Uniforum...

[Henry Spencer]

> Also, I was very disappointed in this years Usenix.  Seemed that its scope
> is very narrow and that unless you were interested in performance or
> data bases, the only interesting talks occured on day one ...
> I have always enjoyed the more open format of the past.

Remember that this is the winter Usenix; you are thinking of the summer
meetings.  (Look at last year's winter meeting if you don't believe me --
if you thought *this* one was narrow...)

As I recall, the original reason for two conferences a year was an abundance
of things to talk about.  The network has taken over a lot of the real-time
interaction, and the adoption of parallel sessions and selective acceptance
of papers has reduced the bulk of the conferences proper.  I've been saying
for a long time that Usenix no longer had a good justification for having
two yearly general conferences, and that the winter one would either mutate
into something else or die.  It's trying to mutate into a combination of
tutorials and specialized workshops, and partially succeeding.  The inevitable
result is that it is less interesting to people who don't happen to be deeply
involved in the specific topics chosen for a particular year.
-- 
Legalize			Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
freedom!			{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry