Path: gmdzi!unido!mcsun!uunet!usenix!ellie
From: el...@usenix.ORG (Ellie Young)
Newsgroups: comp.org.usenix
Subject: Election Results for Board of Directors
Keywords: USENIX Association
Message-ID: <349@usenix.ORG>
Date: 15 Apr 90 20:39:26 GMT
Organization: Usenix Association Office, Berkeley
Lines: 48
Posted: Sun Apr 15 21:39:26 1990
The results of the elections for Board of Directors of
the USENIX Association for the 1990-92 term are as follows:
President:
Marshall Kirk McKusick 472*
Vice-President:
Michael O'Dell 730 + 112 abstentions
Secretary:
Rob Kolstad 716 + 126 abstentions
Treasurer:
Sharon Murrel 725 + 117 Abstentions
Directors:
Ed Gould 468
Rick Adams 426
Evi Nemeth 380
Barry Shein 360
___________________________
Not elected:
For President:
Steve Johnson 347 *
For Director:
Sonya Neufer 317
Daniel Geer 291
Daniel Klein 280
Peter Collinson 261
Max Vasilatos 242
Dave Taylor 232
* 13 abstentions (people abstaining for both candidates for
President)
There were 6 invalid ballots
Total number of ballots cast: 838 (6 invalid ones)
Ellie Young
Executive Director
USENIX Association
Path: gmdzi!unido!mcsun!sunic!uupsi!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!aplcen!uunet!usenix!ellie
From: el...@usenix.ORG (Ellie Young)
Newsgroups: comp.org.usenix
Subject: 1990 Board of Directors
Keywords: Candidates Statements
Message-ID: <337@usenix.ORG>
Date: 15 Mar 90 00:21:33 GMT
Organization: Usenix Association Office, Berkeley
Lines: 898
Posted: Thu Mar 15 01:21:33 1990
1990 Board of Directors Election Information
The following 1990 USENIX Board of Directors' Candidates' Statements along
with ballots were sent to all paid-up members as of March 7, 1990, on or about
March 12. Members will have until April 6 to return their ballots to the Asso-
ciation office. The results of the election will be announced at the Anaheim
Conference and in the next issue of ;login:. Newly elected directors will take
office immediately following the Anaheim conference in June.
*****************************************************************
Candidate for President
Stephen C. Johnson
(s...@usenix.org)
Biographical Information
Ph.D. in Mathematics, Columbia University, 1968. Joined Bell Labs, 1967, where
I worked in computer music, psychometrics, computer algebra, computer theory,
VLSI design. Wrote yacc, lint, and the Portable C Compiler. Co-author (with
Dennis Ritchie) of the first UNIX port. Joined Stardent Computer as Vice
President in 1986. Joined NCUBE in 1990. Member of the USENIX board, 1984-
1990, Treasurer, 1986-1990. Taught tutorials at USENIX and EUUG.
Position Statement
For USENIX to succeed, we need to have both a vision of the future and an
attention to the details of the present. The details are largely handled by
the staff; the board's chief role is making sure that the staff is empowered
with resources and direction to continue our conferences and publications, and
that the often confusing financial picture doesn't get out of hand. My years
of experience as a manager and as USENIX Treasurer have given me a detailed
knowledge of the details and a good working relationship with the staff.
My vision of USENIX is as the meeting ground of the technical and the
practical. UNIX has become the universal base for operating systems; we can no
longer use UNIX as a simple way to distinguish ourselves from ACM or IEEE.
USENIX is already moving beyond UNIX, and I propose to accelerate this, sup-
porting, for example, Mach and Chorus rather than POSIX and yet another BSD
UNIX, C++ rather than ANSI C, technical innovation rather than standards wars.
I also want to see USENIX encourage a broader group of attendees-men, women,
students, neophytes, gurus, kernel hackers, and systems administrators, but all
with a technical, practical orientation. We have a lot to gain from diversity,
and should be flexible enough to accommodate many different peoples' needs.
In my career, I have combined management and timely product delivery with
innovation and active technical involvement (including papers in USENIX and ACM
conferences and the Journal). Join me so USENIX can go forward with this vi-
sion.
********************************************************
Candidate for President
Marshall Kirk McKusick
(mckus...@berkeley.edu)
Biographical Information
Kirk McKusick got his undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering from Cor-
nell University. His graduate work was done at the University of California at
Berkeley, where he received Masters degrees in Computer Science and Business
Administration, and a Computer Science Ph.D. in the area of programming
languages. While at Berkeley he implemented the 4.2BSD fast file system and
was involved in implementing the Berkeley Pascal system. He currently is the
Research Computer Scientist at the Berkeley Computer Systems Research Group,
continuing the development of future versions of Berkeley UNIX. He has been a
member of the USENIX board since 1986. He is a member of the editorial board
of UNIX Review Magazine and a member of ACM, IEEE, and USENIX.
