SPEC Open Systems Group Policies and Procedures Document Version 2.21

1.1 SPEC's Purpose

The primary purpose of the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation (SPEC) is to develop suites of benchmark programs that are effective and fair in comparing the performance of high performance computing systems, and to assure that they are readily available to manufacturers and users of such systems.

1.2 SPEC's Formation

SPEC was formed from the instigation and sponsorship of Electronic Engineering Times (E.E. Times), and by the cooperative development work of Hewlett-Packard Co., Sun Microsystems Inc., Apollo Computer Inc., and MIPS Computer Systems Inc.

1.3 The Corporation

Upon approval by the representatives of the founding companies, their effort to develop a benchmark standardizing activity was converted into a non-profit Corporation of the state of California, on November 14, 1988.

The Corporation has a Board of Directors, President, and a staff to carry out the business of SPEC. The board has established three technical groups:

• The Open Systems Group (OSG)
• The Graphics and Workstation Performance Group (GWPG)
• The High Performance Group (HPG)

Each group has a steering committee to manage and supervise the development of applicable benchmarks. Each steering committee may sponsor a number of subcommittees or working groups to facilitate benchmark development. The Board may establish additional technical groups.

1.4 Meetings

The annual meeting of SPEC members will be held in January.

Election of the Board of Directors and members of the steering committee(s) and a financial report by the Board will be a necessary part of that meeting. The Board of Directors will meet at least quarterly.

1.5 The Board

To facilitate continuity and consistency on the Board, SPEC's policy is that the Board of Directors has staggered two-year terms, with half of the Board elected each year. Decisions of the board require agreement of the majority. Elections to the Board will be held at the annual meeting to be held at the beginning of the calendar year. Board positions are held by individuals, not by companies. Currently there are eight (8) elected directors on the board.

Each member of each SPEC technical group (OSG, GWPG, and HPG) may cast one vote per open board seat. E.g., if a company is a member of two groups it may cast two votes per open board seat.

1.6 Participation levels

Terminology note about SPEC "Membership": SPEC is a California nonprofit mutual benefit corporation. Governing law has certain formal terminology regarding membership (see, for example, California Corporations Code sections 5056 and 7331). SPEC's Bylaws authorize only one class of membership in the corporation. It is understood that one sometimes sees the term "member" used in a looser sense, and indeed the law appears to recognize that the term "member" may be used in a less formal sense (7333). However, this section 1.6 follows the formal usage of the Bylaws, which clearly say that SPEC has only one class of "Membership".

1.7 Copyrights and Trademarks

The standards and documents authorized by the Corporation may be copyrighted or trademarked, as appropriate.

The purpose of the copyrights and trademarks is to assure the computer industry that programs and documents developed by SPEC are genuine. The intent of protecting by trademarks and copyrights is not to restrict the use or availability or make any significant revenue from them, but rather to assure their general availability, promote confidence in them, and prevent fraud.

1.8 Openness

Information about the activities and developments of SPEC are intended to be readily available to all parties with legitimate interests in the performance of advanced computer systems. The board is responsible to carry out this policy.

SPEC meetings must be open to representatives of each member company. The Board may invite interested parties who are not SPEC members, but who have a legitimate interest in its work, to the meetings.

SPEC meetings must be open to representatives of each member company. For guidelines regarding participation by non-members (including press representatives), see section <a href="#B.6.0">B.6</a>.

1.9 Fair Use of SPEC Benchmark Results

Consistency and fairness are guiding principles for SPEC. To help assure that these principles are met, any organization or individual who makes public use of SPEC benchmark results must do so in accordance with SPEC's Fair Use Policy, as posted at www.spec.org/fairuse.html.

2.1 Open Systems Steering Committee

The Open Systems Steering Committee (OSSC) manages and supervises the development of SPEC's OSG benchmarks. The intent of this section is to provide an overview of the general policies and principles of the Open Systems Steering Committee.

a. Exceptions to policy: For due cause, the OSSC may vote to approve exceptions to this policy or may adopt resolutions that may conflict with policies expressed in this document; in such cases an amendment to this document will be brought forth within a reasonable time period afterwards.

b. Conflict with Bylaws or Board: In the event of disagreement between OSSC resolutions vs. SPEC's Articles of Incorporation and Bylaws or decisions by the SPEC Board of Directors, the OSSC shall yield.

c. Size of OSSC: The Board sets the number of OSSC members. The OSSC may recommend to the Board an increase or decrease in size based on activities and participation.

