eric@MAMMOTH.BERKELEY.EDU (Eric Allman) (05/09/91)
CALL FOR PAPERS USENIX Winter 1992 Technical Conference January 20-24, 1992 San Francisco Hilton San Francisco, California Some believe that UNIX standardization efforts have killed innovation. And yet, we need innovation. Large write-once disks make the current filesystem unten- able. Even the 2 gigabyte file limit built in all through the system breaks. Gigabit networking clogs an I/O model designed to push hundreds of kilobytes per second, not hun- dreds of megabytes. System administration for thousands of machines? Programming tools for distributed workgroups? Object-oriented and visual programming? Microkernels with client/server architectures? RAID disk arrays? Transcon- tinental file servers? What's a programmer to do? The USENIX Winter 1992 Conference solicits new work on all topics related to UNIX or UNIX-inspired systems programming and technology. But as always, we care most about innova- tion and how it coexists with (and sometimes thrives on) stasis. Please target a sophisticated technical audience particu- larly knowledgeable of operating system issues yet keenly interested in new and exciting projects in many areas. Vendors are encouraged to submit technical presentations on products. However, we will reject obvious product announce- ments. Previously published papers will also be rejected, although ``retrospective'' papers may describe work done years ago. Submissions must be in the form of extended abstracts, 1500-2500 words in length (9000-15000 bytes or 3-5 pages). Shorter abstracts will not give the program committee enough information to judge your work fairly and, in most cases, this means your paper will be rejected. Longer abstracts and full papers simply cannot be read by the committee in the time available. However, you may append a full paper to an extended abstract; this is sometimes useful during evaluation. The extended abstract should represent your paper in ``short form.'' The committee will want to see that you have a real project, that you are familiar with other work in your area (i.e., include references), and that you can clearly explain yourself. Please, this is not a mystery to be solved: you should have results and they should be summarized in your abstract. A good submission will contain: Abstract + The abstract should be included verbatim in the final paper. Introduction + Introduce the problem: why is it important? + Reference previous work. How We Solved the Problem + More details on the problem and its issues. + Design decisions and tradeoffs, and why they were made. + Implementation details. Evaluation + Data on performance and effort required. + How well does it work? + What would you do differently? + If it failed, why? + What did you learn from it? Conclusion + Summarize the paper, emphasizing why it is important and what was learned. In addition to the extended abstract, every submission should include: + A clearly designated contact author who will be your link to the program committee. + A daytime phone number (essential!). + A surface mail address (required). + An email address, if available; email is by far our best path of communication. + A home phone number (optional, although questions often arise on evenings and weekends and it will avoid delays). + A FAX number (optional). + Any special audio/visual equipment you may require. A microphone, overhead projector, and 35mm projector will be provided as standard equipment. We are happy to pro- vide additional assistance and equipment to make your presentation as audio and visually appealing as possible. + Indication of student status. Presentations are usually scheduled for 25 minutes. The final date for submissions is August 19. Authors of accepted submissions will be notified by October 1. They will immediately receive instructions for the preparation of camera ready final papers to be published in the conference proceedings. Camera-ready papers of 8-12 typeset pages will be due by November 22. Submissions can be sent (in order of committee preference): via email to: SFusenix@Usenix.ORG or uunet!usenix!SFusenix via paper to: Eric Allman Computer Science Division, EECS University of California Berkeley, CA 94720 via FAX to: (415) 843-9461 Award for Best Student Paper: A cash prize for the best paper by a full-time student will be awarded by the confer- ence program committee. With your submission, please indi- cate if you are a full-time student. Award for Best Paper at the conference is also made by the committee. TECHNICAL PROGRAM COMMITTEE Chair: Eric Allman, University of California, Berkeley Rick Adams, UUNET Technologies, Inc. Andrew Birrell, Digital Equipment Corporation, Systems Research Center Tom Ferrin, University of California, San Francisco Bob Gray, US West Advanced Technologies Teus Hagen, OCE Steve Johnson, Athenix Pat Parseghian, AT&T Bell Laboratories Dennis Ritchie, AT&T Bell Laboratories Greg Rose, IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center David Rosenthal, Sun Microsystems Brent Welch, Xerox PARC RELEVANT DATES Abstracts Due Monday, 19 August Notification to Authors Tuesday, 1 October Camera-ready Papers Due Friday, 22 November Materials containing all details of the technical and tutorial program, conference registration, hotel and airline reservation information will be mailed in October 1991. If you did not receive a printed copy of this announcement directly and wish to receive the pre-registration materials, please contact: USENIX Conference Office 22672 Lambert St., Suite 613 El Toro, CA 92630 (714) 588-8649, FAX (714) 588-9706.