Position Statement
The goal of the USENIX Association as stated in its charter is the ``exchange
and communication of research and technological information and ideas pertain-
ing to UNIX and UNIX-related computer systems.'' The strength of the organiza-
tion has been its emphasis on presenting the leading edge of UNIX research and
technology. USENIX should continue to have conferences and workshops with re-
fereed papers and proceedings available at or before the conference. I am com-
mitted to the new member services that we have started in the past two years.
These include an inexpensive subscription service to receive all the USENIX
conference and workshop proceedings published during the year, an online data-
base of past proceedings along with the ability to order back copies of the in-
dexed proceedings, and the expansion of half to full years membership checkoff
at the summer conference. I favor eliminating the licensing restrictions on
the tutorials that we offer at our conferences and am pleased that USENIX has
been able to eliminate the licensing restriction on my own BSD tutorial.
The emergence of the commercial UNIX marketplace has necessitated large
marketing-oriented conferences such as those run by UniForum. Although many
members of USENIX need or want to attend these conferences, USENIX should not
try to host marketing-oriented conferences. An appropriate compromise is to
work with UniForum to schedule separate conferences that are held at the same
time and in the same city so that members can attend both conferences in a sin-
gle trip.
During the past term, I championed the By-Laws change to limit tenure on
the board; enthusiasm and new ideas require new faces on the board. I would
like to see further changes in the election procedures so that the voters have
more choice than approving the slate of officers picked by the nominating com-
mittee. For the first time in the history of the organization, you have a
choice for President of the board; I can ask for your vote, not your approval.
Educational, research, and advanced commercial development communities have a
major role in the development and promulgation of UNIX. As a researcher at an
academic institution, my viewpoint will perform a key role in representing
these interests.
*****************************************************
Candidate for Vice President
Michael D. O'Dell
(m...@usenix.org)
Biographical Information
Mike O'Dell received both his B.S. (1976) and M.S (1980) degrees in Computer
Science from the University of Oklahoma. He has been an avid UNIX proponent
since writing a PL/I program to print Fifth Edition manual pages from a tape of
nroff(1) output. He later went on to install and run the University's first
college-wide timesharing system. Upon escaping university, he joined the
Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory where he survived the ARPAnet's Great TCP Conver-
sion. Currently, Mike is living the life of a Consultant after having served
most recently as the Chief Computer Scientist for an ill-fated start-up company
working on a GaAs supercomputer. He remains active in the areas of networks,
operating systems, electronic music, and of course, UNIX.
His recent USENIX activities include:
o USENIX Board of Directors, Member-at-Large
o Editor-in-Chief of Computing Systems, the USENIX quarterly journal
o Board of Directors, UUNET Communications Corporation
Position Statement
I am standing for election to the Board of Directors as Vice-President in order
to continue serving the Association in general, and the Board in particular.
Our most recent Vice-president, Deborah Scherrer, set a very high mark for ser-
vice in this office and I intend to honor the tradition.
The USENIX Association was founded to provide services to the technical
and professional UNIX community, and I remain deeply committed to this mission.
My Board tenure has been engaging, at times amusing, and always rewarding. My
role as Editor-in-Chief of the journal is one of the most gratifying jobs I
have ever had, and the new book publishing initiative just approved by the
Board is even more exciting. As a Director of UUNET Communications Corpora-
tion, I provide ongoing communication between the Association and its inventive
offspring. These jobs are all extremely rewarding and I appreciate the oppor-
tunity to serve the community in these ways.
USENIX continues to experiment with services and activities: the Profes-
sional Development Seminars, the new Concurrent Sessions at the January confer-
ence, and the new book initiative are all examples. I believe the greatest
challenge remains understanding and refining what makes us different from other
groups. As UNIX continues to grow in popularity, there is a very real risk of
the Association changing from a group of innovative futurists into the protec-
tors of the status quo, or of becoming indistinguishable from the ACM or the
IEEE. These alternatives are utterly unacceptable.
On the other hand, we have a long, deeply-cherished tradition of being the
conduit for technical information exchange within the UNIX community, and we
cannot forsake that role lest we disown our birthright. Therefore, the dual
challenge is to remain a beacon of technical information for the newcomers and
new converts to UNIX, while at the same time continue to move forward as we
must. Thus far, the Association has avoided success disasters - i.e. failures
resulting from too much success. But as UNIX becomes more mainstream (who
would have believed that would ever be a serious concern?) the risks increase
and the balancing act becomes even more crucial.
The Association continues to have a wonderfully eclectic membership (a
short perusal of the BOF Board at any conference is ample proof) and I feel a
deep obligation to not only look after the affairs of the Association, but to
nurture our reputation as being THE group focusing on the hard technical issues
of UNIX and Beyond, while maintaining our tradition of congeniality and con-
viviality.
