------------------------------------------------------------ UniNews The Biweekly Newsletter For UniForum Members ------------------------------------------------------------ Issue Date: July 20, 1994 Volume VIII, Number 11 ------------------------------------------------------------ UniNews is written and published by UniForum's publications department. For information on articles in this issue or to contribute news to future issues, contact Don Dugdale at don@uniforum.org or (408) 986-8840, ext. 29, or (800) 255-5620 ext. 29. Copyright 1994 by UniForum. All rights reserved. UNIX is a registered trademark, licensed exclusively by X/Open Co., Ltd. UniForum is a trademark of UniForum. Printed in USA. UniNews (ISSN 1069-0395) is published biweekly for $12 per year (membership dues) by UniForum, 2901 Tasman Dr., Suite 205, Santa Clara, CA 95054. Except for individual use by member subscribers, no portion of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior permission of UniForum. UniNews is presented in ASCII format. It is also available in PostScript by accessing the UniForum World Wide Web Server. Point your WWW client to http://www.uniforum.org. ------------------------------------------------------------ Table of Contents: o X/Open Set To Begin UNIX Branding o Internet Commercialization is Here o Ted Hanss Leads OSF's End-user Effort o Members View UNIX Unification o Looking for a Few Good Writers o Is Your Local User Group Calling? o AUUG's Victorian Chapter Organizes Social and Technical Programs o UniNews Recruitment and Positions Wanted o For Cold Summer Nights... o UniForum Member Benefits ------------------------------------------------------------ X/Open Set To Begin UNIX Branding ---------------------------------- Program will coincide with release of products later this year X/Open Co., owner of the UNIX brand name, is gearing up to begin a formal branding process for UNIX products. Although a schedule has not been announced, indications are that the branding process will coincide with the release of new UNIX-based products by system vendors later in 1994. "We are absolutely on schedule" for awarding of the UNIX brand, X/Open's chief technical officer, Mike Lambert, told an audience at the recent Xhibition conference in San Jose, CA. "The X/Open fast track is done. It's all over except for the final editing process. You are going to see unified UNIX." No major changes in the branding plans have been made since the announcement by all major UNIX vendors of the Spec 1170 UNIX unification plan in September 1993, Lambert said. Spec 1170 will allow programmers to write applications to a common set of application programming interfaces (APIs) for all UNIX systems. Novell, owner of the source code to System V release 4 of UNIX, agreed to transfer the UNIX brand to X/Open's control last October. Lambert said development of a test suite for UNIX brand candidates is also on schedule. Spec 1170 was initiated because the core APIs of the various UNIX implementations contained a number of what Lambert calls gratuitous differences that do not add value to the systems but do increase cost, especially on the part of application developers. UNIX vendors needed a standard specification in order to reduce development costs and complete with newer integrated operating systems packages, namely Microsoft's Windows NT. Originally there were 1,170 separate APIs that were part of the Spec 1170 project. Vendors hope that the acceptance of Spec 1170 and implementation of UNIX branding will further the acceptance of open systems. "Incompatibility between versions of UNIX has been the biggest barrier to the adoption of open systems," Lambert said. "That is what's standing in the way, particularly of small-to-medium sized companies that want to change." Publication of the X/Open specification for Spec 1170 is expected during the current quarter, and branded products are expected to be available by the end of the year. Sponsors of X/Open's unified UNIX project are Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Novell's UNIX Systems Group, the Open Software Foundation, and SunSoft. "What we are doing is realigning the trademark to what the majority of people think UNIX is," Lambert said. "It's a technology rather than a few thousand lines of code developed by AT&T. It's a conformance mark that applies to any product that conforms to Spec 1170." Four Conformance Areas Products to be branded will have to conform in four areas: the X/Open Portability Guide (XPG4), which lays down basic system interfaces, commands and C language requirements; the Spec 1170 system interfaces; a set of internationalized terminal interfaces; and the network APIs, consisting of the sockets interface originated in Berkeley UNIX and since adopted by major vendors, and the X/Open Transport Interface (XTI), version 2. The set of internationalized terminal interfaces, designed to give UNIX a way of communicating with character terminals, which are not X Window-capable, is known as Curses. Curses was included in the branding scheme in part because independent software vendors frequently use Curses functions. Many applications either use Curses as their main display vehicle or as an alternate if an X-Window display device is not available, according to Seth Rosenthal, Novell software engineer. The sockets interface is included for standardization because of the large body of existing socket-based applications and because it is already supported by most UNIX vendors, Rosenthal said. Sockets provides an interface to transport layer network protocols such as the transmission control protocol (TCP) used on the Internet. The version to be used is 4.3 BSD Reno, the most recent. Three Stages The UNIX