scs@itivax.iti.org (Steve C. Simmons) (07/14/89)
ggw@wolves.UUCP (Gregory G. Woodbury) writes: > Sure, I know my own work, and I think that someone out there might >like to hear about it, BUT... I'm just the computer guru for a soft-science >discipline shop (demographics) and don't get the consideration of taking >the time to prepare papers and going to conferences to present them. So? One of the most interesting (to me) papers from last winter was on the OED (Oxford English Dictionary) and how they pushed and shoved things to deal with this huge textual object. It doesn't matter much what the intent of your firm is, what counts is are you using UNIX in an interesting way to do it. > Besides that, the USENIX Call for Participation lists the "themes" >for the meetings, and my problems don't seem to match the recent themes. Submit anyway. There's always a 'grab-bag' or two in the sessions. And given the scarcity of good papers, I really doubt they'll turn it away just because it isn't on their topics list. Those themes are suggestions and guides, not handcuffs. -- Steve Simmons scs@vax3.iti.org Industrial Technology Institute Ann Arbor, MI. "Velveeta -- the Spam of Cheeses!" -- Uncle Bonsai
scs@itivax.iti.org (Steve C. Simmons) (07/16/89)
chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) writes: >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. Ugh! You hit that nail on the head. While working for an unnamed company I did some fun work with floating licence servers. I proposed writing it up for USENIX, and was turned down by the lawyers. As a counterproposal, they suggested I write it up for an internal technical conference. I did so, then left the company before the conference. The SOBs wouldn't even let me have a copy of my own paper! Fortunately many of my co-workers were real human beings and made me copies of the proceedings. Can't put it on my resume, tho. It's either "Let's see, you wrote this paper on floating licence servers in a heterogenous environment, but I can't get a copy because it's secret? Suuuurrreeee...." -- or -- "Let's see, you wrote this paper on floating licence servers in a heterogenous environment, and are now showing me a copy on it that says 'Confidential and Proprietary -- Not For Release' on every page? Don't call us, we'll call you." Any senior management types that are reading this newgroup: you *can* write papers without giving away the store. And the favorable publicity you get at USENIX is worth its weight in gold. Look at Marc Rochkind and his stuff. -- Steve Simmons scs@vax3.iti.org Industrial Technology Institute Ann Arbor, MI. "Velveeta -- the Spam of Cheeses!" -- Uncle Bonsai
libes@cme.nbs.gov (Don Libes) (07/16/89)
In article <2165@itivax.iti.org> scs@itivax.iti.org (Steve C. Simmons) writes: >chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) writes: >>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. >Ugh! You hit that nail on the head. >Any senior management types that are reading this newgroup: >you *can* write papers without giving away the store. And the favorable >publicity you get at USENIX is worth its weight in gold. Look at Marc >Rochkind and his stuff. I appreciate your feelings about how difficult it is to get technical papers out about commercial products. However, it should be noted that this year's program committee had a heated discussion about rejecting Marc's paper because it was "too commercial" and parts of it sounded like an advertisement. Fortunately, its technical merits exceeded its problems and the committee accepted it. Had there been more outstanding papers, the committee might have stopped searching for its technical merits sooner. One more thing for potential authors to remember. Incidentally, this illustrates another problem that can show up when full papers are not required by the Call For Papers. I hope I didn't offend anyone by giving away committee secrets or getting personal - in fact, I thought Marc's paper was excellent. I think it would be illustrative to reproduce some of the committee decisions for future authors. Evidentally many authors had a very different view of what the committee was looking for. Don Libes libes@cme.nist.gov ...!uunet!cme-durer!libes