Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!brl-adm!brl-sem!ron From: ron@brl-sem.ARPA (Ron Natalie) Newsgroups: comp.org.usenix Subject: Re: Usenix vs. Uniforum Message-ID: <562@brl-sem.ARPA> Date: Tue, 6-Jan-87 04:06:50 EST Article-I.D.: brl-sem.562 Posted: Tue Jan 6 04:06:50 1987 Date-Received: Tue, 6-Jan-87 19:38:37 EST References: <2833@osu-eddie.UUCP> Organization: Electronic Brain Research Lab Lines: 47 In article <2833@osu-eddie.UUCP>, mdf@osu-eddie.UUCP (Mark D. Freeman) writes: > I have been on the net for over a > year, but I am unfamiliar with the distinctions between DECUS and > /usr/group, and lately with the Usenix vs. Uniforum concept. Societies --------- DECUS - DEC User Society. They run there own conventions and other activities. While they have UNIX special interest groups, they are DEC Hardware rather than UNIX software oriented. USENIX - an outgrowth of the Unix Users Group is a Unix User's Group. /usr/group - The commercial UNIX user group. Formed probably from the fact that USENIX was dominated by a bunch of Universities that were very anti-commercial product. They tried to change their name to something that non-UNIX people could spell but it didn't catch on. Conferences ----------- DECUS - Lots of things going on at once for VAX, PDP-11's, DEC-20's, etc... including sessions for nearly every DEC Operating System. In addition some non-DEC specific panels on things like networking are also scheduled. USENIX - Twice a year USENIX puts on a technical conference. For a long time the Summer was the East Coast and the Winter was the west coast but that has been messed up in recent years. Usually accompanied by decent tutorials for both the beginner and the in depth UNIX hacker. The format of this conference switches between a traditional presented papers format and Workshops (like Denver) and Forum (like the upcoming D.C.). I think that most technical get more out of the traditional style, but that is my opinion. UNIFORUM - Originally the name given to the combined /usr/group and USENIX show, I think this name is actually owned by /usr/group. Anyhow the twice a year /usr/group /vendr/show has the spiffiest Exhibition Floor but the talks and the tutorials seem to hit things like how to raise venture capital and the like which may or may not interest you. Over the past few years USENIX and /vendor/show have tried to at least partially arrive in the same cities at the same time. Washington, D.C. two years ago was the first. Dallas was the second, and now it returns to Washington. -Ron