branding scheme contains three stages: interim branding, soft UNIX branding and hard UNIX branding. Interim branding is available now as a step to make UNIX apply to more products before full branding is implemented. To comply, the product must conform to XPG3 or XPG4, comply with the System V Interface Definition (SVID2 or SVID3), be subject to a Novell license, and be committed to move to hard UNIX branding within a year. Soft branding mandates full conformance to Spec 1170 but not necessarily to internationalized Curses, whose specification has not been submitted to X/Open yet. Vendors also need to commit to moving these products to hard branding. When products are hard branded, they must conform to Spec 1170 version 1, internationalized Curses and undergo full testing. Some products that are branded may be operating system neutral or operating system independent, Lambert said. The products that are operating system neutral will use the XPG trademark instead of the UNIX trademark and will provide the broadest possible portability. End Article ------------------------------------------------------------ Internet Commercialization is Here ---------------------------------- Three entrepreneurs tell how they get down to business The rampant growth of commercial ventures on the Internet was brought to light by three Internet entrepreneurs at a meeting of the Software Entrepreneurs Forum/UniForum Open Systems SIG earlier this month. What the standing-room-only crowd took away was not a formula for sure-fire success, but the knowledge that opportunities abound for those with the time and inclination to explore the possibilities. Meeting in Palo Alto, CA, the SIG heard the experiences of: o Andrew Conru, founder of Internet Media Services (IMS), Palo Alto. IMS provides World-Wide Web development and support services for businesses and organizations seeking to promote themselves on the Internet. o Matisse Enzer, an Internet consultant and founder of Internet Literacy Consultants (ILC), which does support and planning for Internet access and presents training seminars for those wanting to know more about using the Internet. o Gary Kremen, founder of Electric Classifieds, which provides classified advertising from newspapers for people browsing the Internet. The two-hour question-and-answer session centered on the issues of what commercial activities are going on and how they are accomplished. Few concerns were raised about whether commercialization should occur, but many about how best to get in on it while the field is still in its infancy. Multimedia Storefronts Conru said his company's clients include the Stanford Shopping Center, a mall of 160 stores adjacent to Stanford University that uses Internet Media Services to advertise each of the stores on-line. Another client is the Association of Bay Area Governments, a regional planning authority that already had its own server but used Conru's company to help get more bandwidth and higher-speed communication, and to upgrade its server and put together an Internet package. Among the services IMS provides are multimedia storefronts, interactive advertisements, customized product catalogs, video product demonstrations, searchable directories and databases, and instant customer feedback mechanisms. IMS also works with programmers who are creating extensive background applications for the World-Wide Web (WWW). "We're a strip mall on the Internet," Conru said. "What we do is help people market their businesses." Another of his company's activities is a Bay Area restaurant guide that presents information and reviews on hundreds of restaurants interactively, allowing Internet users to add their own reviews to the ones already there. "Anything you want to put on the Internet or Mosaic we can do," he said. Helping People Understand Enzer was customer support manager at The WELL (The Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link), a San Francisco-based computer conferencing center for about 9,000 users, for three years. Then he founded ILC, whose mission is "to help people understand and use the Internet, and related technologies, to further their own agendas." An offshoot is Bay Area Internet Literacy, which has been offering outreach and training since November for people seeking basic information. Seminars, which are half the company's business, range from "Internet 101" presentations to workshops on specific fields such as "Internet for Business" and "Internet for Journalists." Enzer said he started the seminars as a kind of "one-room schoolhouse on the Internet." Prices range from $30 to $75 per seminar. Pacific Bell has recently hired him to do an in-house training session on software that the company plans to put on the Internet. Kremen said he prefers to focus on a product rather than communication methods or services. Electric Classifieds enlists cable services and newspapers as partners in its classified advertising service and charges Internet users for browsing the ads, usually using credit cards. But he downplayed the chances for immediate success in such a business. "If you're doing a business on the Internet today, you're going to starve," Kremen said. A major problem is that while millions have e-mail, not enough have access to Mosaic or the other tools and services needed to gain access to the commercial products. Enzer noted, "There just aren't a lot of people who are equipped to reliably provide these services to the public right now." Conru said that although the general public isn't using the Internet extensively now, especially commercially, he believes it's a matter of time. His objective was "to build an infrastructure that positions us to expand so that when this stuff comes about, we'll