the audience: - Johannes Waldmann observed that the best paper awards should be made public, and Fernandez replied that this year's best paper award is mentioned in the proceedings. - Aleksy Schubert asked which policy is followed when deciding when to have best paper's presentations. Fernandez replied that there are no such policy. C. Report from the TLCA 2015 PC (by Thorsten Altenkirch) Some information about the TLCA 2015 PC has been given by Thorsten Altenkirch (see attached slides), including the list of PC members, statistics, etc. There were no questions from the audience. 2. Proposal for a new conference. Kristoffer Rose a Pawel Urzyczyn presented the proposal for a new conference, called "Foundational Structures in Computation and Deduction". Most important information: - The general assembly of RTA and TLCA, at VSL 2014, strongly suggested to go to a new conference concept, which should include, in terms of scope, both RTA and TLCA. - The two steering committees worked very hard since VSL 2014, and ended up in proposals for a title, a list of topics and some bylaws, which have been made public before RDP 2015. - The proposal should be taken as open, and subject to modification, as decided by the new conference's SC. - We are voting on the following issue: do we want to make a step forward and have a larger conference? The audience asked the following questions: - Grigore Rosu asked where does FSCD come from, and Rose replied that it comes from the name of a course by Gérard Huet. The name was suggested by Pierre-Louis Curien. - Someone in the audience asked whether the new conference will publish its proceedings at LIPIcs. Urzyczyn replied that both TLCA and RTA currently publish at LIPIcs, and that the intention is to terminate these two agreements, and start a new one for FSCD, lasting five years. Rose asked whether voting about this issue is a good idea. Jean-Pierre Jouannaud replied that probably this is not a good idea: better to avoid voting and revoting on the same issues. - Urzyczyn shared the content of three emails about the new conference he received, by Richard Statman, Moshe Vardi, and a third one. All of them are positive and encouraging. - Andy Polonsky asked whether the title of the conference could be changed. Rose replied that the name is now fixed, but could be changed by the SC. Jakob Rehof commented that the title issue is fairly heavyweight: the intention is not to change the name too often. The first vote has been on the following: should the FSCD proposal need a 2/3 or a 1/2 majority to be approved? Results are as follows: - 61 voted for 2/3; - 6 voted for 1/3; - 8 abstained. A majority of 2/3 is then needed. Some further discussion then happened: - Jurgen Giesl proposed to proceed by secret rather than public voting. Rose replied that they were thinking about a public vote, and Giesl disagreed. - Herman Geuvers asked how the FSCD SC is composed. Rose replied that the proposed bylaws are indeed quite precise as for how the SC is formed and elected, and that the issue would have been discussed later. - Barbara Morawska said she is also in favour of secret voting. The second vote has been on the following: should we vote for the main ballot secretly or publicly? Results are as follows: - 38 voted for going secretly; - 22 voted for going publicly; - 9 abstained. The vote for the main ballot is to be secret. The third vote has been on the main ballot: It is the will of the participants of RDP 2015 gathered at the Business Meeting on July 1, 2015, to terminate the RTA and TLCA conferences and introduce from 2016 on a new conference called Formal Structures for Computation and Deduction (FSCD) The scope of FSCD is intended to include and significantly expand the subject areas of RTA and TLCA. The initial list of~topics in the FSCD Proposal is by no means exhaustive and~will evolve over time. The FSCD SC will revise the initial FSCD Rules and will submit a final proposal after two years. Results are as follows: - 65 voted "yes"; - 12 voted "no"; - 3 abstained. The new conference FSCD is then established. 3. FSCD Steering Committee - Pawel Urzyczyn explained the rules for the formation of the FSCD. In particular, there are two members coming from the RTA SC, which will be elected in the RTA General Assembly, to be done later in this BM. - Among the SC's duties is to decide whether to go with LIPIcs or not. Urzyczyn asked for comments on that. Gabriel Scherer said that TLCA being open access is crucial. Georg Moser mentioned the fact that going towards LIPIcs was quite a long process, and that he would hardly revert this decision. - Another duty the FSCD newly formed SC needs to take care of is the issue of the best paper award, which RTA traditionally had. - Another crucial issue is publicity: Urzyczyn remarked that placing FSCD at the right place from the very beginning is going to be vital. Comments came from: * Jean-Pierre Jouannaud, on the necessity of being publicly announced on the ACM and ICALP channels. * Aleksy Schubert, on the necessity of having sort of a manifesto sent to the usual mailing lists, preferably immediately after summer * Pierre-Louis Curien, who suggested to have new subjects explicitly mentioned in the first CfP. * Grigore Rosu, who insisted on the necessity to have a strong set of invited speakers already at FSCD 2016. * Johannes Waldmann, who said he wants to have not only invited speakers from new subjects, but also from traditional ones, like rewriting. Rose replied that it is the new SC which is charge of that. * Sam Staton asked whether any ACM affiliation is planned. Rose replied that there has been an offer from SIGPLAN. 