Letter from John Donnelly, Re: Boston Meeting

[utzoo!decvax!harpo!ber]

          March 12, 1982

          MEMO TO: USENIX Members

          FROM:    John L. Donnelly

          SUBJECT: Boston Meeting


          The following comments are mine and do not necessarily reflect
          the views of any other member of the USENIX Board of Directors.

          I believe the USENIX Board of Directors is committed to serving
          the technical community in the UNIX world.  The joint meeting
          with /usr/group in Boston is an effort to accommodate the commer-
          cial members of USENIX, who represent a considerable number.
          These people do not want to be attending four separate UNIX meet-
          ings a year.

          USENIX is not losing any time for technical presentations at Bos-
          ton.  In fact, we may even be gaining time slots.  We are able to
          hold concurrent sessions in Boston, a situation which is necessi-
          tated by the growing attendance at out meetings.  Reviewing the
          Santa Monica agenda, I can identify at least seven hours of what
          I consider commercial presentations.  Allowing for lunch and cof-
          fee breaks, that constitutes one full day, so the technical peo-
          ple only had two days at Santa Monica.

          Boston is a four day meeting.  Two days will belong to /usr/group
          and two days to USENIX.  Software Tools will be help concurrently
          with one of the commercial days.  USENIX will have the ability to
          hold concurrent sessions on the days /usr/group is meeting.  This
          yields an increase in the amount of time available to USENIX for
          technical presentations.

          This scenario is based on the premise that USENIX does not want
          total exclusion of commercial presentations at its meetings.  The
          "hackers only" attitude is what caused /usr/group to exist in the
          first place.  I feel that if USENIX ignores the commercial
          interests it is digging its own grave.  A lot of USENIX members,
          my organization included, look to the commercial world for UNIX
          support and development.

          The topics of "profits" from the meetings is very misleading.
          All of the budgets for the previous meetings have been designed
          to cover our meeting expenses, with a buffer of about $2,000.00
          to cover unexpected costs.  Any surpluses resulted from a larger
          attendance that anticipated.  We are now attempting to move away
          from a volunteer concept in running the organization and produc-
          ing the newsletter.  This is going to require a substantial
          amount of cash and our most likely source of generating income
          for operating expenses is the meetings.

          /usr/group is in the same position.  It depends on meeting reve-
          nue to cover most of its operating expenses.  This does not por-
          tend a drastic rise in registration fees for attendees.  A sub-
          stantial portion of the meeting expenses at previous meetings has
          been borne by the vendor exhibits.  The demand for exhibit space
          at our meetings is tremendous.  We have doubled the amount of
          space available for vendor exhibits in Boston and will increase
          the fees.  Since two exhibits a year instead of four will signi-
          ficantly reduce vendor costs, increased vendor fees should not be
          met with much resistance.

          Finally, the joint meeting with /usr/group in Boston was not
          unanimously endorsed by the Board of Directors.  I acted in good
          faith when I approached /usr/group about a joint meeting in Bos-
          ton and committed USENIX to such a venture.  A majority of the
          Board members voted to support the joint meeting proposal because
          of this, even though they had serious reservations.  I sincerely
          feel the joint meeting is in the best interests of both organiza-
          tions and the fears expressed by USENIX members about the Boston
          meeting will not materialize.