be able to jump on it." IMS looks for associates such as guide managers who supervise the content of WWW guides that provide merchant listings, as well as guide sales/developers who secure contracts or sell and develop WWW pages. Factors working in favor of Internet commercialization, Enzer said, include "people's desire to learn things, fueled by a kind of saturation in the media" of Internet information. He said he also believes in "the ability of people to change their lives through using this technology." For example, he noted, "Ten years ago, you couldn't have done business with someone in Czechoslovakia [now the Czech Republic], even if it was legal" and now it's relatively easy. Conru added, "The Internet is changing the way people lead their lives today. Anybody with a minimal amount of technical ability can put a page on the Internet. We have the ability to have a point-and-click environment, and I think that's really going to be the driving force in the next few years." But Kremen leavened the discussion with another caution: "I think you want to kind of stay within existing human behavior. You can't run a business through Mosaic and make a profit." Conru and Enzer disagreed. Although tools such as Mosaic are now difficult for the general public to obtain and get working, companies are springing up to provide packages that make that process easy. "People are demanding more and more things on-line," Conru said Conru also acknowledged the problem of "junk" information on the Internet, but pointed out the difference between dropping unsolicited mail into electronic mailboxes, and simply making it available to be accessed. Business will also pay for information on who accessed their pages, and how long and how often they looked, he noted. "There are going to be islands of high quality, suburbs of mediocrity and other areas that are terrible," Enzer said. "One reason there's so much junk on the Internet is that not enough good stuff is offered now." Fraud and Silliness In response to a question, Enzer acknowledged that it's probable that fraudulent or ridiculous things will happen on the Internet. "Microsoft Word and a Laserwriter made a lot of people think they were graphic designers-and a lot of graphic designers went out of business." The probability of abuse and plain silliness is "way high," he said, but in spite of that, companies are going to find that doing Internet business is a necessity. "Having a Web server is going to be like having a phone number for some companies," he said, just because it's a medium that people will use for communication. "I, and I think all of us, are in the communication business. It has nothing to do with computers except that that is the medium that we're working with." Kremen responded that "a better business is to be in the content business." Conru said anyone who wants to get started with an Internet business can do so for about a $10,000 hardware investment and $500 a month for an Internet connection. All three entrepreneurs said their funding came from their own pockets or those of other principals. For more information, the three entrepreneurs can be contacted as follows: o Andrew Conru: conru@netmedia.com or ims@netmedia.com o Matisse Enzer: matisse@matisse.net or info@matisse.net o Gary Kremen: gary@match.com End Article ------------------------------------------------------------ Ted Hanss Leads OSF's End-user Effort ------------------------------------- University of Michigan manager has tried to remove 'vendor only' label Name: Ted Hanss Age: 32 Position: Director, Center for Information Technology Integration, University of Michigan Years in Current Position: 2 Years in the Industry: 15 Pet Open Systems Peeve: "The struggle with vendors to get them to understand what the value-add comes from. It's the struggle between what's proprietary vs. what's standards-based. And it's always a struggle because the multivendor environment is for us a reality. Some of the real benefits we see in the object-oriented environment are challenged by the fact that the vendors still see a lot of proprietary maneuvering available to them. It's inhibiting our ability to build interoperable environments." In the current attempt by the Open Software Foundation to start listening more to end users, Ted Hanss has been a leader. Hanss, who is director of the Center for Technology Integration, a research and development laboratory at the University of Michigan, has been trying to get vendors to respond to end-users' interests-particularly regarding interoperability of IT products-since he joined OSF's End-user Steering Committee in 1991. As chairman of the committee since 1992, Hanss has been the focus of OSF's efforts since its reorganization last March, to give OSF end-user members more input into its technology development, the new pre-structured technology (PST) process. Hanss, 32, heads a 50-member staff working on advanced development projects that further the employment of distributed information systems by the University of Michigan. The projects, which are primarily funded by sponsors outside the university, involve such objectives as developing a campuswide file system and developing a mobile and laptop client/server network via telephone links. "Basically, we are a 'Protocols Are Us' type of organization," Hanss says. "We try to build an open systems standards-based environment. Because of the need for interoperability, we try not to invent new things. We try to take new things that have been agreed on-du jure and de facto standards-and adapt them to our environment, in both scale and heterogeneity. We try to port the new technology, and to enhance the functionality of things that we can acquire, to try to stand