jsq@longway.TIC.COM (John S. Quarterman) (08/24/88)
As I mentioned previously, I will bring up the issue of local chapters at the next USENIX Board of Directors meeting, which is in mid-October. However, it would be useful if there were specific recommendations for what people want local chapters to be (or whether they want them). There are two main aspects to consider: Benefits and detriments to local groups. Benefits and detriments to the USENIX Association. In addition, If there are several groups in an area, which would be the chapter? Unfortunately, such words as ``chapter'' and ``affiliation'' are vague, and mean different things to different people. Things people have said that chapters might want: Use of the USENIX name. More members because of use of the USENIX name. Publication of chapter details in ;login: Money. Meeting organization pointers. Speakers. Possible advantages to USENIX: More members. Better communication with technical people. Potential sources of experience people for workshops and conferences. Local implementation of USENIX projects. Of the first list, use of the USENIX name is the biggest hurdle for the Association, I would think. It implies some sort of control by the Association over what the local group could use the name for. How could this be done? What form should it take? Publication of chapter details is already being done: chapters aren't needed for that; just send your information to the USENIX office and ask for it to be published. Regarding money, >They send [ /usr/group ] us money for every person who is a member >of the national group, I find it hard to imagine USENIX doing this. Grants for specific projects, on the other hand, are not inconceivable. Meeting pointers are either easy or difficult, depending on how you look at it. USENIX doesn't run the same kind of meetings as local user groups, so it's not clear that the Association has the right expertise to provide. But there are some rather useful written pointers for running conferences and workshops. There is also a tentative plan to have a short tutorial on such material at the San Diego USENIX. There's no need for chapters for this. As for speakers, it's not usually too difficult to get a USENIX board member to talk at a local group meeting. Coordinated plans to delegate speakers to many local chapters would be a major undertaking, however. >I can find no reason why you would believe that you would be responsible >for debts, etc. From your point of view, there would be no OBLIGATION > to do anything for the affiliate groups, other than that which you decide > should be done Exactly. Part of the question is: what should the obligations be? Affiliation could, for example, take the form of USENIX directly paying local staff to coordinate local chapters. It seems likely that this could entail legal obligations for debts of such groups. Affiliation could also take the form of simply publishing information about local groups. Apparently there is some desire for something between these two extremes. But what, exactly? > The tax-exempt status is NOT affected by local groups. That depends on the nature of the affiliation. Tax exempt status is very important to the Association, as many things would be much more expensive to do if taxes had to be paid. This has to be considered. >Perhaps you could contact someone at /usr/group to discuss it? It is interesting to see what /usr/group has done, but, as is pointed out: >The technical people NEED a readily recognized gathering location. This is in reference to a state where a /usr/group chapter exists. So USENIX is wanted to provide something different from what /usr/group provides. There's no reason to believe the methods of provision would necessarily be identical. Of the list of potential benefits to USENIX above, the only one mentioned previously in this newsgroup is more members. But USENIX does not go to great lengths to recruit new members, for various reasons that are too lengthy to go into here (if I even understand them correctly). The other items on the list are my speculations, and they are very speculative. The USENIX Board of Directors has a responsibility to the existing membership. Protecting the uses to which the name is put is part of that responsibility. If you want to use that name, you need to convince the board that such use is to the benefit of the Association, to the local groups, and preferably to the technical community at large, and that there are no overriding problems with such use or with other aspects of chapter affiliation. It's an interesting idea, but I know that I, for one, am not yet convinced. From talking to Debbie Scherrer, she doesn't sound convince yet, either. We're not likely to convince ourselves without assistance from those of you who want this. I suggest the following: Those of you who want local chapters of USENIX, please try to address these questions and issues and provide a short (page or two) proposal for the board to discuss. You can send it by electronic mail to usenix!peter or peter@usenix.org. By the first week of October would be fine. I will ask the USENIX staff to inquire of /usr/group, ACM, and perhaps IEEE as to why they have chapters, what are the benefits and detriments, and what is the nature of the affiliation. Meanwhile, more discussion in this newsgroup would be useful. I've dropped the former usa Distribution from this article, both because Canada is just as much a participant in the USENIX Association as the U.S., and because there might be interest or input from elsewhere. For example, EUUG deliberately fosters development of organizations in member countries by holding conferences in them to draw attention and local participation. This is not so easy to do with USENIX, because the size of the conferences makes it necessary to schedule them five years in advance, and greatly limits the places they can be held. But workshops might be useful for this purpose.
rick@seismo.CSS.GOV (Rick Adams) (08/25/88)
The biggest problem with affiliating with local groups. There is an implicit endorsement of the local group with the affiliation. Now, what happens if some nice, well meaning people set up a local user group and get USENIX to affiliate with them. Then, in the next election, a group of flaming morons stage a coup and replace the "good" people with their own set of "bad" people with an entirely different agenda. There is now an implicit endorsement by USENIX of these "bad" people who will be trading on the name. Can USENIX unaffiliate because they no longer want to be associated with the new group? If they do, will they get sued for it? This is not as silly a scenario as you might expect. It could have happened this year if USENIX had endorsed/affiliated with local groups. The hassle was avoided because they happened to have no official affiliation with the local group. It seems to be a fairly simple argument. What are the real benefits to USENIX (which means USENIX members)? - Virtually none. Are there potential problems? - Yes, lots. Is the benefit worth the potential costs? Very Doubtful. Note that this doesnt mean USENIX should not provide some assistance to local groups (as they do now). It just means that a formal arrangement can be a lot more trouble than it's worth. --rick
trb@ima.ima.isc.com (Andrew Tannenbaum) (08/25/88)
The idea of having local chapters of a global association of scientists and engineers is not a new one. I don't see any reason not to follow the well-established lead of the clearest candidates, like ACM, IEEE, DECUS, etc. I'm not saying that USENIX is the same as any of these, but for the USENIX staff to dismiss the idea with questions like "What happens if someone breaks his leg playing softball at the Boston USENIX picnic" is sort of ridiculous. Andrew Tannenbaum Interactive Boston, MA +1 617 247 1155
reggie@pdn.UUCP (George W. Leach) (08/25/88)
In article <230@longway.TIC.COM> jsq@longway.UUCP (John S. Quarterman) writes: >As I mentioned previously, I will bring up the issue of local chapters >at the next USENIX Board of Directors meeting, which is in mid-October. >However, it would be useful if there were specific recommendations for >what people want local chapters to be (or whether they want them). A good starting point would be to poll the existing local user groups who are listed in ;login:. Judging from my limited knowledge of local user groups in Florida and New York, I think one will find that they vary widely in purpose, organization, membership makeup, etc..... In New York there is UniGroup. I never joined, while I resided in the area for a variety of reasons, one of which was a membership fee was charged for which I did not perceive the benefits being worth it. For the same reason I never joined a local chapter of the ACM or IEEE. Upon arriving in Florida about a year ago, I found a local user group that did not charge any money, was loosely organized and basically under the total control of the folks who put the effort into showing up each month at the meetings. There are other local groups in Florida, who are organized differently and do things a bit different. The nice thing is that each group is free to be what they feel their purpose calls for without any direction from outside. A local user group servers a very different purpose than does the USENIX Association. And as such, I really don't see very much for either to gain from a stronger affiliation than is currently enjoyed. -- George W. Leach Paradyne Corporation ..!uunet!pdn!reggie Mail stop LF-207 Phone: (813) 530-2376 P.O. Box 2826 Largo, FL 34649-2826