d. Qualifications: The OSSC is elected from the OSG membership. OSSC members agree to the following conditions and obligations:

1. Attend all OSSC meetings, including OSSC face-to-face meetings. (Effective as of 29 Jan 2019)
2. Have the engineering resources to be able to technically review and help direct all OSG benchmarks.
3. Devote the equivalent of at least one full-time engineer to SPEC OSG activities.
4. Under the direction of the OSSC Chair, help to promote OSG cross-pollination and shared practices, for example by reviewing run rules, helping with testing, educating about shared methods, and/or serving as primary steering committee liaison to assigned subcommittee(s).
5. Per the goal of the SPEC organization, commit to developing performance benchmark suites for computer systems and solutions.

e. Elections for OSSC: To maintain continuity and consistency of representation on the OSSC, the OSSC has staggered two-year terms, with half of the OSSC elected each year. Elections to the OSSC are held in conjunction with the SPEC Annual Meeting. Members representing one-fourth (1/4) of the OSG membership, present in person or by proxy, shall constitute a quorum for the purpose of election of OSSC members.

f. Vacancy: If an OSSC member institution resigns or leaves, the Board may appoint another OSG member to fulfill that OSSC member's remaining term, or may choose to leave the seat vacant until the next Annual Meeting, thereby temporarily decreasing the size of the OSSC.

g. Affiliation: Entering into a relationship of affiliation (as defined in the Bylaws, section 2.1) does not alone constitute the creation of a vacancy. (For example, Company B is not a member of the OSSC. It buys all the assets of, and takes on all the responsibilities of, Company A, including Company A's OSSC seat.) If, however, such affiliation would cause or appear to cause a member and its affiliate(s) to have two or more votes on the OSSC, then, as described in the Bylaws, a single voting representative shall be designated and one or more vacancies shall be declared.

h. Voting representative: Each OSSC member institution shall designate a voting representative. If the designated voting representative is absent from an OSSC meeting, another person employed by the member institution (or its affiliates) may temporarily represent the member. In the event of a lack of clarity as to who has the vote, the OSSC Chair may refuse to accept a vote until the designated voting representative appoints a substitute in writing.

i. Proxies: The OSSC does not allow use of proxy voting (that is, the authorization of an individual who is not an employee of a member institution to vote on behalf of that member), because OSSC members are expected to participate, to be actively involved in discussion, and to evaluate the evidence that may be presented. In rare cases, the Chair may accommodate legitimate scheduling difficulties (e.g. a Special Meeting scheduled at a particularly user-hostile hour for a directly interested participant), by requiring use of the Voting Tool rather than taking a vote during the meeting.

j. Officer elections: The OSSC elects a Chair, Vice-Chair, and Secretary. The election is held at the face-to-face OSSC meeting occurring during the SPEC annual meeting. OSSC Officer positions are held by individuals. It is not a requirement that the individuals be employed by an OSSC member company.

k. Election procedures are the same as for <a href="#s2.2.6">subcommittees</a>, with these exceptions: notice of the election shall be sent to all OSG members; nominations are made via the steering committee mailing list, or at the meeting where the election is to be held; in the event of a tie, even after repeated attempts to break the tie, then the presiding officer shall use a randomized method to determine the winner.

l. Vacancy: An election will be held to fill a vacancy if an officer steps down, except for the case where the Chair steps down and a Vice-Chair has already been elected; in this case, the Vice-Chair shall become the Chair for the duration of the term, and an election for a new Vice-Chair must be held to fill the vacancy.

m. OSSC Quorum: In order to have quorum, the OSSC must have greater than 2/3 of its members present. (To calculate this, the table for the "SPEC Consensus Voting Rule" may be referenced in section <a href="#s2.2.5">2.2.5</a>.) Votes may be taken only if there is a quorum of the current voting members present.

n. Voting / passage of motions: To pass a proposal at the OSSC, the OSSC uses the "SPEC Consensus Voting Rule", which is defined in <a href="#s2.2.5">section 2.2.5</a>

All OSSC votes shall be open and public votes, except election of officers, which is by secret ballot. Exceptions to the secret ballot may be made if there is only one candidate per office.