on the shoulders of others." A Biology Major A native of Syracuse, NY, Hanss grew up in Ann Arbor, MI, and graduated from Boston College in biology in 1983. But he dates his involvement with computers from high school days. During his last two college years his interest in biology waned and he began taking more computer science classes. After college, Hanss followed up an interest in sports journalism by becoming editor of a regional bicycling magazine. "I found myself spending more and more time building front ends to typesetting systems and doing subscription databases" Hanss says. "I decided that if I was spending that much time doing computer-related work, I would move into that industry full time." He joined the University of Michigan in 1985 as editor of a campus microcomputer newsletter. From there he moved into various management positions, culminating in his current appointment two years ago. Currently, he is finishing his M.B.A. degree at Michigan. In directing the projects at his laboratory, Hanss takes funding from companies like IBM, Apple and Novell and tries to build systems and infrastructure services that can be scaled up to the size that will work at the university. With IBM sponsorship, the laboratory built an institutional file system that supports desktop workstations throughout the campus. The laboratory is currently working with Novell on a project to link its NetWare network operating system to OSF's Distributed Computing Environment (DCE). Still another project developed gateway services for both PCs and Macintoshes to the Transarc AFS distributed file system, with the gateways serving as translator servers to that environment. Hanss also has done work to make mainframes into both clients and servers in the university's distributed file system. One of the more exotic projects Hanss has supervised involves the move to mobile or nomadic computing. "We've got a view that the concept of desktop computing will be an anachronism by the end of the decade," he says. "People will basically compute wherever they are. To support that, we started trying to allow people to do everything while mobile that they usually do at their desk." He had to make sure that services would run on laptop platforms and would work over low-speed network connections. Experiments were run connecting laptops to servers from moving trains and cars using cellular phone connections. "Then there are some places a phone doesn't reach. So we have done such things as have a user log activity while disconnected from the network, then we transparently resynchronize all the file system activity once the user reconnects to the network." OSF Activity As a prospective user of DCE technology, Hanss attended his first OSF member meeting in 1990. About a year later, when OSF asked for end users to volunteer for more involvement, Hanss raised his hand. He was elected chairman of the 18-member End-user Steering Committee in 1992. "OSF had been primarily a vendor-driven organization," Hanss notes. "The question was how the end-user membership could get its voice and requirements into the processes. The second question was how we as end users could better structure our interactions with each other, to create a place for sharing information and experience with colleagues and peer organizations, as IT professionals." One of the committee's first actions was to host regional meetings where end users could focus on end-user issues outside the regular OSF member meetings. Since the March reorganization, Hanss has seen activity increase. "OSF has seen its need to change," he says. "Now end users are more strongly involved in getting our issues aired." OSF has, for the first time, appointed an end user to its board of directors, and that director is Joseph De Feo, chief information officer for Barclays Bank in the United Kingdom. Hanss was elected last month as the alternate at-large director. End-user participation also has been enlisted on the new Architecture Planning Council and on the various project steering committees. These were objectives of Hanss's committee. "We wanted a committee that would define an architectural road map for OSF," Hanss says. "And we wanted to see more end-user involvement in oversight of projects. Both of these things have come to pass." Other activities are ongoing. "Over the past couple of years, we have put together informative letter-writing campaigns to various industry executives in the vendor community to let them know about our requirements for open systems," Hanss says. Although members of OSF's End-user Steering Committee must be OSF members, Hanss encourages any UniForum members interested in OSF end-user activities to contact him for information about planned activities. He sees those activities in the light of a global end-user movement. "There has been tremendous progress in the past three years since we have headed off in this direction," he says. "We have gone from being just members of the organization to key stakeholders in the direction of the organization, along with the vendor members. We have tried to come up with a unified end-user voice around open systems. And so certainly, any UniForum member who is interested in becoming a part of the global end-user movement without having to create any new organizational structure, would be more than welcome to find out what's going on." End Article ------------------------------------------------------------ Members View UNIX Unification ------------------------------ Opinions reflect frustration, desire for change One question that nearly every UniForum member has an opinion on is UNIX unification. It is an issue whose flames have been fanned by the inception of each systems vendor's brand of