-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- IFIP Working Group 1.6 on Term Rewriting Report of the online business meeting: 8 August 2023 Chair: Cynthia Kop Co-Chair/Secretary: Carsten Fuhs -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PARTICIPANTS Aart Middeldorp Akihisa Yamada Carsten Fuhs Christopher Lynch Cynthia Kop Deepak Kapur Hans Zantema Hélène Kirchner Jakob Grue Simonsen Jürgen Giesl Luigi Liquori Martin Avanzini Nachum Dershowitz Nao Hirokawa Naoki Nishida Paliath Narendran René Thiemann Sandra Alves Silvia Ghilezan Takahito Aoto -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- AGENDA (1) The bylaws of the working group. (2) Should there be an additional annual report? (3) Should a three-day standalone workshop be held by the working group? (4) Luigi Liquori's new rewriting website. (5) Affiliation and planning for the next IFIP WG 1.6 general meeting. (6) Invitation policy for the general meetings. (7) Any other business. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (1) The bylaws of the working group. Cynthia Kop had created a first draft of written bylaws for IFIP WG 1.6 (which thus far seemed not to have any explicit written bylaws) and circulated it via the mailing list of the WG. The draft was received well by the attendees, but several change suggestions were made. Specifically, it was identified that it would be good to have two separate documents: (a) bylaws (as a general specification); (b) operational procedures (as an implementation of the specification). The idea would be that the bylaws should be stable and permissive so that only few changes should be needed over time. In contrast, the operational procedures could provide a concrete algorithmic way in which the WG /currently/ operates, but which may change over time. Luigi Liquori proposed such an algorithm based on his experiences from standardisation committees: one member can propose an initiative, several more must support the initiative, then vote by the WG takes place whether to pursue the initiative, a deadline for new software or a new document is set. The conclusion for this point was that corresponding updates would be made and further discussion would take place on the WG mailing list. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (2) Should there be an additional annual report? None of the attendees provided details about this proposal. The topic was deferred to an asynchronous discussion on the WG mailing list. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (3) Should a three-day standalone workshop be held by the working group? None of the attendees provided details about the background of this proposal. Cynthia Kop mentioned that Delia Kesner had suggested on a related but separate topic that rewriting workshops at FSCD (WPTE, HOR, UNIF, ...) could work together more closely, perhaps in a joint event. René Thiemann stated that it would be good not to merge UNIF, IWC, ... into a three-day event and that they should stand alone and maintain their identity. Cynthia Kop raised the question whether we could do these workshops together as a standalone event, similar to WST 2023 and IWC 2023: http://cl-informatik.uibk.ac.at/events/osr-2023/ Aart Middeldorp pointed out that in 2023 three days were needed for just these two workshops. Jürgen Giesl commented that by running workshops completely separately, there would be the risk of low attendance. Aart Middeldorp stated that with IFIP funding, the situation might be different. Jürgen Giesl reported that historically, IFIP had provided moral support rather than financial support for the WG. Cynthia Kop closed the topic and suggested that, going forward, if we have a short in-person meeting and longer online meeting it would be best to adopt a policy where we take particular care that people who suggest a topic are able to attend the online meeting and present the proposal there. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (4) Luigi Liquori's new rewriting website. In the previous WG meeting (Rome, July 2023) Luigi Liquori had presented ongoing work on a modernised (wrt used technologies and wrt content) version of the website https://rewriting.org with an overview of term rewriting, existing tools, applications, open problems, etc. At the present meeting, Luigi Liquori reported that the website had been hosted for two decades at LORIA, but was no longer actively maintained, and that he had the contents from Professor Vigneron as an archive. Resulting from an internship with him ('stage', a way of involving BSc/MSc students in research-related activities over a fixed period of time, available particularly at institutions in France), the following website had been created by a student: https://rewriting.gitlabpages.inria.fr/rewriting/ Luigi Liquori reported that the page was currently empty and that content, testing, and extensions were needed. Hosting could be provided at Sophia Antipolis. Additional students on internships would be needed to pursue the technical side of the project further. He would be happy to champion students and co-supervise with the academic hosting the internship. Cynthia Kop remarked that two different things were requested: (a) a student for programming activities; (b) someone who would add content. She enquired whether anyone could do (a) at their university. She mentioned that she was a teacher on a corresponding course at her own university, which would currently lead to a conflict of interest if she were to propose such a project to students herself. Luigi Liquori mentioned that Maribel Fernández had told him in Rome that she might be able to host a student. Cynthia Kop concluded that this discussion would lead to action items for the WG. She clarified that the old website had a list of conferences/workshops related to rewriting and that a decision would need to be made whether this content should also be on the new website. More generally, some people would have to decide about what topics should/should not be on the new website and what structure the new website should have. Jürgen Giesl pointed to the RTA/Rewriting List of open Problems as a topic that Luigi Liquori had mentioned before and that Aart Middeldorp had mentioned in Rome as having been worked on by Jörg Endrullis in 2022. Cynthia Kop told the WG that she had sent an e-mail enquiry to Jörg Endrullis about the state of the project after the WG meeting in Rome and that he had not responded so far. She also mentioned that she was going to have an in-person meeting with Jörg Endrullis soon and would ask him then as well. Jürgen Giesl mentioned that he had a student who would be interested in joining the effort regarding the content of the site. Since no further discussion took place, Cynthia Kop deferred the topic to the mailing list. Cynthia Kop enquired whether there was interest in a list of industrial use(r)s of rewriting. Luigi Liquori stated that the discussion about the new website had been triggered by his suggestion on this topic at a WG meeting in 2022. Silvia Ghilezan suggested that some parts of the website could be static, but that sections like "workshops, meetings, ..." should be updated regularly if they were put on the website to avoid the website appearing obsolete. Luigi Liquori pointed out that the new website was currently empty and that the existing website was /already/ obsolete in this regard. Hélène Kirchner stated that the WG should be in charge of such a website and that was a further question how to construct it. She suggested using Luigi Liquori's algorithm from item (1) of the agenda: 2-3 people would work on the proposal and then present it to the WG. Students on the project would need to have a specification first. Cynthia Kop concluded that such a website about rewriting was a desired responsibility of WG 1.6 and that further discussion would take place on the mailing list. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (5) Affiliation and planning for the next IFIP WG 1.6 general meeting. The co-location of the in-person IFIP WG 1.6 meeting with FSCD 2023 and the restriction to a half-day meeting due to the limited workshop slots at FSCD 2023 were discussed. For 2024, both FSCD in Tallinn and IJCAR in Nancy as conferences with likely significant amounts of rewriting content were identified as potential candidates for co-location for an in-person/hybrid meeting of IFIP WG 1.6. A clear preference between the two events among the attendees did not arise. Cynthia Kop concluded that she would attempt to affiliate the next meeting with one of the two events. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (6) Invitation policy for the general meetings. Cynthia Kop reported that she had been pointed to the fact that three white men had been invited as speakers at the WG 1.6 meeting in Rome in 2023. She pointed out that this might be considered problematic and raised the question how to best address the issue. Aart Middeldorp and Sandra Alves suggested that together with the group-internal call for nominations of invited speakers, the issue could be stated explicitly so that a good pool of candidates would be obtained for the vote. Cynthia Kop confirmed that this would be a good approach for the future. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (7) Any other business. No other business was identified by any of the attendees.