It should be noted that the lack of passage of a motion by the OSSC does NOT imply approval of the CONVERSE of the motion.

o. Voting Tool: The SPEC private server offers a "SPEC OSSC Proposal/Voting Tool" which may be used to act on proposals separately from meetings. When this tool is used, it automatically enforces the SPEC Consensus Voting Rule.

p. Advisers: The OSSC can, after notification in writing to the Board of Directors, enlist the aid of advisers and consultants from the industry and academe.

q. Coordination with Board: Certain organizational activities require board participation and approval. For example, the board must approve press releases, setting prices for benchmark licenses, and any major resource reallocations of SPEC administrative staff and Public Relations to assist with the non-technical aspects of releasing a new benchmark suite. This work may be facilitated by a joint committee of the board and the OSSC (e.g. Planning Committee) or proposals may be brought directly to the board by the Subcommittee or Steering Committee Chair.

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2.2 High Performance Group and SPEC

The High Performance Group (HPG) is chartered to manage and supervise the technical development of the SPEC/HPG benchmarks suites. In case of any conflict between provisions within this Charter and Resolutions enacted by HPG, the Resolutions shall prevail. In case of any conflict between HPG's Resolutions and SPEC's Articles of Incorporation and Bylaws, the Articles of Incorporation and Bylaws shall prevail.

2.3 High Performance Group Steering Committee

The voting membership of the High Performance Group constitutes the High Performance Steering Committee (HPSC). HPSC is formally charged with managing and supervising the development of SPEC/HPG benchmarks.

2.4 Participation Levels

Terminology note about SPEC "Membership": SPEC is a California nonprofit mutual benefit corporation. Governing law has certain formal terminology regarding membership (see, for example, California Corporations Code sections 5056 and 7331). SPEC's Bylaws authorize only one class of membership in the corporation. It is understood that one sometimes sees the term "member" used in a looser sense, and indeed the law appears to recognize that the term "member" may be used in a less formal sense (7333). However, this section 1.6 follows the formal usage of the Bylaws, which clearly say that SPEC has only one class of "Membership".

Any company or organization interested in the technical development of HPG benchmarks is welcome to participate and must be willing to abide by SPEC's Bylaws, the Fair Use Guidelines, the Guidelines for Handling SPEC-confidential Material, HPG’s Policies and Procedures and pay the initiation fee and annual dues determined by the Board of Directors.

HPG provides for three types of participation: Sustaining Membership, Not-for-profit Associates and Supporting Contributors. Universities and non-profit institutions are eligible to become sustaining members, but at their option may prefer to join as "Non-profit Associates", as described in Section 2.4.2.1.

2.5 HPG Officers, Elections, Voting, & Meetings

The HPG officers include a Chairperson, Vice Chairperson, Secretary and Release Manager(s) elected from the membership. Elections for officers will be held at the beginning of each calendar year to be set by the Chair. The HPG officers serve for one year and are eligible for re-election. If any elected office becomes vacant for any reason, HPG shall duly elect a replacement to serve the remaining term.

Each HPG Sustaining Member shall have one vote in all matters. Groups of Five Associates may combine to cast one vote; the single vote cast by each group of Associates is equal to a single Sustaining Member vote. When there are fewer than five Associates available to form a combinatorial group, those Associates present will be deemed a sufficient combinatorial group to cast one vote. Supporting Contributors are not entitled to voting rights.

To conduct business there must be a quorum. The group's quorum is a simple majority of the voting membership. All HPG votes shall be open and public votes, except the election of HPG officers, which is by secret ballot. Exceptions to the secret ballot may be made if there is only one candidate per office. A voting member may vote 'yes', 'no', 'abstain', or 'pass' when the vote is first called. If the member votes 'pass', the chair will return to that member to finalize their vote as either 'yes', no', or 'abstain' after the remaining members have voted. The motion will pass if the number of 'yes' votes exceeds the number of 'no' votes. Votes of 'abstain', count only toward establishing quorum. It is the responsibility of the chair to make sure that member's reasons for voting 'no' or 'abstain' are recorded in the minutes. Absent Members will be marked as absent, unless proxies have been received.

A voting member not attending two consecutive duly noticed meetings, including face to face meetings and conference calls, will have their voting rights suspended. The suspension of voting rights will take place at the beginning of the next scheduled meeting. Voting rights are reinstated at the beginning of the second of two consecutive meetings that the member attends.

HPG’s Face-to-Face meetings shall be held no less than twice a year. One meeting shall be held in conjunction with SPEC's annual meeting. One of the other meetings will accommodate HPG’s membership. Teleconferences are usually held every week, for no more than one hour. The schedule for these meetings is posted on the private page.

