USENIX
Encyclopedia
The USENIX Association is the Advanced Computing Systems Association. It was founded in 1975 under the name "Unix Users Group," focusing primarily on the study and development of Unix
and similar systems. In June 1977, a lawyer from AT&T
informed the group that they could not use the word UNIX as it was a trademark of Western Electric
(the manufacturing arm of AT&T until 1995), which led to the change of name to USENIX. It has since grown into a respected organization among practitioners, developers, and researchers of computer operating system
s more generally. Since its founding, it has published a technical journal entitled ;login:
.
USENIX was started as a technical organization. As commercial interest grew, a number of separate groups started in parallel, most notably STUG, the Software Tools Users Group, a technical adjunct for Unix-like tools and interface on non-Unix operating systems, and /usr/group a commercially oriented user group.
USENIX has a special interest group for system administrator
s, SAGE
.
It sponsors several conferences and workshops each year, most notably the USENIX Symposium on Operating Systems Design and Implementation (OSDI), the USENIX Annual Technical Conference
, the USENIX Security Symposium, the USENIX Conference on File and Storage Technologies (FAST), and with SAGE, the Large Installation System Administration Conference (LISA).
USENIX's founding President was Lou Katz.
Unix
Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
and similar systems. In June 1977, a lawyer from AT&T
AT&T
AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications corporation headquartered in Whitacre Tower, Dallas, Texas, United States. It is the largest provider of mobile telephony and fixed telephony in the United States, and is also a provider of broadband and subscription television services...
informed the group that they could not use the word UNIX as it was a trademark of Western Electric
Western Electric
Western Electric Company was an American electrical engineering company, the manufacturing arm of AT&T from 1881 to 1995. It was the scene of a number of technological innovations and also some seminal developments in industrial management...
(the manufacturing arm of AT&T until 1995), which led to the change of name to USENIX. It has since grown into a respected organization among practitioners, developers, and researchers of computer operating system
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
s more generally. Since its founding, it has published a technical journal entitled ;login:
;login:
;login: is a long-running bi-monthly technical journal published by the USENIX Association, focusing on the UNIX operating system. It was founded by Mel Ferentz in 1975 as UNIX News, changing its name to ;login: in 1978....
.
USENIX was started as a technical organization. As commercial interest grew, a number of separate groups started in parallel, most notably STUG, the Software Tools Users Group, a technical adjunct for Unix-like tools and interface on non-Unix operating systems, and /usr/group a commercially oriented user group.
USENIX has a special interest group for system administrator
System administrator
A system administrator, IT systems administrator, systems administrator, or sysadmin is a person employed to maintain and operate a computer system and/or network...
s, SAGE
SAGE (organization)
SAGE is the USENIX Special Interest Group for Sysadmins, an international nonprofit professional association of system administrators.SAGE describes itself thus:Its goal is to serve the system administration community by:...
.
It sponsors several conferences and workshops each year, most notably the USENIX Symposium on Operating Systems Design and Implementation (OSDI), the USENIX Annual Technical Conference
USENIX Annual Technical Conference
The USENIX Annual Technical Conference is a conference of computing professions sponsored by the USENIX association. The conference includes computing tutorials, and a single track technical session for presenting refereed research papers, SIG meetings, and BoFs.There have been several notable...
, the USENIX Security Symposium, the USENIX Conference on File and Storage Technologies (FAST), and with SAGE, the Large Installation System Administration Conference (LISA).
USENIX's founding President was Lou Katz.
2010–12 officers
The following people took office June 21, 2010:- President: Clem Cole
- Vice President: Margo SeltzerMargo SeltzerMargo Ilene Seltzer is a professor and researcher in computer systems. Currently she is the Herchel Smith Professor of Computer Science and a Harvard College Professor in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University, where she is active in the Systems Research Group.Dr...
- Secretary: Alva Couch
- Treasurer: Brian Noble
- Directors:
- John Arrasjid
- David Blank-Edelman
- Matt BlazeMatt BlazeMatt Blaze is a researcher in the areas of secure systems, cryptography, and trust management. He is currently an Associate Professor of Computer and Information Science at the University of Pennsylvania; he received his PhD in Computer Science from Princeton University.In 1992, while working for...