A final thought - Inventing the future is a FUN job. Come to USENIX and
share it!
***********************************************************
Candidate for Secretary
Rob Kolstad
(kols...@usenix.org)
Biographical Information
B.A.Sc. (Computer Science) Southern Methodist University, 1974.
M.S.E.E. (Electrical Engineering) Notre Dame University, 1976.
Ph.D. (Computer Science) Univ. Illinois at U/C, 1982.
Software Manager, Sun Microsystems. Co-Program Chairman 1985 Winter USENIX
Conference. Chairman 1988 Winter USENIX Conference. Co-Chairperson USENIX
1987 Systems Administrator Conference. Frequent speaker at USENIX conferences.
Member of USENIX board 1986-1990. Fourteen years of UNIX experience.
Position Statement
The success of Users' Groups in general depends heavily on their correct
discernment of their role in their particular community. USENIX's success and
strength has been achieved in two ways. One way USENIX succeeds is by enabling
and enhancing communication among all levels of UNIX users: through confer-
ences, ;login:, the Journal, Usenet mapping, UUNET, manual distribution, tu-
torials, and workshops. USENIX must continue to engender projects like these
and to monitor and improve their quality.
But potentially more important even than communication is innovation. The
USENIX board continually strives to attain and experiment with new ideas and
projects. Conference chairmen continually try new ideas: talks that run on a
schedule, proceedings with work barely two months old, works-in-progress ses-
sions, and alternative tracks. Few disagree that UUNET and the new workshop
formats are innovative. This innovation continually revitalizes the organiza-
tion and its membership. Now that UNIX is older, the distribution of member's
experience with it is more diverse. We must serve innovation to all our
members.
I believe USENIX should continue to foster the positive communications and
innovation that are so visible to the community. I have worked over the last
four years to encourage the revival of small workshops as vehicles for focused
technical gatherings, acquired two 75 megabyte distribution tapes of public-
domain sources, upgraded the presentation of conference proceedings, enabled
more students to attend conferences, and encouraged identification and funding
of relevant projects. If re-elected, I will continue to work to support pro-
jects such as these and new innovative ones which contribute services or pro-
ducts to enhance not only communications but also technology within the UNIX
community. The April 1990 planning meeting will be the next milestone on the
road to new projects. I will be there with new proposals. If reelected, I
also intend to explore the budget in ever more detail to understand how USENIX
can balance the costs and services to its users.
******************************************************
Candidate for Treasurer
Sharon Murrel
(research!eowyn)
Biographical Information
Sharon Murrel has been a member of technical staff at AT&T Bell Laboratories
for 12 years. After completing her undergraduate degree at New York University
and all but her doctoral thesis at the State University of New York at
StonyBrook, she joined the Labs. There she developed a real-time satellite
system named Parasite with Ted Kowalski and wrote a series of experiments and
processes using that system, after which she did a thesis on computer con-
ferencing and did receive her PhD from StonyBrook. She then wrote monk, a
database-driven formatting interface to troff. It is designed to simplify the
end user task, however, its main focus has been the development of typographi-
cal databases and the high-level language in which they are written. She is
now working with the interactive visual editors for tbl and troff, new troff
preprocessors for layout and placement as well as glossaries. All of these new
tools are being used to produce the AT&T Technical Journal in-house. She is
now experimenting with new layout primitives for troff and with releasing some
of her functioning tools. Both difficult tasks.
Position Statement
I have now been a member of the USENIX board for two years. It takes much of
the first year to wet ones ears; so by now it is really fun and productive. In
a fit of enthusiasm, I am standing for the post of Treasurer. I admire the
successful development of the Association from a small, casual group of techies
to a large, structured and yet still technical organization. The organization
remains as strong as the technical content of its meetings, tutorials and
publications. With the introduction of more technical workshops and the recent
advent of the journal, these are constantly improving. The board is now
launching an effort to publish technical monographs --which is magnificent
technically but may not be attractive to most publishers because of its limited
distribution.
USENIX must maintain its position as the forum for the technical innova-
tions proposed and implemented by its increasingly diverse membership. USENIX
can and should be innovative, reaching to include technical exchange about new
languages and new operating systems. I advocate more technical workshops, more
effort to foster communication among the diverse interest groups and more fund-
ing for novel member projects. I have worked with Eric Allman, Lori Grob, and
the Executive Director, Ellie Young, to organize the recent set of concurrent
sessions. Attended by between 100 and 265 people, these talks provided some
theory, history and practical nitty gritty about regular expressions, Make,
networks, support, Nawk and Perl. This first series can only be described as a
success both in terms of quality and attendance. USENIX hopes to continue this
talk series and to extend these sessions to provide small forums for the infor-
mal exchange of technical information.