2.6 HPG Guidelines for Result Submission and Review

Each benchmark suite produced by HPG includes a set of specific run and reporting rules that the licensee must follow to produce a publishable result. These basic tenets of these rules require:

• Proper use of the SPEC benchmark tools as provided.
• Availability of an appropriate full disclosure report.
• Support for all of the appropriate protocols and standards.

Furthermore, SPEC expects that any public use of results from this benchmark suite shall be for systems and configurations that are appropriate for public consumption and comparison. Thus, it is also expected that:

• Hardware and software used to run this benchmark must provide a suitable environment for the application area(s) targeted by the benchmark.
• Optimizations utilized must improve performance for a larger class of workloads than just the ones defined by this benchmark suite.
• The tested system and configuration is generally available, documented, supported, and encouraged by the providing vendor(s).

SPEC reserves the right to adapt the benchmark codes, workloads, and rules of its benchmarks as deemed necessary to preserve the goal of fair benchmarking. SPEC will notify members and licensees whenever it makes changes to a benchmark or its run and reporting rules.

2.7 HPG Technical Support Guidelines

The members of HPG are responsible for providing adequate resources to handle technical support questions regarding current benchmark suites. It is the goal of technical support to provide timely response to questions regarding the nature and usage of these benchmark suites to help facilitate testing by other SPEC benchmark licensees. The purpose of SPEC's technical support is NOT to provide OS, compiler or other vendor tool support or assistance. At the technical support person's discretion, the user may be referred to a third party, who may charge a fee for such support.

For each released benchmark, the SPEC administrator will maintain an email alias (i.e. ompm2001support@spec.org). HPG may establish a quarterly rotation schedule among its active members (based on license number) to serve as technical support person. In special cases, a member may be assigned to provide support for specific subset of technical support questions for an extended period or to handle support for a specific geography. It is the Chair's responsibility is to see that questions are answered promptly and provide backup when the vendor on rotation becomes unavailable. The current support representative or chairs may assign a technical support call to another member, if they believe vendor specific knowledge may be required to resolve the call.

The SPEC administrator remains the initial point of contact for technical support questions. The administrator will make the determination as to which email alias the problem is reported to.

2.8 HPG General Member Guidelines

HPG is open to any organizations that have an interest in the use and development of standardized performance benchmarks for high performance computer systems. By joining the HPG, members may:

• Receive copies of all currently released HPG benchmark suites.
• Freely distribute copies of HPG benchmark suites within their company, including wholly owned subsidiaries. Country export and any other restrictions must be adhered to as per the license agreement.
• Submit an unlimited number of benchmark results to HPG for review and publication on SPEC's website.
• Become active members by contributing engineering resources to the development of new benchmark suites.
• Join any or all of HPG email aliases and receive access to the members’ only website.
• Attend any or all meetings of HPG and SPEC general membership, and open SPEC Board of Directors meetings.
• Stand for election to HPG according to the guidelines above.
• Receive access to preliminary (beta) versions of benchmarks currently in development for internal review and to provide feedback to the appropriate subcommittee.
• Vote on any proposed benchmark suite submitted for General Membership approval.

Members are expected to uphold the policies and principles endorsed by SPEC and the High Performance Group. This includes policies described in this document and amended by resolutions of HPG; SPEC's Articles of Incorporation and Bylaws; policies adopted by the SPEC Board of Directors; and any applicable set of benchmark run and reporting rules. Members are also expected to remain members in good standing by the prompt remittance of annual dues. Membership privileges will be suspended if dues have not been received by the SPEC administrator by March 31st. Membership privileges will be restored once dues have been paid.

2.9 Fair Use of SPEC/HPG Benchmark Results

Consistency and fairness are guiding principles for SPEC. To assure these principles are sustained, the following guidelines have been created with the intent that they serve as specific guidance for any organization (or individual) who chooses to make public comparisons using SPEC benchmark results.

When any organization, including vendor or research oriented organizations, or any individual makes public claims using SPEC benchmark results, SPEC requires that the following guidelines be observed:

1. Reference is made to the SPEC trademark. Such reference may be included in a notes section with other trademark references (see http://www.spec.org/spec/trademarks.html for all SPEC trademarks and service marks).
2. The SPEC web site (http://www.spec.org/) or a suitable sub page is noted as the source for more information.
3. If any public claims or competitive comparisons are made, the results stated or compared must be compliant with that benchmark's run and reporting rules and must cite the following: SPEC metric, CPU description (number of chips and cores), and number of OpenMP threads and/or MPI ranks.
4. If competitive comparisons are made the following rules apply:

1. the basis for comparison must be stated,
2. the source of the competitive data must be stated,
3. the date competitive data was retrieved must be stated,
4. all data used in comparisons must be publicly available (from SPEC or elsewhere)
5. the benchmark must be currently accepting new submissions if previously unpublished results are used in the comparison.

