Conference call notes 20260812

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Notes on the 299th EasyBuild conference call, Wednesday 12 August 2026 (08:00 UTC / 10:00 CEST)

Attendees

List of attendees (10):

• Alex Domingo
• Thomas Hayward-Schneider
• Jarne Renders
• Davide Grassano
• Lars Viklund
• Sébastien Moretti (SIB, Switzerland)
• Alexander Grund (ZIH, Dresden, Germany)
• Jan Reuter
• Sam Moors (Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium)
• Jorge Delgado Guerrero

Agenda

• overview of recent developments
• Q&A

Recent developments

• latest EasyBuild release: EasyBuild v5.4.0 (9 August 2026)
  • highlights
  • detailed release notes
• next (stable) EasyBuild release: TBD
• ETA for EasyBuild 6.0: spring 2027
  • milestones: framework

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News

• ...

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Merge sprints

• last merge sprint on Mon 10 Aug

  • goal achieved: 687 PRs open in easyconfigs

• future easyconfigs merge sprints planned:

  • Mon 19 Oct 2026
  • Mon 21 Dec 2026
  • Mon 15 Feb 2027

• aiming for semi-fixed schedule every other month: 3rd Monday in even months (with exceptions)

• at some point a sprint to revise & close outdated open issues across different EasyBuild repos

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Merged PRs

⚠️ We just had the release for 5.4.0, so there are no other relevant PRs merged

(changed made in PRs marked with * are included latest EasyBuild stable release)

• blog/docs (merged PRs)

  • ...

• framework (merged PRs)

  • bug fixes
    • ...
  • changes
    • ...
  • code cleanup
    • ...
  • CI/test suite
    • ...
  • other
    • ...

• easyblocks (merged PRs)

  • bug fixes
    • ...
  • enhancements
    • ...
  • updates
    • ...
  • changes
    • ...
  • new
    • ...
  • code cleanup
    • ...
  • CI
    • ...

• easyconfigs (merged PRs)

  • ~XXX easyconfig PRs were merged since last conf call
  • bug fixes/reports
    • ...
  • enhancements
    • ...
  • (noteworthy) new software
    • ...
  • noteworthy software updates
    • ...
  • cleanup
    • ...
  • changes
    • ...
  • CI
    • ...

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Open (active) PRs

• blog/docs (open PRs + issues)

  • ...

• framework (open PRs + issues)

  • bugs
    • ...
  • enhancements
    • also bwrap module installpath (PR #5214)
  • code cleanup
    • ...
  • changes
    • ...
  • CI/test suite
    • ...

• easyblocks (open PRs + issues)

  • bug fixes/reports
    • LAMMPS: workarround for ARM builds with CUDA and ARM (PR #4175)
  • enhancements
    • Add PTX code for (highest) CUDA compute capability in PyTorch & torchvision (PR #4129)
    • Rework of the JuliaPackage easyblock (PR #4146)
    • enhance custom easyblock for OpenFOAM to addd support for new intel compilers (icx) (PR #4177)
    • Add ignore patterns for tests on RISC-V to custom easyblock for LLVM (PR #4178)
    • Update cuda_cc flags for newer ELPA versions (PR #4186)
    • Add .pyi files for easyblocks to support LSPs (PR #4183)
  • updates
    • ...
  • changes
    • ...
  • code cleanup
    • ...
  • new easyblocks
    • ...
  • CI/test suite
    • Add test for correct import of other easyblocks (PR #4182)

• easyconfigs (open PRs + issues)

  • over 770 open easyconfig PRs currently
    • up from ~680 mid June'26
    • easyconfigs merge sprint coming soon: Mon 10 Aug'26
  • bug fixes/reports
    • ...
  • enhancements
    • ...
  • (noteworthy) new software
    • ...
  • software updates
    • ...
  • changes
    • ...
  • CI/test suite
    • improve analyzer for tagbot to avoid trouble with long diffs (PR #26544)

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Q&A / other

• Davide: major rework of the JuliaBundle

  • properly handles dependencies, avoid copying/bundling all dependencies in the final installation
  • can install in parallel
  • working on running tests, but that's is complicated due to how Julia runs those tests

• Alexander: we should avoid making JuliaBundle inherit from JuliaPackage

  • creates more trouble than solutions, there is quite some dance around things happening/not-happening at different steps
  • PythonBundle does not inherit on PythonPackage

• Sam: PR with improvements for bwrap ready for testing

  • Thomas: anybody using bwrap in production?
  • Alex: yes, we do, it's something we use it to deploy installations that are core and could affect many users (e.g. OpenMPI)