Educational, research and advanced commercial development communities play
a major role in the development and acceptance of UNIX. It is important that
all of these communities be represented on the board. As a member of the
research community at a small and backward, but long-lived UNIX facility, my
viewpoint will bring a breath of fresh air in representing alternate interests.
Moreover, the board needs an AT&T representative to heckle during discussions
of the UNIX Operating System's future.
********************************************************
Candidate for Director
Rick Adams
(r...@uunet.uu.net)
Biographical Information
BS in Computer Science, 1979, MS, 1980, Purdue University
Systems Analyst, Purdue University, 1981-82
Member Technical Staff, RLG/CCI, 1982-83
Chief Systems Programmer, Center for Seismic Studies, 1983-89
Founder, President, Technical Director, UUNET Communications Services,
1989-present
Editorial Advisory Board, Computing Systems, 1990
Co-Author !%@:: A Directory of Electronic Mail Addressing & Networks
Maintained Usenet B news software, 1982-88
Maintained BSD UUCP software, 1985-present
Current interests: communications, networking, operating systems
Invited speaker: INRIA, Paris, France; IX International Conference of the
Chilean Computer Science Society, Santiago, Chile; and others
Position Statement
I have attended a majority of all USENIX board meetings since October, 1986.
While my participation at those meetings was presenting reports and observing,
I learned a great deal about how USENIX functions as an organization. This,
coupled with my three years experience as both a UUNET board member and the
person responsible for UUNET's day-to-day operations greatly enhances my abil-
ity to serve on the USENIX Board.
USENIX continues to enjoy financial success. While traditionally USENIX
has depended heavily on volunteer efforts, it's time for the Association to
``adopt'' successful volunteer efforts like the FaceSaver and Terminal Room and
consider them integral parts of the Association's services. This adoption
would ensure the continued availability of these services and would allow a
continued high level of service without the uncertainty that sometimes is
present with volunteer efforts.
This would free volunteers from the operational nuisances of providing
these proven valuable services and allow them to devote their efforts to other
innovative and potentially successful efforts.
************************************************************
Candidate for Director
Peter Collinson
(pc%ukc.ac...@NSS.Cs.Ucl.AC.UK)
Biographical Information
In 1973, after graduating from the University of Essex, UK with a B.A. and
Ph.D. in Computer Science, I took up a post of Lecturer in Computer Science at
the University of Kent at Canterbury. In 1976, I found myself running UNIX V6
on a small PDP11/40. In 1980, Kent had acquired a VAX 11/780 and I was respon-
sible for writing the code supporting a Cambridge Ring Local Area Network for
UNIX 32V and later 4.[0123]BSD. This predated full commercial availability of
Ethernet and the invention of sockets. I stopped teaching in 1983 and headed a
support group that was actively involved with the development of UNIX on the
Kent campus. A large part of the effort here has been the establishing of the
UK Usenet backbone. I left the university in 1989 to form my own consultancy
firm. The company is dedicated to earning enough money to allow me to pursue
my own interests: doing whatever, whenever, wherever.
I have always been interested in user groups. I was an early member of
the UK group, and became its Chairman for a year in 1978. After resigning, I
stayed on the committee and was a founding member of the EUUG. Between 1982
and 1988, I served the EUUG in various capacities from ranging from Newsletter
Editor to Secretary.
My USENIX activities include:
o Invited speaker for the Washington 1987 `Great USENIX Snowflake'
conference. Presented the `Science fiction' paper.
o EUUG representative to Dallas Winter 1988 `The nearest sidewalk is 20
miles away' conference.
o Presented paper at San Francisco Summer 1988 `People go home by 3pm
Friday, so let's show the others a neat video' conference. Ran and
judged contest.
o Attended the Washington Winter 1990 `Let's all go and bait the Board
Candidates' conference.
o Editorial board member of Computing Systems since the start of publica-
tion.
Position Statement
I am grateful for the opportunity to stand for election to the USENIX board
since it allows me to continue to contribute to the worldwide community of com-
puter users. The community has been fostered by UNIX and also by the growth of
the network, in which I have played a part.
In a world where corporate interests dominate the future of UNIX, USENIX
has a vital independent role. The Association is adapting well to the differ-
ing needs of old and new members; careful, rather than radical evolution seems
to be the key to success.
Why should a foreigner run for USENIX? USENIX is not just a North Ameri-
can organization - approximately 15% of the membership are not US or Canadian
citizens. I have been a USENIX member since 1977. Originally I was the in-
stitutional representative for the University of Kent. I am now an individual
member.
Won't a foreigner be costly to transport to board meetings? No, it can
cost less to fly from London into an international US airport than it does to
fly from one US coast to another.
What can a foreigner do for USENIX? I believe I can bring a fresh and in-
formed perspective to the administration of the Association. My EUUG experi-
ence has been very relevant at the board meetings I have attended, Dallas 1988
and Washington 1990. I enjoy being involved with running User Groups - and I
am good at it.