UNIX, and it was ignited again last March with the reorganization of the Open Software Foundation (OSF). When we asked members the question: "What is the next logical step for UNIX unification?" you came back with answers even more diverse than the UNIX flavors themselves. The answers did not reveal a consensus on which direction UNIX unification should take, but rather three distinct ways of looking at the issue. Many look for the solution in the realm of multivendor standards bodies and their processes and brands. Others put the burden for bringing the industry together on the vendors themselves. Still others see the answer in purely technological terms. Don Mason, of Eagan, MN, came out clearly in favor of the standards bodies: "Continued clarification of the roles of various collaborative organizations such as OSF, X/Open, and UniForum is needed," Mason said. "Common specifications such as Spec 1170 and the Common Desktop Environment (CDE) are good starting points for addressing UNIX weaknesses. They will need ongoing work; a one-shot Spec 1170 doesn't seem viable in a changing computing environment." Claudio Vaccarella, of Rome, Italy, says "Concentrate the standardization process under X/Open." And not surprisingly, X/Open's director of marketing communications, Jeff Hansen, agrees. The next step is "formal branding of products by X/Open, a wide variety of products carrying the X/Open brand, and the incorporation of branded UNIX by users in their procurements," Hansen says (see related article in this issue). David A. Trevino Rodriguez, of Monterrey, Mexico, also advocates further standardization. The industry needs "unification on COSE and X/Open," says Trevino Rodriguez, "and in the future, an open road to objects." But the unification road has already taken a scary turn for Glenn Kapetansky, of Naperville, IL. "It looked like X/Open/ COSE/OSF had finally combined on the standards end and Novell was holding the torch," he says. "Now that Novell has sold a perpetual license to Sun, I worry about a re-divergence of vendor products." Standards are the answer for Kim L. Shiveley of Richardson, TX, who advocates adhering to POSIX. "Spec 1170 is a step backwards for those who were adopters of the POSIX standards," Shiveley says. "Use COSE as an umbrella to approve portability standards. COSE and CDE should not be writing new supposed standards." Shiveley gets agreement from Mike MacFaden, of Fremont, CA, who says POSIX and Interprocess Communication and Synchronization (IPCS) should be implemented "across all major flavors of UNIX." Up to Vendors One who would get the standards bodies out of the way is Jerome B. Senturia of Cleveland, OH, who says, "OSF was originated to slow the AT&T process of UNIX unification. It succeeded so well that Novell now owns UNIX (or is it X/Open that owns it?). OSF should be laid to rest and System V release 4 and its relatives should be left to the commercial marketplace." Equally frustrated is L.A. Lundquist, of Austin, TX. "COSE was to be a giant quantum leap, yet it is so bogged down that it can't get even the first entity out in rapid fashion," Lundquist says. Clearly putting the burden on vendors is John Modransky, of Hoffman Estates, IL. "Have vendors using UNIX as a core operating system drop the pseudo-names such as HP-UX," Modransky says, and beyond that, produce "true binary compatibility across like CPU architectures and true source code compatibility. The only way to lure ISVs to UNIX is to make it easy to create applications that do not have to be altered just to run in another UNIX environment." Rudy White, of Moffett Field, CA, is pessimistic that vendors will ever do the right thing. "I would like to see a non-proprietary UNIX-a truly open UNIX-but that is not going to happen," he says. "If the big guys fall or even become threatened, they will join forces and become a powerful consortium. Most users aren't sophisticated enough to see the real beauty of open systems and the manufacturers aren't stupid enough to let it happen." A.F. Gualtieri, of Long Grove, IL, has this piece of advice: "Vendors should deliver products that follow standards and stop insisting on their own version," he says. "The users will buy." Still suspicious of Novell is Barry E. Hedquist, of Santa Clara, CA, who says, "There is only one real way to achieve UNIX unification, and that is for someone to achieve and maintain market dominance while providing leadership to the UNIX community. USL was on its way to doing so with System V release 4 until being sold to Novell. Now it is anyone's guess as to what will happen. Novell has sold the UNIX name to X/Open but is keeping the source code. Is this logical?" Technological Steps Some members see the unification issue in technical terms. Jay A. Krone, of Marlboro, MA, zeroes in on the issue of the sockets interface employed by Berkeley-derived UNIX operating systems, and its incompatibility with the streams interface used by SVR4. Programmers attempting to write C code that will run on UNIX systems must write for one or the other interface. "As long as the Berkeley-derived UNIXes with market presence-HP, IBM and Sun-use sockets and most everyone else licenses SVR4 with streams, HP/IBM/Sun will have a hold on the market like IBM did in the old SNA-vs.