[Fsatom-comm] II. Computations vs Simulations ; demand for joining the committee

[Xavier Gonze]

Dear FSAtom committee members,

Beyond the CECAM proposals, come two things that
we need to discuss : one "detail", and one more profound
thing.

The detail is as follows :
on the Web site, the name of the project is
"Free Software Project for Atomic-Scale Computations"
Karsten made the remark to me that he remembered that
the name we choose at the end of the workshop was
"Free Software Project for Atomic-Scale Simulations".

I think that he is right.

Is there anybody preferring
"Computations" to "Simulations" ? If not,we should
ask Miguel or Guillaume Truffin to make the changes
on the Web site.

Let's put a deadline on the admitted answers to this
question : please answer before tuesday September 3 .

The more profound thing is as follows : there is already
a demand for a "new" member joining the committee !
I put "new" in quote, because it is actually Paolo
Giannozzi, who was present at the workshop. Well, the demand
comes from Stefano Baroni, the former director of CECAM, and I have 
joined parts of his letter below. I guess Paolo preferred
to discuss a possible participation with somebody else, instead
of joining at the workshop time.

Of course, now comes the real question : how will we
select the members of the committee in the future ? on which
basis ? what is the status of the committee, with respect to the
members of the fsatom mailing list ?

I would have preferred to avoid such questions until the FSatom
had reached some real usefulness (not demonstrated until now !), but it
seems that we have to take some of our time to think about it.

Any suggestion ?

Best regards,
Xavier


======================================================================
(excerpts from Stefano Baroni's letter)

<...> the DEMOCRITOS National Simulation
Center in Trieste, of which I will be the first director, and of an
initiative called "Open SESAME" (Scalable Electronic Structure and
Atomistic Modeling Environment), promoted by Roberto Car, Michael
Klein, Glenn Martyna, and Mark Tuckerman, and myself (more soon on
www.o-sesame.org).

<...>

As we are committed to an open-source policy for code development and
distribution, I believe that a participation of this initiative to the
fs-atom project would be beneficial for all of us. I know that some of
the people presently involved in the o-sesame initiative (Martyna) are
already members of the fs-atom steering committee.  As the building of
the Princeton-Trieste package is presently under the responsibility of
Paolo Giannozzi, I believe that his participation in the steering
committee would be very important to enhance the interaction between
our initiative and the others participating in the fs-project.

Looking forward to hearing from you soon,

Yours, Stefano Baroni