*********************************************************
Candidate for Director
Dr. Daniel E. Geer, Jr.
(g...@athena.mit.edu)
Biographical Information
S.B., 1972, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts In-
stitute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass.; Sc.D., 1988, Biostatistics, Epidemiol-
ogy, and Artificial Intelligence, Harvard University, School of Public Health,
Cambridge, Mass.
Member: Association for Computing Machinery (1975), Massachusetts Public
Health Association (1978), American Public Health Association (1980), American
Association for Artificial Intelligence (1980), Biometrics Society (1981),
Society for Industrial & Applied Mathematics (1981), American Statistical Asso-
ciation (1981), Society for Medical Decision Making (1983), USENIX Association
(1985), (Session Chair 2/88;, Tutorial Instructor 6/88, 2/89, 7/89;, Program
Committee 10/89-2/90;, Session Chair 2/90), Society for Artificial Intelligence
and Statistics (1988).
For over four years, I have led the Systems Development group at MIT's
Project Athena in the design, implementation, and propagation of the world's
largest centrally managed, vendor neutral, scalable distributed computing en-
vironment. The design requirements of that effort led directly to a UNIX based
solution, and have allowed me to demonstrate my leadership abilities as we have
moved a large university from departmental time-sharing to a network services
model of computation. Our software, such as the X Window System and the Ker-
beros network authentication system, are now ubiquitous in the UNIX community.
The rest of my 20 years of experience is in the area of medical, clinical, and
statistical computing, areas where there exist significant opportunities for
the expansion of the UNIX environment, and where I have particular expertise.
My chief technical interests are computing in the large, wide area systems ad-
ministration, computer assisted cooperative work, and (software tools for) mul-
timedia workstations.
Position Statement
My interest in the Board of Directors is natural: USENIX is the single organi-
zation with both the longstanding commitment to open systems and the technical
throw-weight to make the right things happen. My various past USENIX activi-
ties as an author/presenter, Program Committee member, Session Chair, Tutorial
Speaker, and BOF convener illustrate my involvement with UNIX issues, and my
role as the principal technical speaker to the roughly 2500 visitors Project
Athena entertains annually indicates my commitment to expanding and improving
the UNIX universe. I believe my experience and vision can serve the USENIX or-
ganization well as UNIX grows in the 1990's. I would very much appreciate your
support, and pledge the kind of activism that takes the long range view.
******************************************************
Candidate for Director
Ed Gould
(e...@mtxinu.com)
Biographical Information
For the last seven years, I have been working at MT XINU, a Berkeley, Califor-
nia, supplier of BSD- and Mach-based operating system software. MT XINU is,
among other things, employee owned and dedicated to employee management. Prior
to co-founding MT XINU in 1983, I was a member of the technical staff of the
Computer Center of the University of California at Berkeley, where I did
software development for a home-grown variant of the operating system for a CDC
6400 and, starting in 1976, software development and systems administration for
a collection of UNIX systems. After leaving U.C. in 1982, I managed UNIX
systems and did software development for two R&D groups at National Semiconduc-
tor Corporation.
Position Statement
I have been attending UNIX Users' conferences since 1977, before the current
USENIX Association was formally incorporated. Over that time, I have seen the
organization grow from an ad-hoc collection of (mostly) kernel hackers getting
together to discuss which bugs they had each tripped over and fixed, to a
moderately large, professionally-run organization serving a diverse community.
As the community of UNIX Users has grown and diversified, so has the
membership of USENIX. The membership has an ever-growing set of needs that the
organization might choose to address. One of the primary challenges facing
USENIX over the coming years is to balance maintaining the level of technical
content in its conferences and publications against recognizing that more and
more of the membership consists of people new to the UNIX system.
I would like to see the organization continue to grow-not necessarily in
size, but as a provider of services to its membership. We have seen interest-
ing changes over the last few years, including the inauguration of Computing
Systems and the increase in the number of workshops and the attendance at the
workshops. The experiment of having a track of what I like to call ``nuts and
bolts'' sessions running in parallel with the traditional research-oriented
track was a great success. More such sessions at future conferences look to be
a wonderful way to include more of the membership into the main stream of the
conferences.
In general, I see USENIX as an organization whose purpose consists largely
of two related items. First is education. It's clear that one of the major
purposes for attending a USENIX conference is to take the tutorials. The tu-
torial program has been well run and the tutorials themselves have been of high
quality. We need to maintain at least the current level of tutorial offerings,
and increase those offerings whenever the combination of interest, qualified
speakers and space are available.
Second, the Association is a vehicle for disseminating information about
happenings in the UNIX community, and for fostering communication among users.