-everything-else days," Krone says. Compliance with standards should be tested with a set of verification tools that will allow providers of software, hardware and peripherals to become certified, says Brad Bright, of Irvine, CA. "Without some consistent way of knowing if you comply with the standards, it is hard to have a real plug-and-play environment," Bright says. "Drop baggage from the past," advises Liz Farrell, of San Jose, CA. Remove backward compatibility and allow fewer commands. Lose command line capability and force users into a window-only interface. Limit the ability of the user to use freeware." For Bruce McIntyre, of Mount Laurel, NJ, "The next logical step is a complete system call common interface, and then a portable binary interface. I really don't care which one, as long as it's one." Bill Rieken, of Los Gatos, CA, suggests, "It would be nice if UNIXWare and Solaris would use the same device interrupt settings. When a customer buys a notebook which can load Windows and SCO UNIX from CD-ROM, but it cannot load UNIXWare or Solaris, the words open systems are exposed for the joke they are." And finally, David McCall, of Rohnert Park, CA, suggests, "AT&T and Berkeley must elope and produce offspring which is better than the parents. Or perhaps they both must just be replaced by something not yet known." The next step, logical or not, may well coincide with one or more of these suggestions. And its importance for the future of open systems will be not which path is taken, but whether it leads toward unification or away from it. End Article ------------------------------------------------------------ Looking for a Few Good Writers ------------------------------ Are you an open systems professional with expertise in a particular area such as security, procurement, networking, or object technology? Do you focus on specifics while also taking a broader view? Do you have something to say and the desire to get it into print? If so, we'd like to talk with you. UniForum Monthly is the magazine for open systems professionals. We're looking for writers who have a solid grounding in topics pertinent to the open systems industry and the ability to write informed, articulate, opinionated, and sometimes amusing articles. This isn't a call for promotional material or marketing hype. It is an invitation to open systems professionals who would like to use their expertise, keen view of the industry, and strong writing skills to contribute to our features or departments. If you're interested in the possibility of writing for us, send your resume and samples of your writing to UniForum, 2901 Tasman Dr., #205, Santa Clara, CA 95054, Attn: Meg Peterson. End Article ------------------------------------------------------------ Is Your Local User Group Calling? ---------------------------------- Joint membership program can be profitable on all sides By Susan Hoffmann The UniForum membership department recently sent each affiliate group a complete list of current UniForum members in their area. This was done to encourage all the UniForum affiliate groups to participate in the UniForum joint-membership program. UniForum joint membership was designed so that individuals could join both UniForum and their local affiliate for a membership fee that is less than the total of both individual groups' dues. Current members of either a UniForum affiliate group or UniForum are encouraged to join both organizations whether the joint-membership program is in place or not. However, when the joint-membership program is in place, the affiliate group receives the benefit of guaranteed income while UniForum does all billing and tracking work. UniForum wants to have all its affiliates participate in the program. If you are part of or know of a user group that would like to affiliate, this may be just the reason to join the program. How It Works. Under the program, both the affiliate and UniForum agree to discount their fees by the same percentage. The member gets the benefit of being part of both groups for a fee that is lower than the individual fees of both groups. For international groups this may also include a lower overall price for shipping as well. The member gains by receiving all the standard UniForum benefits while also being truly connected to his or her local peer group through the affiliate membership. Benefits to both UniForum and the affiliate groups are numerous. Most importantly for affiliates is that UniForum keeps track of the new and renewing members as payments come in and sends the appropriate amount for each member due to the affiliate, with that affiliate's contact information, on a regular basis. Affiliate groups may recruit members on their own, but don't have to. Either way, they don't have to deal with the paperwork, tracking, or billing process. Upon renewal, the joint member is billed the appropriate amount and the affiliate continues to receive the benefit of more dues on renewal. Current UniForum members are given the option to become joint members with a participating affiliate in their area upon renewal. Meanwhile, affiliates are regularly given the names of UniForum members in their area for contact and recruitment purposes, whether the joint membership is in place or not. However, affiliates participating in the joint-membership program would probably all agree that having UniForum do the billing work is far easier than doing it themselves. It pays to be a joint member and it pays to have the joint-membership program in place with your group. If there isn't a group in your area, joint membership may be just the revenue generator your group needs to get started. For more information on the program or how to become a UniForum affiliate group, contact me by phoning (408) 986-8840 ext. 26 or (800) 255-5620 ext. 26, or via e-mail at sooz@uniforum.org. Current groups participating in the joint-membership program are: WAUUG, Seattle UNIX Group, Ohio!UniForum, UniForum Brasil, UniForum Trinidad & Tobago, and UniGroup of New York. Susan Hoffman is membership services manager at UniForum. End Article ------------------------------------------------------------ AUUG's Victorian Chapter Organizes