2025-12-10 TAC meeting notes (#1232)

Signed-off-by: Jean-Francois Panisset <[email protected]>

Author: jfpanisset

meetings/2025-12-10/2025-12-10.md

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+---
+parent: Meetings
+title: "2025-12-10"
+---
+
+# Academy Software Foundation Technical Advisory Council (TAC) Meeting - December 10, 2025
+
+Join the meeting at [https://zoom-lfx.platform.linuxfoundation.org/meetings/aswf?view=list&projects=aswf](https://zoom-lfx.platform.linuxfoundation.org/meetings/aswf?view=list&projects=aswf)
+
+## Voting Representative Attendees
+
+### Premier Member Representatives
+
+- [x] Andy Jones - Netflix, Inc.
+- [ ] Chris Hall - Advanced Micro Devices (AMD)
+- [x] Christopher Moore - Skydance Animation, LLC
+- [x] Eric Enderton - NVIDIA Corporation
+- [ ] Erik Niemeyer - Intel Corporation
+- [ ] Gordon Bradley - Autodesk
+- [ ] Greg Denton - Microsoft Corporation
+- [ ] Jean-Michel Dignard - Epic Games, Inc
+- [ ] Jonathan Gerber - LAIKA, LLC
+- [ ] Kimball Thurston - Wētā FX Limited
+- [x] Larry Gritz - Sony Pictures Imageworks
+- [x] Matthew Low - DreamWorks Animation
+- [ ] Michael Min - Adobe Inc.
+- [x] Michael B. Johnson - Apple Inc.
+- [ ] Rebecca Bever - Walt Disney Animation Studios
+- [ ] Ross Dickson - Amazon Web Services, Inc.
+- [x] Scott Dyer - Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
+- [x] Youngkwon Lim - Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
+
+### Project Representatives
+
+- [x] Carol Payne - Diversity & Inclusion Working Group Representative, OpenColorIO Representative
+- [x] Cary Phillips - OpenEXR Representative
+- [x] Chris Kulla - Open Shading Language Representative
+- [x] Daniel Greenstein - OpenImageIO Representative
+- [ ] Diego Tavares Da Silva - OpenCue Representative
+- [x] Jonathan Stone - MaterialX Representative
+- [ ] Ken Museth - OpenVDB Representative
+- [x] Nick Porcino - Universal Scene Description Working Group Representative
+- [ ] Rachel Rose - Diversity & Inclusion Working Group Representative
+
+### Industry Representatives
+
+- [x] Jean-Francois Panisset - Visual Effects Society
+
+## Non-Voting Attendees
+
+### Non-Voting Project and Working Group Representatives
+
+- [x] Alexander Schwank - Universal Scene Description Working Group Representative
+- [x] Anton Dukhovnikov - rawtoaces Representative
+- [ ] Daryll Strauss - Zero Trust Working Group Representative
+- [ ] David Feltell - OpenAssetIO Representative
+- [x] Eric Reinecke - OpenTimelineIO Representative
+- [ ] Erik Strauss - Open Review Initiative Representative
+- [ ] Gary Oberbrunner - OpenFX Representative
+- [ ] Jean-Christophe Morin - Rez Representative
+- [x] John Mccarten - Rongotai Model Train Club (RMTC) Representative
+- [ ] Josh Bainbridge - OpenQMC Representative
+- [x] Stephen Mackenzie - Rez Representative
+- [ ] Tommy Burnette - Dailies Notes Assistant Representative
+
+### LF Staff
+
+- [x] David Morin - Academy Software Foundation
+- [ ] Emily Olin - Academy Software Foundation
+- [x] John Mertic - The Linux Foundation
+- [x] Yarille Ortiz - The Linux Foundation
+
+### Other Attendees
+
+- Doug Walker - Autodesk / OCIO
+- Lee Kerley - Apple
+- JT Nelson - JT Nelson, Pasadena Open Source consortium / SoCal Blender group
+- Jonathan Swartz - NVIDIA
+- John McCarten - WetaFX
+- Bill Ballew - Dreamworks
+- Lorna Dumba - Framestore
+- Olga Avramenko - Sony Pictures / D&I WG
+
+## Antitrust Policy Notice
+
+Linux Foundation meetings involve participation by industry competitors, and it
+is the intention of the Linux Foundation to conduct all of its activities in
+accordance with applicable antitrust and competition laws. It is therefore
+extremely important that attendees adhere to meeting agendas, and be aware of,
+and not participate in, any activities that are prohibited under applicable US
+state, federal or foreign antitrust and competition laws.
+
+Examples of types of actions that are prohibited at Linux Foundation meetings
+and in connection with Linux Foundation activities are described in the Linux
+Foundation Antitrust Policy available at
+[linuxfoundation.org/antitrust-policy](https://www.linuxfoundation.org/antitrust-policy).
+If you have questions about these matters, please contact your company counsel,
+or if you are a member of the Linux Foundation, feel free to contact Andrew
+Updegrove of the firm of Gesmer Updegrove LLP, which provides legal counsel to
+the Linux Foundation.
