Registering for the USENIX/Uniforum conferences

[Don Libes]

The following thoughts are given with the presumption that I'm paying
for registration at USENIX but want to at least see the vendor
exhibits at UniForum if not something else there if it sounds good.
What do I have to pay/fill out?

How to register for both conferences is unclear.  The UniForum
brochure doesn't say anything about the USENIX conference while the
USENIX brouchure has one line (page 3) that says "attendees will
receive complimentary (see 3 below) registration to UniForum's Trade
Show" which I find very vague.

I called the registration number to get the answers to several
questions, and thought others might be interested.

0) There is no discount for joint registration.

1) If you register for USENIX, you automatically get to see the
UniForum exhibits.  (The folks at UniForum were a little confused.
One (KB) said that our USENIX badges would allow us admission.
Another (GHW) said that we had to take our badges over to the
conference desk, and that we could register for a free exhibit badge.

Evidently the exhibits are free, but perhaps it will save aggravation
if you fill out the "free" part of the UniForum form.  (Yeah, ANYONE
can register for the exhibits FREE as long as you do it in advance.)

2) The UniForum workshops are free to USENIX attendees.  (I assume the
UniForum BoFs are as well, but they couldn't tell me for sure.)

3) The "complimentary" UniForum conference proceedings are not
complimentary unless you actually PAY for your UniForum registration.

4) No one knows what the UniForum keynote speakers are speaking about.
Unlike the USENIX brochure which clearly identifies what the keynote
speaker will discuss, the Uniforum brochure does not (for any of the
three speakers).  No offense, guys, but I'm not going to go on the
strength of your bios alone.


In all, I found four talks at UniForum that I'd like to hear, but two
of them overlap with USENIX talks.  Sigh.  Maybe I'll just pay the $50
for the "complimentary" proceedings instead of the $220 registration
and read them later.  Of course, there is no guarantee that any
particular talks will be included since it says "This valuable
reference volume includes ... most technical papers presented ..."
("most" means "more than half", right?)  Ok, here's my $220.

By the way the tag line of UniForum is "The Biggest UNIX System Event
of the Year" (obviously they weren't around when my last program
dumped core) while the one for USENIX is "The Workshops & Technical
Program may be cancelled in the event of snow, but we'll see you at
the Party [the real reason we're all here] no matter what."

Don Libes          libes at cme.nist.gov      ...!uunet!cme-durer!libes

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