5. Comparisons with or between non-compliant test results can only be made within academic or research documents or presentations where the deviations from the rules for any non-compliant results have been disclosed. A compliant test result is a test result that has followed the run rules, and has been submitted and accepted by SPEC. SPEC HPG makes recommendations for the academic or research use of benchmark results in the document, "Guidelines for the Use of SPEC HPG Benchmarks in Research Publications."

The following paragraph is an example of acceptable language when publicly using SPEC benchmarks for competitive comparisons:

Example:

SPEC® and the benchmark name SPEComp® are registered trademarks of the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation. Competitive benchmark results stated above reflect results published on www.spec.org as of Jan 12, 2002. The comparison presented above is based on the best performing 4-cpu servers currently shipping by Vendor 1 [SPECompMbase2001 1245, 4 cores, 2 chips, 8 threads], Vendor 2 [SPECompMbase2001 1243, 4 cores, 4 chips, 4 threads], and Vendor 3 [SPECompMbase2001 1000, 4 cores, 1 chip, 4 threads]. For the latest SPEC OMP benchmark results, visit http://www.spec.org/omp/results/.

The following is the list of approved SPEC HPG metrics and submetrics that may be used for competitive comparisons within the guidelines of the Fair Use Rule:

SPEC MPI2007:

• Metrics: SPECmpiM_base2007, SPECmpiM_peak2007, SPECmpiM_2007.
• Individual benchmark SPECratios with the inclusion of the metrics.
• Median run times of the individual benchmarks with the inclusion of the metrics.
• Clearly identified estimates of metrics may be used.

SPEC OMP (OMPM2001 and OMPL2001):

• Metrics: SPECompMbase2001, SPECompMpeak2001, SPECompLbase2001, SPECompLpeak2001, SPECompM2001, SPECompL2001.
• Individual benchmark SPECratios with the inclusion of the metrics.
• Median run times of the individual benchmarks with the inclusion of the metrics.
• Clearly identified estimates of metrics may be used.

SPEC HPC2002:

• Metrics: SPECchemM2002, SPECchemS2002, SPECenvM2002, SPECenvS2002, SPECseisM2002, SPECseisS2002

SPEC HPC96:

• Metrics: SPECseis96_SM, SPECseis96_MD, SPECseis96_LG, SPECseis96_XL, SPECclimate96_SM, SPECclimate_MD, SPECclimate_LG, SPECclimate_XL, SPECchem96_SM, SPECchem96_MD, SPECchem96_LG, SPECchem96_XL

2.10 Other Resources

HPG can, after notification in writing to the Board of Directors, enlist the aid of advisors and consultants from the industry and academia.  Certain organizational activities require board participation and approval. For example, the board must approve press releases, set prices for benchmark licenses, and allocate resources of SPEC administrative staff and Public Relations to assist with the non technical aspects of releasing a new benchmark suite.

This work may be facilitated by a joint committee of the board and the HPG (e.g. Planning Committee) or proposals may be brought directly to the board by the HPG Chair.

2.11 Benchmark Release Approval

The process to approve the release of new benchmark suites consists of several steps. HPG must finalize the benchmark and prepare a beta version that can be recommended for general membership review. General membership refers to all the members of HPG and not just the members who actively worked on developing and testing the benchmark suite.

When this beta is ready, the committee must send out a final call for comments to the General Membership. A member has four weeks from that time to review and comment on the benchmark. The member should send their comments back to HPG.

At the conclusion of the final call for comments period, the voting membership of HPG will take part in a final vote to approve the benchmark for release.

A.1.0 Introduction

SPEC is an industry consortium whose membership includes many competing for-profit corporations. Membership in SPEC is open to all persons who are directly and materially affected by SPEC's activities, and participation in SPEC activities is generally open to all members. However, in order to protect the interests of SPEC and its members, and to encourage free and open participation and discussion to further SPEC's objectives, public release of SPEC internal information may be prohibited without explicit approval from the SPEC organization concerned. Violators of this policy will be subject to the full force of the SPEC penalties process.