+
+## Agenda
+
+- General Updates
+  - ORI follow up on Incubation [#1167](https://github.com/AcademySoftwareFoundation/tac/issues/1167)
+  - AGENDA TOPIC: AI code assistant policy [#1195](https://github.com/AcademySoftwareFoundation/tac/issues/1195)
+  - TAC Vice Chair election [#1202](https://github.com/AcademySoftwareFoundation/tac/issues/1202)
+  - 2026 Security Reviews [#1137](https://github.com/AcademySoftwareFoundation/tac/issues/1137)
+- New Project/Working Group Proposal: New Project Proposal - Open Path Guiding Library (OpenPGL) [#1218](https://github.com/AcademySoftwareFoundation/tac/issues/1218)
+
+## Notes
+
+- General Updates
+  - ORI follow up on Incubation [#1167](https://github.com/AcademySoftwareFoundation/tac/issues/1167)
+    - Erik Strauss not present, let's push to next
+  - AGENDA TOPIC: AI code assistant policy [#1195](https://github.com/AcademySoftwareFoundation/tac/issues/1195)
+    - John: not a lot of progress, may want to wait until next meeting.
+  - TAC Vice Chair election [#1202](https://github.com/AcademySoftwareFoundation/tac/issues/1202)
+    - John: at end of year, Carol will become TAC chair on 1 Jan, Larry will still be part of the TAC. Looking to fill role for Vice Chair. Cary Philips has been nominated. Would you accept?
+    - Cary: yes, I will, if it's my turn!
+    - John: is anyone else interested? Otherwise we'll do offline LFX vote to confirm. Look out for LFX vote after this meeting.
+  - 2026 Security Reviews [#1137](https://github.com/AcademySoftwareFoundation/tac/issues/1137)
+    - John: one lined up, looking out for a second, reach out if interested
+- New Project/Working Group Proposal: New Project Proposal - Open Path Guiding Library (OpenPGL) [#1218](https://github.com/AcademySoftwareFoundation/tac/issues/1218)
+  - Sebastian Herholz - Intel
+  - [Presentation Slide Deck](./OpenPGL-ASWF-project-proposal.pdf)
+  - Open Path Guiding Library / Project Proposal : Sandbox
+    - Can the library be moved from Intel to ASWF
+  - Sebastian Herholz : Rendering-Engineer Researcher at ex-Intel / Soon Blender
+  - Sponsor : Kimball Thurston at Weta
+  - Agenda
+    - Introduction to Path Guiding
+    - What is OPen PGL and what does it offer the VFX industry / rendering community?
+    - Current project status
+    - Discussion
+  - Introduction
+    - Path tracing-based rendering is now the standard in VFX
+    - Shoot multiple random rays through scene to collect light which contributes to pixel
+    - Random Paths
+      - Generating a random path includes making multiple local decisions
+        - Direction (Surface)
+        - VOlume Scatter + distance
+        - Direction (volume)
+        - Termination (RR)
+    - Common Approach
+      - These decisions are usually made on local scene properties
+        - Material (BSDF)
+        - ...
+      - Can lead to insufficient decisions (noisy renderings)
+        - ...
+    - How does path guiding work?
+      - Improving local decisions by incorporating approximated / learned information of the scene's light transport
+        - Product (BSDF * Li)
+        - Contribution Ration + Product (T * Lis)
+        - Product (P * Li)
+        - Expected Contribution
+    - Examples
+      - path guiding: OFF, Samples Per Pixel 256
+      - path guiding: ON, Samples Per pixel 256, less noisy
+      - Similar examples for V-Ray: 50 minute with path guiding off, 34 min with path guiding on
+      - Even better improvement greater than 2x for volumes
+      - Can also render what you cannot render robustly without, underwater scene
+    - Path guiding: Academic Research History
+      - 1995: Jensen: 5D Radiance fields
+      - ...
+    - SIGGRAPH 2019 Course: Path Guiding in Production
+      - First course on path guiding and how it was massively used by Weta in production
+      - Demonstrated production use cases and some new algorithms
+    - Challenges integrating path guiding in production
+      - Too many path guiding options / algorithms
+        - Which one to choose?
+    - Research vs Production
+      - Research solutions often need additional work to become production-ready
+    - Knowledge retention
+      - Implementing and integrating path guiding is non trivial
+      - ...
+    - Intel's Open Path Guiding Library
+      - Open-source Path Guiding Library (Apache 2.0)
+        - First released 2022
+      - Combines and extends multiple research solutions, making them production-ready
+      - Easy to integration into production and research renderers
+        - C and C++ API
+      - Multi-platform support
+        - CPU: x86, ARM (highly SIMD-optimized)
+        - GPU)(WIP)
+    - Current adopters
+      - Blender Cycles
+      - Illumination Studio
+      - V-Ray
+      - Karma
+      - Hyperion (presented at SIGGRAPH)
+    - SIGGRAPH 2025 Course: Path Guiding in Production and Recent Advancements
+      - Presented nitty-gritty details about how to robustly integrate PG in production renderer
+      - ...
