control@almsa-1 (William Martin) (07/16/85)
Just received a DECUS "Membership Audit" form in the mail, and am filling it out. I turn it over and look at the top of the back side, where it asks for entries under the categories of: MAJOR OPERATING SYSTEMS? LANGUAGES USED: (This form is set up for mark-sense reading, and has fill-in-the-circle marks for the choices selected; no provision for write-ins.) Do I find an entry for "UNIX"? *NO!* Do I even find an entry for "ULTRIX"? *NO!* There is an entry for "C" under the "languages" section, but, as far as DECUS is concerned, it seems like the entire UNIX world, a quite significant section of the DEC marketplace, does not exist! I wrote in "UNIX" anyway. If there is anyone reading this who has some official position in the DECUS US Chapter office, please take immediate action to pull all copies of this form and either reprint them with UNIX (and Ultrix) entries, or modify them to add these entries, and also instruct the people processing the forms to look for write-ins for UNIX in this section. To anyone out there who receives a copy of this form, please write-in "UNIX" (if you use it, and it would be likely if you can read this...). Good grief! Will Martin ARPA/MILNET: wmartin@almsa-1.ARPA UUCP/Usenet: seismo!brl-bmd!wmartin
jwl@decwrl.UUCP (Jim Livingston) (07/17/85)
This is my first posting to the net, but I hope it won't be my last. The article which elicited it was a response to one of the DECUS U.S. Chapter's more egregious failures to acknowledge that both PDP-11 and VAX hardware run a common base operating system. I refer, of course, to the fact that UNIX and Ultrix both were omitted from the membership audit questionaire. This is particularly troublesome to me, since I'm the Chair of the UNIX special interest group, UniSIG. We have a fairly large number of folks who identify themselves as associated with the SIG, and I think they're probably all as irked as those who've posted to the net. Alas, those folks don't all read net news, and so won't be privvy to the suggestion I'll make for dealing with the omission: identify yourself as interested in UniSIG, and write in UNIX (in large letters) on the audit form. I'll make certain that those entries are counted by the data collectors back in the DECUS staff office! In addition to thus expressing yourself, please ask your colleagues who get the form to be sure to do the same thing, and to send it in to the DECUS office; if they aren't returned, the SIG loses, and we're just beginning to get something solidly going. Watch this space for previews of the Anaheim DECUS symposium. James W. Livingston, Jr. DECUS UniSIG Chair Measurex Corporation One Results Way Cupertino, CA 95014 (408) 255-1500 x5556