In recent years, there has been a strong emphasis on research-oriented presen-
tations at conferences. While research topics are important and of continuing
interest to much of the membership, there is a large-and growing-segment of the
USENIX audience that can be better served by presentations with more day-to-day
value. Also, with the increasing penetration of network connectivity, due in
part to the success of the USENIX-sponsored UUNET experiment, some of the com-
munications functions that the Association has served in the past are being
well-served by other means. USENIX needs to continue to explore new ways to
facilitate communication among the UNIX community.
Another avenue that I think would be good for USENIX to pursue is that of
encouraging creativity and new ideas within the community. To this end, I
would like to encourage presentations about other operating systems-both com-
mercial systems (successes and failures, current and historical) and research
projects-at USENIX conferences. To some degree, the Association has already
ventured into this area, particularly in the workshop it recently co-sponsored
with ACM and SERC on Distributed and Multiprocessor Systems. I would like to
see continued emphasis on variety in the programming of the conferences.
*********************************************************
Candidate for Director
Daniel V. Klein
(d...@sei.cmu.edu)
Biographical Information
I am currently employed by the Software Engineering Institute in Pittsburgh. I
hold a Masters of Science in Applied Mathematics from Carnegie-Mellon Univer-
sity, and as an employee of the University, served for 4 years as Chairman of
both the Staff Council and University Grievance Review Board. I have been at-
tending USENIX conferences for 10 years, and have been working with the asso-
ciation since 1984. I was technical program chair for the Winter '90 Confer-
ence.
Position Statement
My goals as a director of the USENIX Association are simple, and can be listed
in two short items.
1. USENIX needs to foster quality in publications and research. We as an as-
sociation need to keep the level of technical excellence of the conferences and
of the work that we fund at a high level. The work we present at conferences
needs to be both interesting and worthwhile. UNIX and the members of USENIX
are all changing, and we as an organization need to grow with them.
2. USENIX needs to continue to attract new people. I do not mean that we
need to grow just for the sake of growing. What we do need to do is continue
to keep the Association, its conferences, and workshops enticing for both our
existing membership and for potential new members. As we as a community grow,
it essential for our personal development to continue to meet with new people,
to see new work, to generate new ideas, and to stay abreast of the new develop-
ments in our field.
When I chaired the D.C. conference, I set out to satisfy these two goals.
We tried to attract new people - the alternate sessions were a first pass at
broadening the appeal of USENIX; we maintained a high level of technical
content, although much of this credit goes to the authors themselves; and fi-
nally, we provided an entertaining and stimulating environment in which to ac-
quire the information available at the conference. I have a very strong com-
mittment to the organization, and want to do even more. Your vote will enable
me to do so.
***********************************************************
Candidate for Director
Evi Nemeth
(e...@lafayette.dartmouth.edu)
Biographical Information
Evi Nemeth earned her undergraduate degree in Mathematics from Penn State
University and Ph.D. degree, also in Mathematics, from the University of Water-
loo in Ontario, Canada. She joined the Computer Science faculty at the Univer-
sity of Colorado in 1981 and has helped expand the UNIX facility there from a
single PDP 11/70 to its present configuration of over 100 machines which serve
the research and instructional needs of thousands of students. Evi is
currently on one semester leave from CU to teach at Dartmouth College in Han-
over, New Hampshire.
Evi has been involved with UNIX since Version 6 days, though often more as
a political ally than as a developer. Evi instigated the use of UNIX in the
SUNY system in New York state and later at the University of Colorado. She is
a co-author (with two of her students) of The UNIX System Administration Hand-
book (Prentice Hall, 1989), has produced the Proceedings for almost all recent
USENIX Conferences, and has taught several USENIX tutorials.
Position Statement
Universities and students have always had a special symbiosis with UNIX and
USENIX. Even today as the system makes its way into the commercial world,
universities - Berkeley, Utah, CMU, MIT and others - continue to push the tech-
nical state of the art and contribute new ideas and utility.
One of my goals is to see the Association continue to maintain strong ties
to universities and to students. I also hope to influence the Association to
continue the innovation which enables it to serve all its members: not only
wizards and gurus but also newcomers - the future lifeblood of the organiza-
tion. To this end, I will support programs like the alternate track of non-
research talks that was so well received at the recent conference in Washing-
ton, D.C.
****************************************************
Candidate for Director
Sonya D. Neufer
(utzoo!canstar!sonya)
Biographical Information
Sonya Neufer received her Bachelor's degree in Computer Science from the
University of California, San Diego. While there, she worked for the Computer
Science department as an assistant to the systems administrator. She also as-
sisted in the development and instruction of a new undergraduate course which
taught the basics of UNIX to computer-naive undergraduates. She went on to
work for Datapoint where she introduced UNIX into their proprietary systems en-
vironment. This grew into a position as lead technical advisor for Datapoint's
introduction of UNIX into its product line. From there she was transferred to
Datapoint's Canadian Development office to assist in the implementation of
UNIX-compatible networking software for Datapoint's proprietary RMS Operating
System. She is now working as a systems analyst for Canstar, a company that
does software design and development for fiber-optic networks. Sonya organized
and ran the Terminal room at the San Diego, Baltimore, and Washington USENIX
Conferences.