A.2.0 Anti-Trust Compliance

Since all SPEC meetings are to be conducted in compliance with all applicable laws, including anti-trust laws, the following policies shall be followed in the course of SPEC meetings, telephone meetings, and electronic exchanges: Any discussions that relate to the validity or cost of patent use should be avoided. Any discussions or any material relating to an ongoing litigation shall be avoided, except for the Board in executive session with advice of counsel to discuss matters affecting SPEC. Any discussions of pricing or issues that would violate US antitrust laws shall be avoided.

A.3.0 How Information is Classified and Unclassified

SPEC officers and the SPEC Administrator may explicitly designate certain information classified and mark it appropriately. Any member that wishes to be sure that its information is treated as SPEC Confidential should clearly label each page (electronic or hard copy) as such. It is the member's responsibility to assure that such information is appropriately labeled. Information not explicitly marked but which meets the descriptions in this policy must be taken as though it were so marked.

Classified information may become public through the authorized public release of the information by SPEC or by a member. If classified information is disclosed without authorization (leaked), that does not automatically remove its classification and relieve participants of the obligation to protect that information from further disclosure. However, if an unauthorized disclosure is widespread, then a SPEC officer may redesignate that information as public, stating the reason for so doing.

A.4.0 Classifications

SPEC identifies two levels of internal information which must be protected by SPEC members and associates, employees, and contractors, in accordance with these policies. "SPEC Confidential" is the ordinary classification of information which should not be disclosed outside SPEC. "SPEC Confidential Need-to-Know" refers to the most sensitive information described below.

A.5.0 Who May Have Access to SPEC Confidential Information

Confidential information is provided to SPEC members through their designated primary SPEC representatives, and those representatives of SPEC subcommittees designated by the member's primary SPEC representative. It is the responsibility of those representatives to determine who within a member company should have access to the information in order to carry out the member's SPEC activities; and it is their responsibility to ensure that anyone who does have access to SPEC Confidential information understands and agrees to abide by these guidelines. A member's SPEC representatives should use whatever internal controls are appropriate in their company to ensure that the member complies with SPEC's policies on confidentiality.

A.6.0 Meetings

Information about the activities and developments of SPEC are intended to be readily available to all parties with legitimate interests in the performance of advanced computer systems. The Board is responsible to carry out this policy.

The annual meeting of the SPEC membership must be open to any interested party with a legitimate interest in the work of the Corporation, including the press. Other meetings of each SPEC group and committee must be open to representatives of every member of that group. It is expected that meetings of any SPEC group will also be open to members of any other SPEC group, to encourage wider participation and exchange of ideas. However, a SPEC group may set a more restrictive policy for some or all meetings, subject to Board review. Interested parties who are not SPEC members, but who have a legitimate interest in its work, may be invited to its meetings by the SPEC group holding the meeting.

A.7.0 Results Review

Benchmark results submitted for SPEC review, as for publication on the SPEC web site, are considered <strong>SPEC Confidential</strong>. This includes the benchmark result, the configuration, availability dates, and tuning notes. Within a member company this information should be shared with only those people necessary to provide a thorough review of the results, per paragraph 5.0.

Information which the submitting company makes public is not considered confidential. E.g., a company may issue a press release or briefing listing performance of new systems and, around the same time, submit those benchmark results for SPEC publication. In this case, details included in the full SPEC disclosure under review which were not included in the company's public announcement, are not considered SPEC Confidential because the run rules of each benchmark require the full SPEC disclosure to be publicly available.

If results are later published, then the result is public. If results are withdrawn or not accepted during SPEC review and are not published, then they remain SPEC Confidential. E.g., if a company submits results that are not accepted for SPEC publication, you may not make public use of that fact.

New and unique optimization techniques that appear in a result disclosure should not be utilized by another member until the original submission has completed its review cycle. The subcommittee may decide to suspend a result in review should this guideline not be followed. Trying to surpass a result currently under review is considered common practice and is not prohibited. Published information found in press releases, public web sites, manuals, etc. can be used at any time.

A.8.0 SPEC Press Relations

Press releases from SPEC must be approved by the SPEC group concerned, and by the Board.

SPEC members may occasionally be interviewed by the press, e.g. on the subject of newly released benchmarks. Normally SPEC's PR consultant will participate in such interviews in order to see that SPEC is treated fairly, and to assure all SPEC members that information is being represented in an unbiased manner. The Board Press Committee may on a case by case basis, waive this requirement, based on such factors as: degree of controversy of the subject, potential for appearance of conflict of interest by the spokesman, legal advice, advice from SPEC's PR consultant, recommendation of steering committee and technical committees and their chairs, experience of spokesman, experiences with the reporter, etc.