Unix system users form national support group

Press, 12 June 1984, Page 34

Unix system users form national support group

By DR DICK COOPER University of Canterbury A national users’ group to foster the support and use of the Unix operating system has been formed. The group arose from the highly successful Unix workshop which was held at the University of Waikato on May 16-18, attended by 150 people. At a special meeting guidelines for a constitution for the group were defined and officers were elected. The president for the first year is Brian Peace from the department of management studies at Auckland University. Other elected representatives cover a wide spectrum of commercial and university users. The author has been elected an officer of the group. The users’ group has been set up to encourage sharing of information, software and documentation about Unix and its “look-alikes.” It will also attempt to provide advice and technical support to its members. One of the first aims is to set about the production of a quality newsletter to disseminate information about Unix and related products, and it is hoped to produce the first of these in a few months. There are student, full member and corporate membership categories, and

application forms are available from me. The Unix workshop was successful in attracting three overseas visitors. Mike Florio, president of the American/usr/group described how his group had been formed to provide a commercial push for Unix software in comparison with the largely research and educational emphasis supported by the Usenix group. With the rapid emergence of Unix as an operating system in the commercial market place, this new organisation is having a considerable influence on its development. It has defined a long overdue Unix standard to be met by all “lookalikes,” and has established a working liaison with A. T. and T., the owner of Unix, to ensure that users’ needs are being met. The other two overseas guests both work for Bell Laboratories. lan Johnstone described the current development work on the System V release of Unix and the way it is continuing to be developed. The particular emphasis is in the area of networks, providing the necessary layers of software to enable Unix systems to communicate with each other simply. The workshop was particularly fortunate in having Dr Ken Thompson present. Dr Thompson, one of the

originators of Unix, is very much a technical person and did not wish to give a formal paper. However, during the last session he presented his views on the workshop and where he thought the users’ group should be headed. He noted that on a population basis, the meeting had a 50 per cent higher attendance than the recent Uniforum conference in America which attracted over 9000 attendees. He was particularly keen that efforts should be made to establish a connection in New Zealand with the Usenet network. This provides a valuable information dissemination and mail service throughout the world, with 2000 connected “nodes” and up to 10,000 sites connected indirectly. As a result of his encouragement, it appears certain that this link will soon be established. There were a number of other invited speakers from New Zealand, and the workshop also had a number of parallel sessions covering technical, non-technical and tutorial-type discussions. It was clear, also, that with the majority of the attendees accommodated on the university campus, the discussions were extended well into the non-timetabled hours. The accompanying exhibi-

tion was disappointing with only five Unix systems suppliers having demonstrations (DEC and NCR being the only “large” computer companies represented). This perhaps reflects the status of Unix. As a piece of software, it is widely recognised by users as being valuable because of its aids to software development and its portability. Many manufacturers, however, view the portability issue as a mixed blessing because customers may as easily move off their equipment as move on to it. However, with IBM “legitimising” Unix with the recent release of a version for PC, it is believed that there will be a greater need by other manufacturers to support it directly. Over all, the workshop provided a worth-while basis on which to establish the ongoing support of Unix, although it is probable that it did not completely satisfy the needs of either the Unix “learners” or the “gurus.” However, it is clear that conferences on this subject will become an annual event and it is likely that such criticisms will be noted for future planning. As a consequence, future Unix meetings are likely to be even more successful than this initial venture.