suggestions for future conferences

[Dick Dunn]

> Why not open USENIX up for more than the very-specialised, very-advanced
> topics that seem to make up the sessions now? I'm sure there are lots of
> people out there, sysadmins for instance, who might have something
> to say that would help make other people better informed about UNIX...

There's a problem with this suggestion:  Although it might increase the
number of submissions, it wouldn't increase the number of submissions of
the type which interest most of the people who attend now.  What it would
do is increase the number of people who want to attend...and I think there
is already a far-more-than-optimal number of people attending.

I would also disagree that the set of topics is very specialized or
advanced...
> I understand that USENIX is a *technical* conference,...

...which is just the point.  The criteria that Henry indicated for papers
seem to have been generously applied.  When the topics are sufficiently
advanced to be of interest to people of moderate sophistication, they have
to be somewhat specialized--you cannot examine anything very large in
detail in 20 minutes.

>...and I like that, but
> speaking as a first-time USENIX attendee at San Diego, there were an awful
> lot of the sessions that held neither the faintest interest nor relevance for
> me or for my work...

I won't try to dispute your experience, but I found a lot of papers which,
while not relevant to my work or my particular areas of interest, were
nevertheless both interesting and understandable.  I think there were 34
papers presented if I count correctly; there were about 5 or 6 that, even
with hindsight, I would have skipped.

>...(and the room was never again as full as it was for the
> keynote)...

Sure, but you expect a general decline in attendance across the sessions,
as people meet other people and get diverted to matters of particular
interest.  (The presentations are NOT the only thing going on.)  Besides, I
think a lot of people go to keynote addresses to see "who is this guy, any-
way???"  Certainly that's the case with someone in charge of such a big
chunk of AT&T.  I made sure I was there because I wanted to find out
whether he would explain the behavior of AT&T in the past year or so that
could only with considerable charity be described as "egregiously unusual"
and managed to bring IBM and DEC together in OSF.  (Alas, I was
disappointed; O'Shea was altogether too sharp to explain any of it...but I
digress, and #include <stddisclaimer.h> anyway...)

> I don't intend this as criticism, just a suggestion that accepting more
> general topics *as*well*as* the papers that you accept now might be beneficial
> to everyone involved with USENIX, UNIX and other related things.

I disagree that the technical sessions should be so redirected, but I do
think there's something else here for USENIX to think about.  There's a
tremendous demand for education on UNIX-related topics, and USENIX is in a
good position to capitalize on it because it has some built-in filtering of
the high-level bogosity that comes in a lot of traveling mistrel-and-$600-
seminar shows.
-- 
Dick Dunn      UUCP: {ncar,nbires}!ico!rcd           (303)449-2870
   ...Just say no to mindless dogma.