First impressions

[Chuq Von Rospach]

smb at ulysses.homer.nj.att.com (Steven M. Bellovin) writes:


>The Program Committee -- of which I was a member -- was disappointed in
>the quality of papers submitted.  The subject was raised at the open
>Board meeting at Usenix; no consensus on what to do about it was reached.
>Remember one thing -- we can't schedule papers that aren't submitted.
>If people want more good papers, they should start submitting them.

Part of the problem, I think, is that Un*x itself has grown up. In the Good
Old Days of Usenix, we were talking about something that was primarily an
educational and research toy, so you'd do something interesting and write a
paper on it.

Un*x is big business now. Different Un*x boxes are fighting for revenue and
value-added compatibility is the name of the game ("yes, we're compatible,
but we just happen to have all this neat stuff nobody else has...."). So I'm
sure some folks are doing lots of interesting things they'd love to talk
about but the lawyers won't let them -- or by the time they do get approval,
it isn't interesting any more. 

Technical papers are a prime focus when you're doing research. Much of the
Un*x community these days, though, aren't researching any more, they're doing
comercial development of some kind or another, and I think that makes it
harder to coax papers out of them and their companies. So while the Unix
audience and the Unix world have grown massively, I don't think the pool of
paper writer's has grown significantly. Many of the names in the Baltimore
proceedings are the same names I find in the San Diego proceedings.



Chuq Von Rospach      =|=     Editor,OtherRealms     =|=     Member SFWA/ASFA
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You are false data. Therefore I shall ignore you.