Two Possible Discussion Items

I was wondering whether we should have a concurrency report series like the Electronic Colloquium on Computational Complexity, which has been going strong for over ten years now. Would there be added value in having a repository of that type, where full versions of concurrency-related papers are posted? If so, where should it located? At DBLP/Trier?

Also, what should the connection between the WG and the CONCUR conference series be? Should we make a point of organizing a (possibly informal) meeting at each CONCUR conference? Or should we aim at organizing affiliated workshops at CONCUR?

Addendum: Luca Trevisan mentioned the existence of this blog on his excellent blog in theory. I therefore took the opportunity of asking his readers about the value of the Electronic Colloquium on Computational Complexity for the complexity theory community. It'll be good to have them contribute their experiences to this discussion---a case of volume A-volume B communication :-)

Open Problems and Future Research Directions Repository

This is the first post on this experimental blog for the IFIP WG1.8 on Concurrency Theory. We invite members of the concurrency theory community to participate in the discussions raised on this blog by sending their comments/suggestions/thoughts using the commenting feature of the blogging system.

Let us assume that one can assess the healthiness of concurrency theory by looking at the most important open problems in that field. These open problems can be used to try and convince researchers in another area and students that the field of concurrency theory is "alive and kicking", and maybe entice a few of them to work within the field.

Based upon this thought experiment, wouldn't it be a good thing to have a repository of open problems that identify the present state of development in concurrency theory, and suggest directions for further research?

At some point in the past, I started putting together a list of open problems, but I have not maintained it for a while. Will you help me revive this enterprise by sending me, or posting as a comment to this blog entry, a description of your favourite open problems in concurrency theory, together with links to partial solutions and pointers to the literature? This input of yours might even form the basis for a useful installment of the Concurrency Column in the Bulletin of the EATCS (which I could edit on behalf of the contributors), and generate a lot of research in our field.

I also believe that the result of this discussion would be useful for the whole concurrency theory community.