Social and Technical Programs ----------------------------------------------------------------- By Enno Davids AUUG-Vic is the Victorian (Victoria is one of Australia's states) chapter of the national AUUG organization. AUUG-Vic actually started somewhat before AUUG decided to have chapters, and thus was well positioned to become the first cab off the rank when the notion of having chapters was first floated within the national body. As of early this year I ascended to the throne and have been attempting the job of president. As a part of a larger national whole, AUUG-Vic is fortunately a low-maintenance group which nevertheless manages to provide a reasonable level of usefulness to the Victorian membership of AUUG. Our activities usually devolve into three main areas: The first of these is an annual summer one-day technical conference. This is organized and run by each local chapter and typically consists of one day of conference and one day of tutorials. The next major events we organize locally are our regular social and technical evenings. These alternate at roughly six-week intervals throughout the year with some slight adjustments to accommodate other fixed events in the local social calendars such as the national winter conference, football finals and public holidays. The most recent technical evening featured two speakers, both of whom spoke to a reasonably large audience on an Internet Protocol-related theme. Our first speaker told us something about the state of play with the national IP network run by the Australian tertiary institutions, which is currently in the process of altering its policies in order to charge for services and allow access to a broader cross-section of society. The second speaker showed us Mosaic and some of the implications of this new approach to surfing the wire. Early this month we also had a social evening. This, as has often been the case in midwinter, was quite poorly attended and this is in fact an issue the committee has been addressing for some time. Our solution will be a change of venue to a more central site in Melbourne and some extra effort warning members that the appointed time is drawing near. AUUG-Vic's final role for the local membership is as a first line of contact for those members with the national body. Dealing with a contracted management organization can leave members a little at a loss at times. Our role here is simply to facilitate and to intervene on those few occasions when it may be necessary. Enno Davis is president of the Victorian Chapter of AUUG, the Australian UNIX Users' Group. End Article ------------------------------------------------------------ UniNews Recruitment and Positions Wanted ---------------------------------------- For inclusion in the UniNews Classified Section, please provide the following information, being as specific as possible. If you do not want your name printed, please indicate in item No. 1 and UniNews will receive replies and forward them to you. Please type or write legibly. Your classified may be edited for length or clarity. UniNews "Positions Wanted" classifieds are available FREE OF CHARGE to UniForum members only. Upon receipt of your material, we will publish your classified in the next TWO available issues of the biweekly UniNews. YOU MUST BE A MEMBER OF UNIFORUM TO PARTICIPATE 1. Your name Shall we print your name in UniNews? Your UniForum Membership # (if available) ________________________________________ 2. Where Hiring Companies May Reach You (include phone, fax and e-mail) ________________________________________ 3. Title and Description of the Job You Want ________________________________________ 4. Geographical Preference ________________________________________ 5. Professional Experience and Qualifications _________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________ 6. Highest Grade or Degree Achieved, and Where: ________________________________________ ________________________________________ 7. Salary Range $ 8. Availability ________________________________________ You may mail or fax this form to: Sandy Parker UniForum 2901 Tasman Drive, Suite 205 Santa Clara, CA 95054 FAX: (408) 986-1645. Good luck! *** Vice President/Director of Software Development Seeks position as vice president or director of software development for a post-startup high-tech company. Experience: 19+ years in software development, project management, product evaluation and business planning. Held senior positions at two startup companies. Currently manager of computer product center. Personal: B.S., EE, Alexandria University (Egypt); B.S., math, London University; M.S. and Ph.D., engineering-economic systems/computer science, Stanford University; prefer San Francisco Bay Area; salary $90K to $100K; available September/October. Box N-UniNews, UniForum Association, 2901 Tasman Dr. #205, Santa Clara, CA 95054. *** Senior Software Engineer Seeks contract to accomplish a defined mission as senior software engineer. Experience: UNIX computer scientist; defense electronics/ECM, utility power generation, real-time control/DAC, transaction databases, simulation, kernel architecture, technical writing. Personal: M.S., computer science, Farleigh Dickinson University; prefer central Virginia, will travel; contract negotiable; seeking clients now. Wayne Hadady, 13020 River Rd., Chesterfield, VA 23838-2807; (804) 739-4576; fax (804) 739-6931. *** Sales/Sales Management Seeks position in sales or sales management for channels distribution of hardware or software. Experience: 15 years in sales/marketing with 12 years specializing in channels sales. Personal: B.S. in business administration with postgraduate training in sales, marketing and management; prefer