+    - Disney's Feedback using OpenPGL in Production
+      - Zootopia 2 is the first released movie using OpenPGL
+      - Significant rendering efficiency increase
+        - 1.6x average speedup in scenes with complex lighting (33x peak)
+      - Fewer workarounds
+        - Reduced light transport simplification (roughening)
+        - Less reliance on firefly clamping
+      - Reliable rendering times
+        - More efficient use of artist time, allowing for more room for iteration and creativity
+        - Complex lighting setups just rendered on target
+        Reduced failed tech-checks & troubleshooting
+    - Research Collaborations
+      - Saarland University
+      - Karlsruhe...
+    - Volume Scattering Probability Guiding
+      - Guiding the binary volume scattering decision
+      - Xuy et al SIGGRAPH 2024
+      - Framework to increase and decrease VSP for homogeneous and heterogeneous volumes
+  - Current State
+    - [GitHub](https://github.com/RenderKit/openpgl)
+      - Source code Apache 2.0
+      - Issue tracking
+      - Main website (Readme.md)
+    - Releases
+      - Current: v0.7.1
+        - Used in at least two productions already
+      - Next: v0.8.0
+        - Adding ...
+  - Contributions
+    - Main Developer / Maintainer: Sebastian Herlholz (ex-Intel / Soon Blender)
+    - External Contributions (mostly one-time)
+      - Addis Ditterbrandt (KIT): directional quadtrees
+      - Brecht Van Lommel (Blender): Apple ARM port
+      - Anthony Roberts (Linaro): ...
+    - Multiple vendors and studios showed interest in contributing to OpenPGL when it is part of the ASWF and not owned by a vendor
+  - Why ASWF?
+    - Shared open-source philosophy
+    - ASWF is an open industry and vendor accepted collaboration platform
+      - Increases willingness to and reduces hurdles to external contributions
+    - OpenPGL is looking for a new home
+      - At August 2025 Intel decided to discontinue the project
+    - Bridge between research and VFX industry
+  - Questions:
+    - JF: interaction with OpenQMC? Can be used together, OpenQMC generates the random numbers that can be used
+    - Cary: thoughts on who would serve on TSC? Individuals / Companies? Sebastian: probably me and Blender, but have been talking to other people like Netflix animation, multiple people showed interest at SIGGRAPH, but don't have full list yet. Cary: challenge faced by every project, some more accute than others. Projects dependant on a single individual is not the best situation. Getting a diversity of people from multiple organizations is a major challenge. Sebastian: even with adoption we have, we want to start at Sandbox level, hopefully can attract more people and build a better community. Most of the talks with industry went through Intel, covered by NDA. Making all communication channels open should make things easier.
+    - JF: any patents? Sebastian: no patents, when we started the project, we carefully looked into this. Didn't want to implement anything covered with patents, or file for patents on what we did. All agreements between Intel and LF are already signed, this move is supported by Intel, and have all the contribution agreements signed. John: we try to do this up front to catch any potential issues. Intel worked with us on that.
+    - Larry: missed the presentation (joined late), lets have some discussion online, and do an online vote. Do you have a TSC yet? Sebastian: mainly me and support from Blender. Had some talks at SIGGRAPH with other vendors like NVIDIA interested to contribute, but hesitated since it was a vendor project. Wanted to wait until it moved to ASWF, makes it easier to contribute. Larry: other vendors would likely have a TSC rep and contributions. Knowing there will be a team behind it with a diversity of companies would be helpful. Don't want to take on a project with a shortage of contributions, especially with required expertise.
+    - Sebastian: we already have a high adoption in the industry, so there is a need for the library. This is the main reason we want to go to sandbox even given our adoption rate. See if it works out, can attract more contributions.
+    - Larry: is Disney your sponsor? Sebastian: no, it's Kimball from Weta.
+    - John: do you want to wait for next meeting in January? Larry: since I got in late, I'm not qualified. Would love to see the slides. Carol: presentation is great, it makes a lot of sense in general, makes sense to happen. With holidays makes sense to give a bit of extra time, we'll do a vote after the holidays, is that OK / 2 weeks delay? Sebastian: faster the better for us, since we need to move the libraries / repos at some point, not sure how many of the people who are still at Intel will be there in 2 weeks. John: we can set up an org to move it into in parallel, we have those pieces in place. Are there multiple repos? Sebastian: 2 repos, the library and the PBRT integration. John: we can set up a GitHub org, move those repos in it, and eventually move to ASWF org. Larry: Chris Kulla, do you have an opinion? Chris: yes, it's great, look forward to it being adopted. Would be all in favor of joining. Larry: that means a lot / holds sway. Carol: what's our typical period we leave LFX voting open? John: until we get a quorum. Yarille: I monitor it. Carol: so we can put a vote out there.
+    - Larry: let's get LFX voting started
+    - Larry: would be great to get Blender folks on TSC
+- Thank you Larry, and congratulations to Cary
+
+## Next Meeting Agenda
+
+- General Updates
+- Annual Review: D&I Working Group [#473](https://github.com/AcademySoftwareFoundation/tac/issues/473)
+- 2026 TAC Priorities [#1208](https://github.com/AcademySoftwareFoundation/tac/issues/1208)