Position Statement
The evolution of the USENIX Association over the last ten years has been out-
standing. The attendance at technical conferences is growing as UNIX catches
on in ever more diverse environments. As these environments grow, the Associa-
tion must grow with them, making sure the technical content at our conferences
maintains its high standards. We are getting better formal papers, now we need
to concentrate our efforts on the new informal (concurrent) sessions to in-
terest more of our members while retaining serious technical content.
I believe that as we approach 1992, USENIX should encourage closer par-
ticipation from similar international organizations. Considering the number of
common interests that are shared between EUUG, AUUG and USENIX there are many
avenues of cooperation that need to be explored. As well, with the new free-
doms in the eastern block, groups there are showing a growing UNIX membership
which should be welcomed as well.
Student participation in the USENIX Association is growing, but more work
is necessary to encourage students wishing to learn about the technical venues
available. Student grants have helped university students in attending confer-
ences, but more needs to be done to promote active student participation.
I have enjoyed working with the USENIX Association organizing and running
the Terminal room at the last three conferences. I hope that I will be able to
expand my participation into other areas as a member of the Board of Directors.
*************************************************
Candidate for Director
Barry Shein
(b...@world.std.com)
Biographical Information
President, Software Tool & Die
I have been an active member of USENIX for several years, most recently as
co-chair of the USENIX1 Software Management Workshop. I have been involved
with UNIX for over 13 years, going back to the early V6 days when I used UNIX
for real-time programming in medical research at Harvard.
In 1983 I became the first member of the Distributed Systems Group at Bos-
ton University and was charged with supporting UNIX and creating a campus-wide
network. During that time I was also a graduate student and lecturer in their
computer science department. I founded and I am currently president of
Software Tool & Die, purveyors to the trade.
Recently I created The Online Book Initiative, a public-spirited project
committed to providing freely redistributable online books and other texts. I
am technical editor for Sun/Expert magazine, a frequent contributor to the Con-
neXions internetworking journal and have worked on and created software which
is in common use in our community (xman, Franz Lisp, Macsyma, the cypress net-
work etc.) I have published many technical articles relating to UNIX, including
a recent paper at this past summer USENIX.
Moreover, I know what I am getting into (somewhat), I have spent the past
two years on the board of directors of the Sun Users Group and have served as
treasurer and secretary for that organization. I am not a stranger to the very
pragmatic responsibilities of running a user group.
Position Statement
In today's rapidly changing world many of us are concerned with finding a con-
tinuing role for USENIX. UNIX was once a maverick operating system who's
primary use seemed to be annoying the status quo. Everyone owned the sources
(full source only cost $60 in those halcyon days) and much of the UNIX com-
munity made fundamental modifications to the system itself.
USENIX's role in all this was providing a meeting place where those maver-
ick kernel gurus exchanged ideas. Today UNIX has become mainstream and is even
threatening to become the status quo. Today a much smaller percentage of peo-
ple who use UNIX own the sources, let alone have any interest in modifying
their systems as radically as we did.
But technology continues to advance at a breathtaking pace and fundamental
issues of how to adapt UNIX to that changing technology remain. We have seen
the growth of other UNIX user groups with missions to cater to commercial and
new users. I don't think USENIX's role has changed much in all this clamor,
nor should it.
I see USENIX's purpose as two-fold: First, to provide the means for
members of the UNIX community to communicate with each other and, second, to be
a place where we can get together and influence the future of UNIX.
Concern for the future of UNIX is what makes USENIX unique among the many
user groups. It is the organization you come to when you want to find out what
might be happening in the next several years or want to sound out a few new
ideas of your own. This is a critical role and I intend to see USENIX continue
to be vital as an organization which provides innovative channels of communica-
tion for those who shape the future of UNIX.
******************************************************
Candidate for Director
Dave Taylor
(tay...@limbo.intuitive.com)
Biographical Information
Currently President of Intuitive Systems, a consulting firm specializing in
user interface design, software marketing strategies and internationalization,
Mr. Taylor started in the computer field with a degree in Computer Science from
the University of California at San Diego in 1984. During that time, he was an
employee of Logicon T&TSD in San Diego. Following that, he began as a techni-
cal staff member at Hewlett-Packard Colorado Networks Operation in Fort Col-
lins, Colorado in 1984. Following a year and a half of PC networking, and on
the strength of his concurrent software development in the UNIX environment,
Mr. Taylor accepted a position as a research scientist at HP Laboratories in
Palo Alto, California. While at HP Labs he released the Elm Mail System to the
UNIX public, as well as work on remote mail aliases, a sendmail verification
suite, and similar. In early 1988 he moved into the HP University Grants
Program as Technical Project Leader, and helped steer the group to such impor-
tant research projects as Mach, Andrew, and Sprite. In late 1988 he resigned
from Hewlett-Packard to form Intuitive Systems, and has since consulted with
Hewlett-Packard, Apple Computer, Sun Microsystems, the Whole Earth 'Lectronic
Link, Merit Software, Artecon, and similar.
