Thoughts On SystemC Users’ Groups

I ate breakfast a few weeks ago with Gabe Moretti of GabeOnEDA fame—always a pleasant event.  During our discussion, Gab opined that the Open SystemC Initiative (OSCI) was superior to other front-end standards organization because of its SystemC Users’ Groups like NASCUG, ESCUG, the Taiwan SystemC users’ Group, SystemC Japan and so forth.  At a certain point I had to interrupt

him, and tell him that OSCI did not actually organize or run any users’ groups.  True, it funds to a greater or lesser degree the various SystemC User Groups around the world, but it does not control them in any way.  I went on to argue, that this is the “right” way to do things.

To clarify this point, consider the case of a wealthy person who wants to help the homeless.  She might decide to directly organize an effort to build houses for people who have none.  To do this, she could provide the financial backing for the project, get subcontractors lined up to install/erect the various subsystems of the house, and maybe even enlists the help of some volunteers.   Alternatively, she could give a substantial donation to an organization like Habitat For Humanity, which would run the project, including soliciting and organizing the volunteers who would do most of the actual work. 

Neither way of getting houses built for the homeless is ultimately “better”—people get homes in either case.  However, I think that most people would agree that there is something more impressive about the second path—volunteers coming together to help their fellows.  This does not diminish the virtue of the donation that the wealthy person makes to Habitat, but adds a sort of layer of goodness above it.

An analogous situation can be seen in the relationship between OSCI and the various SystemC User Groups.  In the early days of OSCI, the “Promotions Group” funded and organized most of the public meetings at which use of SystemC was presented.  Anyone who has ever organized such public meetings, knows that there are a lot of logistical headaches, not the least of which is getting users’ (who are generally working engineers with day jobs) presentations in on time.  Thus, the OSCI people, who organized these early SystemC User events, put in a lot of effort—effort that was rewarded by the steady growth of SystemC usage.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the proliferation of SystemC usage that we have witnessed over the past few years.  A group called the “European SystemC Users’ Group” (ESCUG) was formed in the early 2000’s.  This group did not ask OSCI to organize their meetings in any way, but only asked for some funding to help pay for things like refreshments, meeting rooms and so forth.  In return, OSCI was given a slot on the ESCUG agenda to present an organizational update.  It (OSCI) was not involved in any way in the organization, or in the execution of the twice-a-year ESCUG meetings.  Indeed, it did not seek to be involved, since those grass toots-level meetings turned out to be of very high quality.

A similar organization, the North American SystemC Users’ Group (NASCUG) was founded in 2005, and while also funded by OSCI, was treated in a similar hands-off manner.  Other such groups arose in Japan, Taiwan, Brazil and India.  In some cases, OSCI provided funding, while in others, the local meetings were held completely independently of OSCI.

Note the parallel with the home building case described above.  In the case of each SystemC Users’ Group, OSCI could have formed the group and administered its meetings.  Users would still have attended, and SystemC would have prospered to some (impossible to quantify) degree.  However, I would argue that SystemC prospered even more because of the substantial effort expended by users in pulling together the SystemC meetings in their regions.  Nothing fosters adoption of a technology like users feeling (and having) ownership of it.

Thus, my response to Gabe, who (I believe) immediately saw my point.  Yes, OSCI could have fulfilled its mission of supporting SystemC usage by directly organizing and hosting Users’ Group meetings around the world.  Indeed, it effectively did so in North America in the early days.  However, I would claim that it fulfilled its support mission much more efficiently by funding motivated SystemC users, and “letting them have at it”.