4. FSCD 2016 A. Scientific Matters Brigitte Pientka and Delia Kesner, PC co-chairs for FSCD 2016, presented some information about FSCD 2016 (see attached slides), and asked for comments and questions. - Hans Zantema asked about PC member submissions; after some discussion Pientka said that they will adhere to FSCD bylaws, which say that PC chairs cannot submit papers, and that PC members could (but their submissions should be measured with higher standards). - Gabriel Scherer asked whether an artifact evaluation committee will be put in place, and Pientka said that it would be difficult, and time consuming. - Kaustuv Chaudhuri suggests to extend the "higher standard" constraint to subreviewer's submission. Pientka replied negatively, saying that the kind of reviewing process FSCD will adopt is different than the one of POPL or ICFP. Thorsten Altenkirch said that this would be anyway be unfeasible (finding subreviewers is hard anyway). - Jean-Pierre Jouannaud said that he is skeptical about author-response periods and, and that subreviewers should not intervene in the discussion. - Martin Hofmann said that he, instead, is very happy with author-response, and Pientka agreed. - Johannes Waldmann asked whether seeing other reviews as a subreviewers would be possible. Pientka answered positively, provided anonymisation is possible. Jouannaud said that he would keep interaction with subreviewers to a minimum. - Peter Dybjer said that he is strongly in favour of the author- response period. B. Organization Matters Sandra Alves, OC chair for FSCD 2016, presented some information about dates, venue, location, etc. (see attached slides), and asked for comments and questions. 5. FSCD 2017 - Proposals Sam Staton presented a proposal to co-locate FSCD 2017 with ICFP 2017, which will take place in Oxford, UK (see attached slides). The dates would be 3-6 September. The following questions and remarks have been asked: - Michele Pagani said that the proposed dates would be a plus, because submission dates would be compatible with the ones of LICS. - Georg Moser asked about registration costs, and Sam Staton replied that they would be similar to the ones of similar conferences: around 350 pounds. - Jean-Pierre Jouannaud said that the (submission) dates would be between the ones of LICS and CSL. Maribel Fernandez presented a proposal to have FSCD 2017 at Montevideo, Uruguay (see attached slides), any date in July 2017. ISR 2017 could take the place in Montevideo, as well. The following questions were posed: - Kristoffer Rose asked what's the size of the biggest room, and Fernandez replied that there should be rooms with at least 250 seats. The following comments and questions have been later posed: - Johannes Waldmann asked about the possibility to have ISR 2017 in Oxford, in case FSCD takes place there, too. Sam Staton does not know, but is optimistic. - Thorsten Altenkirch, Pierre-Louis Curien and Simona Ronchi said they have mixed feelings: on the one hand, Montevideo looks good, but on the other it would be better to stay close to Europe. - Many people (Lutz Strassburger, Georg Moser, Jean-Pierre Jouannaud) said that it would be crucial to have FSCD always at the same time of the year, from the very beginning. Others, like Michele Pagani, said that having FSCD 2017 in September would increase the number of submissions. The fourth vote is a proposal to the SC about FSCD 2017: should it be held in Oxford, UK or Montevideo, Uruguay. Results are as follows: - 18 voted for Montevideo - 33 voted for Oxford - 19 were neutral After the votes, there were a few comments: - Sam Staton said that having FSCD earlier could be discussed, but Aleksy Schubert said that he would prefer to co-locate with ICFP. - Delia Kesner said that she thinks that keeping strong links with south-american universities and research institutions is important. 6. RTA General Assembly. A. RTA Steering Committee Election. Candidates are Santiago Escobar, Narciso Marti Oliet, and René Thiemann. Everyone voted, secretly, for two candidates. Results are as follows: - Escobar: 21 - Marti-Oliet: 3 - Thiemann: 38 Escobar and Thiemann are then elected. B. RTA Bylaws Change. Following an earlier vote today, we need to change RTA's bylaws adding the following article 0: 0. The RTA conference is being cancelled. All obligations in the following paragraphs are cancelled if they pertain to activity after December 31st, 2015. In case of conflict between this paragraph and the remaining paragraphs, this paragraph takes precedence. Results are as follows: - Yes: 28 - No: 1 - Abstain: 4 Article 0 is then added to RTA's bylaws.