Dear all, Looking forward to talking soon to all who can make it to the meeting. It is important that we work together to re-assure the community that we can work through this together. Below is a short [0] and longer [1] message that has been posted on the seL4 news page (https://sel4.systems/news.pml.html <https://sel4.systems/news.pml.html>) and seL4 Foundation linkedIn page (https://www.linkedin.com/company/sel4 <https://www.linkedin.com/company/sel4>). The message is both addressed to all of you as members and contributors of the seL4 Foundation, and also for you to help answer questions you may get and spread the word. Feel free to forward the message as such to your partners, customers etc. We can discuss more in our meeting soon. Thanks all! June [0] Subject: Support seL4! It has been heart-warming to see the response of the seL4 community to the news of the dismantlement of the Trustworthy Systems group (TS), creator of seL4. The seL4 Foundation, as well as its members and ecosystem, want to reinforce their commitment to the success and support of seL4. The TS team will be rebuilding at UNSW and a number of Foundation-endorsed seL4 services providers (https://sel4.systems/Foundation/Services/ <https://sel4.systems/Foundation/Services/>) as well as the newly created Proofcraft verification company (https://proofcraft.systems <https://proofcraft.systems/>) are dedicated to support seL4 in the future. It's never been more important to work together as a community to support seL4 and the transition of the support and development to the Foundation and its members. People have been asking how to help. We are looking at various options for sustainable support, with a priority of keeping the team together. There are options on the table that we are exploring that may allow us to do that. Please help us with that, the existing TS team is the best base for stable seL4 support. In the meantime, there are 4 concrete things that can be done now, described on https://sel4.systems/news.pml.html <https://sel4.systems/news.pml.html> Spread the word to people who care about seL4’s future [1] Support seL4! It has been heart-warming to see the response of the seL4 community to the news of the dismantlement of the Trustworthy Systems group (TS), creator of seL4. The seL4 Foundation, as well as its members and ecosystem, want to reinforce their commitment to the success and support of seL4. The TS team will be rebuilding at UNSW and a number of Foundation-endorsed seL4 services providers (https://sel4.systems/Foundation/Services/ <https://sel4.systems/Foundation/Services/>) as well as the newly created Proofcraft verification company (https://proofcraft.systems <https://proofcraft.systems/>) are dedicated to support seL4 in the future. With this recent news, it’s never been more important to work together as a community to support seL4 and the transition of the support and development to the Foundation and its members. People have been asking how to help. Offers of support keep coming. We are looking at various options for sustainable support, with a priority of keeping the team together. There are options on the table that we are exploring that may allow us to do that. Please help us with that, the existing TS team is the best base for stable seL4 support. In the meantime, here are 4 concrete things that can be done now. Spread the word to people who care about seL4’s future, and contact us on foundation@sel4.systems <mailto:foundation@sel4.systems> if you want to discuss. 1- donations and crowdfunding, in particular towards the “continuity project”. https://sel4.systems/Foundation/Support/ <https://sel4.systems/Foundation/Support/> https://crowdfunding.lfx.linuxfoundation.org/projects/e94c998c-bac2-4224-b0a... <https://crowdfunding.lfx.linuxfoundation.org/projects/e94c998c-bac2-4224-b0ae-23f265fdd1a5>The crowd-funding platform works for large and small financial contributions, and contributions can be dedicated to specific topics. Fans are always welcome to contribute and show the continued support to seL4 :), but if you know of companies that would like to show financial support without a longer-term commitment, this is a quick and easy mechanism to do so. We have set up a dedicated “continuity project” to raise funds specifically targeted to the transition of the infrastructure (testing, boards etc) and the immediate support needs (maintenance of all configurations, libraries, releases etc) to the Foundation. All donors of $1,000 and above will be listed on the page above. 2- get more members signed up to the Foundation. https://sel4.systems/Foundation/Join.html <https://sel4.systems/Foundation/Join.html> A push to get more organisations joining in the coming weeks will be a clear message of the strong support to seL4 and will provide the necessary funds funds to transition more support to the Foundation. Longer term, membership helps deliver on the Foundation’s vision to increase usability, exposure, support, education, participation, and verification of seL4. Join or help spreading the word to join to your partners and customers. 3- in-kind offer of expertise. The number of seL4 experts is growing. Active participation and especially support for new users and beginners on Discourse (https://sel4.discourse.group <https://sel4.discourse.group/>) and the mailing list will help keep the community active. Likewise contributions to reviews and discussion on GitHub on pull requests and issues will help to keep things moving. The focus has shifted away from just D61 contributions in the past year already, now is the time to keep the momentum up. The TS team and people in the technical steering committee are working on moving testing and verification infrastructure to UNSW. This will include opening up the infrastructure such that members can contribute hardware tests. We will send more information about this in the next few weeks. Please contact Gerwin as the TSC chair if you are interested in this or have additional ideas how to help. We were gearing up for the next seL4 release. This might be slightly delayed by the infrastructure move, but if everything comes together as planned the release will go ahead. 4- jobs in the seL4 ecosystem. https://sel4.systems/Foundation/Jobs.html <https://sel4.systems/Foundation/Jobs.html> While some expertise is needed to be kept within the Foundation, it is also important to keep it within the community. We have just set up a page for members to post jobs related to seL4. This will help match seL4 experts to organisations willing to build upon, develop or support seL4. Contact foundation@sel4.systems <mailto:foundation@sel4.systems> to post on that page.
On 23 May 2021, at 10:03 pm, June Andronick (seL4 Foundation) <june@sel4.systems> wrote:
Dear all (sending to various mailing lists to make sure I’ve covered everyone —apologies if you receive multiple copies),
We would like to have an opportunity to discuss the recent news that Data61 is shutting down the TS group. I’ll send an invite for: - AEST (Sydney): Tuesday 25th 7am - CEST (Munich): Monday 24th 11pm - EDT: Monday 24th 5pm - CDT: Monday 24th 4pm - PDT: Monday 24th 2pm
I know it’s very short notice but we need to react fast to reassure the community and plan the coming few months. Prior to the meeting, I’ll send an email with a common message that we should spread, which will be on the Foundation’s website and linkedin page. If you can't join the call, feel free to send me any questions you may have, after you’ve received the common message to spread.
Thanks all! Counting on you.
June