Denver, CO; available to travel; salary $100,000 plus base plus commission; available now. David L. Paul, 11611 Shoshone Way, Westminster, CO 80234; (303) 466-7228. *** System Administrator Seeks consulting position as UNIX system administrator. Experience: 7 years experience in UNIX system administration, including capacity management and system requirements analysis. Personal: U.S. Army Center for Professional Development in conjunction with the University of Maryland, 198 credits; salary $75/hour. Box M-UniNews, UniForum Association, 2901 Tasman Dr. #205, Santa Clara, CA 95054; fax (408) 986-1645. *** Software Operations Seeks position in software operations. Experience: order management, software production, shipping/receiving, pacing release cycle, customer support; 7 years' experience in operations; well versed in UNIX; developed department from scratch. Personal: B.A. in mathematics, M.B.A., Long Beach State University; salary open; available now. Chuck Niedle, phone (408) 446-9469. *** Vice President/Director of Marketing Seeks position as vice president or director of marketing for a high tech company wishing to extend internationally and possibly use either OEMs or distributors. Experience: 20 years of marketing and product management experience in software and hardware; extensive international experience in the Far East, Europe and Scandinavia. Worked for both start-up and Fortune 100 companies. VP of marketing and international sales for a UNIX development house. Personal: willing to relocate in the U.S., or abroad; salary $85K to $100K; available now. Edward F. Steinfeld, phone (508) 692-8569; fax (508) 692-4899, e-mail efs@world.std.com. *** Software Systems Engineer Seeks position as real-time software systems engineer. Experience: 20+ years in machine control, motion control, manufacturing control and communications systems including laser measurement and imaging systems. Personal: B.S. in mathematics, Florida State University; graduate work in mathematics, physics and electrical engineering; prefer Northern San Francisco Bay Area, Texas or Eastern U.S.; salary $55K to $75K; available in one month. James M Hafling, phone (510) 741-7495 evenings. End Article ------------------------------------------------------------ For Cold Summer Nights... ------------------------- Get a UniForum Sweatshirt! Phone (800) 255-5620 or (408) 986-8840 for more information. End Article ------------------------------------------------------------ UniForum Member Benefits ------------------------ Publications, Conferences, Discounts and More Benefits for General Members ($100 per year): o UniForum Monthly magazine and UniNews biweekly newsletter; Free ads in the "Positions Wanted" section of UniNews; Open Systems Products Directory; All UniForum Technical Guides; Discounts on purchases of additional UniForum publications; Discounts on all UniForum conference registrations; Educational seminars and special classes; Opportunity to participate in local Affiliate activities. o Discounts on Avis car rentals. o Discounts on corporate sponsors' hardware and software: o Specialix Inc. sales, (800) 423-5364, (408) 378-7919 or fax: (408) 378-0786. e-mail: info@specialix.com o Mortice Kern Systems (MKS), 35 King St. North, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2J 2W9. Phone: (519) 884-2251 or (800) 265-2797; fax (519) 884-8861 or e-mail inquiry@mks.com. o Discounts on products, training and publications from the following companies: o Locus Computing Corp., 9800 La Cienega Blvd., Inglewood, CA 90301-4400. Or call (310) 670-6500. o InterCon Systems, (800) NET2YOU or (800) INTERCON. o Gemini Learning Systems, (403) 263-UNIX or fax (403) 261-4688. o ACI Technology Training, 500 Park Blvd., Suite 1111, Itasca, IL 60143; phone (708) 285-7800 or fax (708) 285-7440. o Open Systems Training, 4400 Computer Drive, Westboro, MA 01580; phone (800) 633-UNIX or fax (508) 898-2382. o Open Systems Alternatives (Steve Kastner), 250 Production Plaza, Cincinnati, OH 45219; (513) 733-4798; fax (513) 733-5194. o ITDC, 4000 Executive Park Drive #310, Cincinnati, OH 45241; (513) 733-4747; fax (513) 733-5194. o Nina Lytton's Open Systems Advisor, (617) 859-0859 or write OSA at 268 Newbury St., Boston, MA 02116. o Patricia Seybold Group's Monthly Reports, Don Baillargeon, (617) 742-5200 ext. 17; 148 State St., Boston, MA 02109. o .sh consulting, call (408) 241-8319 or write to 3355 Brookdale Dr., Santa Clara, CA 95051. o Faulkner Information Systems, 114 Cooper Center, 7905 Browning Road, Pennsauken, NJ 08109-4319. o QED Information Sciences Inc., 170 Linden St., P.O. Box 82-181, Wellesley, MA 02181; (800) 343-4848. o Specialized Systems Consultants Inc., P.O. Box 55549, Seattle, WA 98155-0649; (206) 527-3385; fax: (206) 527-2806. o Client/Server Tool Watch: Enabling Open Applications Development from Hurwitz Consulting Group (Dena Brody), P.O. Box 218, Newton, MA 02159; (617) 965-7691; fax (617) 969-7901. o Client/Server News from G2 Computer Intelligence, P.O. Box 7, Glen Head, NY 11545; (516) 759-7025; fax: (516) 759-7028. o Addison-Wesley Publishing Co. (Dan O'Gara), One Jacob Way, Reading, MA 01867 (800) 238-9682; fax (617) 944-7273. Benefits for associate members ($50 a year) include UniForum Monthly magazine and UniNews newsletter; free ads in the "positions wanted" section of UniNews; discounts on all UniForum conference registrations; the opportunity to participate in affiliate activities; and discounts on the publications and products listed above. Send your correspondence to Susan J. Hoffmann, Membership Services Manager, (408) 986-8840 x26; (800) 255-5620 x26 or via e-mail at sooz@uniforum.org. End Article ------------------------------------------------------------ End UniNews.