In addition to his work with computer programming and marketing, Mr.
Taylor has published well over 100 articles in trade journals, and has played a
key role in the publication of two books. Currently he is on the editorial
staff of ``The Sun Observer,'' ``The HP Chronicle,'' ``HP/Apollo Workstation,''
and ``Computer Language,'' as well as being UNIX columnist for ``Computer
Currents,'' a free regional newspaper.
USENIX related experience includes founding the Tutorial Evaluation Com-
mittee and being the only non-USENIX board member on the committee, as well as
having been on the program committee of a USENIX Technical Conference in 1987.
Position Statement
As a professional journalist, it is clear to me that the ``mission'' of the
USENIX Association is one of communication, or information dissemination. This
is a two-way street, and if we consider much of the success of the Association,
I believe we'll find that consistently the highest rated activities are those
that disseminate key UNIX related information to the members. For example,
consider the dramatic growth of the specialized topic symposia; when I became
active in the USENIX Association almost seven years ago, the only events I can
recall being sponsored were the two technical conferences each year. Now,
through focusing on the value of smaller, more narrow topic meetings, there are
over a half-dozen symposia each year, all well attended, and all offering in-
formation - and personal contacts - not easily available anywhere else.
To me, then, the key challenge that the Association has to face is how to
continue to offer the invaluable information to the members in the face of the
dramatically evolving UNIX marketplace, as well as with the encroaching com-
petition of UniForum and other vendor specific user groups. (The best way to
deal with this particular challenge is to work with the other groups, and as a
member of UniForum, the Sun Users Group, and the HP INTEREX Users Group, I am
also well positioned to aid in inter-group communication too)
Additionally, as a Member at Large, I believe that my role is best
described as an information funnel, not only to help members understand what is
going on with the board of directors, but, much more importantly, to aid the
board members in understanding what the views and ideas of the members are.
With that in mind, I think it's vitally important for a Member at Large to be a
current participant on Usenet and accessible via electronic mail, since these
are clearly the most popular vehicles for communication in the technical UNIX
community.
Finally, I'll wrap up by simply stating that while it's important that
USENIX retain the technical orientation that it started with, and that we hew
out a niche for ourselves in the expanding UNIX marketplace, it's perhaps just
as important that we have some fun in the process! I can't offer you a chicken
in every pot or two cars in every garage, but I can promise that we'll continue
to grow and learn more about UNIX every year and have an enjoyable time doing
it!
***********************************************
Candidate for Director
Alix Meredith Vasilatos
(a...@osf.org)
Biographical Information
A.B. (Economics) Vassar College, 1979; Ph.D. program (Marxian Economics)
University of Massachusetts at Amherst, 1979-82.
UNIX Distributed Services and Systems Administration person since 1981, at Har-
vard, BBN, GTE Labs, MIT Project Athena, and OSF. Many papers and talks on us-
ing UNIX, systems administration, and distributed services.
USENIX activities:
o Attendee, all but one conference since Boston 1982, plus some
workshops.
o Co-chair, Large Installation Systems Administration Workshop, 1987.
o Chair, Large Installation Systems Administration Workshop II, 1988.
o Informal Program Chair, Baltimore 1989 Summer Conference.
o Chair, Large Installation Systems Administration Workshop II, 1989.
o Program Committee, Washington D.C. 1990 Winter Conference.
Position Statement
I may be an atypical person, but in a typically technoid way, I am happy when
the UNIX community is comfortably and creatively computing and cogitating
along. I am trying hard to fix it so that everyone who wants to help sustain
the kind of USENIX we like and want can do so (by putting in straightforward
procedures that make it easy to ``jump in'' with contributions of ideas, time,
special talents, and comradeliness).
The key is information exchange, facilitated by USENIX on paper, USENIX on
the networks, USENIX at conferences: folks communicating technical ideas
everywhere, every way. USENIX can publish works that will inform the
brainstorming that everyone building a new facility or a new service goes
through. USENIX can help support public access systems with sufficient connec-
tivity that we can experiment with more nontraditional (noncorporate,
nonacademic, nondefense) participation in electronic mail, Usenet news, access
to free software, free text, library indices and other databases, multi-media
projects, and programming.
We of USENIX have been helping make things happen all along and it has
been A Good Thing. Having helped out with USENIX workshops, conferences, com-
mittees and miscellany for a few years, I'd like to help even more, in a more
integrated way, to do what we have to do to make sure that our community grows
- as it must - coherently, creatively, and collectively. Me, I'm wicked
psyched.
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