- Niels ProvosNiels ProvosNiels Provos is a researcher in the areas of secure systems, malware and cryptography. He is currently a Principal Software Engineer at Google. He received his PhD in Computer Science from the University of Michigan....
2008–10 officers
The following people took office June 25, 2008:- President: Clem Cole
- Vice President: Margo SeltzerMargo SeltzerMargo Ilene Seltzer is a professor and researcher in computer systems. Currently she is the Herchel Smith Professor of Computer Science and a Harvard College Professor in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University, where she is active in the Systems Research Group.Dr...
- Secretary: Alva Couch
- Treasurer: Brian Noble
- Directors:
- Matt BlazeMatt BlazeMatt Blaze is a researcher in the areas of secure systems, cryptography, and trust management. He is currently an Associate Professor of Computer and Information Science at the University of Pennsylvania; he received his PhD in Computer Science from Princeton University.In 1992, while working for...
- Rémy Evard
- Niels ProvosNiels ProvosNiels Provos is a researcher in the areas of secure systems, malware and cryptography. He is currently a Principal Software Engineer at Google. He received his PhD in Computer Science from the University of Michigan....
- Gerald Carter
- Matt Blaze
2006–08 officers
The following people took office June 1, 2006:- President: Mike Jones
- Vice President: Clem Cole
- Secretary: Alva Couch
- Treasurer: Theodore Ts'oTheodore Ts'oTheodore Y. "Ted" Ts'o is a software developer mainly known for his contributions to the Linux kernel, in particular his contributions to file systems.He graduated in 1990 from MIT with a degree in computer science...
- Directors:
- Matt BlazeMatt BlazeMatt Blaze is a researcher in the areas of secure systems, cryptography, and trust management. He is currently an Associate Professor of Computer and Information Science at the University of Pennsylvania; he received his PhD in Computer Science from Princeton University.In 1992, while working for...
- Rémy Evard
- Niels ProvosNiels ProvosNiels Provos is a researcher in the areas of secure systems, malware and cryptography. He is currently a Principal Software Engineer at Google. He received his PhD in Computer Science from the University of Michigan....
- Margo SeltzerMargo SeltzerMargo Ilene Seltzer is a professor and researcher in computer systems. Currently she is the Herchel Smith Professor of Computer Science and a Harvard College Professor in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University, where she is active in the Systems Research Group.Dr...
- Matt Blaze
2004–06 officers
The following people took office June 27, 2004:- President: Mike Jones
- Vice President: Clem Cole
- Secretary: Alva Couch
- Treasurer: Theodore Ts'oTheodore Ts'oTheodore Y. "Ted" Ts'o is a software developer mainly known for his contributions to the Linux kernel, in particular his contributions to file systems.He graduated in 1990 from MIT with a degree in computer science...
- Directors:
- Matt BlazeMatt BlazeMatt Blaze is a researcher in the areas of secure systems, cryptography, and trust management. He is currently an Associate Professor of Computer and Information Science at the University of Pennsylvania; he received his PhD in Computer Science from Princeton University.In 1992, while working for...
- Jon "maddog" Hall
- Geoff Halprin
- Marshall Kirk McKusickMarshall Kirk McKusickMarshall Kirk McKusick is a computer scientist, known for his extensive work on BSD, from the 1980s to FreeBSD in the present day. He was president of the USENIX Association from 1990 to 1992 and again from 2002 to 2004, and still serves on the board. He is also on the editorial board of...
- Matt Blaze
2002–04 officers
- President: Marshall Kirk McKusickMarshall Kirk McKusickMarshall Kirk McKusick is a computer scientist, known for his extensive work on BSD, from the 1980s to FreeBSD in the present day. He was president of the USENIX Association from 1990 to 1992 and again from 2002 to 2004, and still serves on the board. He is also on the editorial board of...
- Vice President: Michael B. Jones
- Secretary: Peter Honeyman
- Treasurer: Lois Bennett
- Directors:
- Tina Darmohray
- John Gilmore
- Jon "maddog" Hall
- Avi RubinAvi RubinAviel David Rubin a graduate of the University of Michigan and Professor of Computer Science at Johns Hopkins University, Technical Director of the Information Security Institute at Johns Hopkins, Director of ACCURATE, President and co-founder of and an expert in systems and networking security...
USENIX Lifetime Achievement Award
This award, also called the "Flame" award, is handed out annually since 1993 .- 2011 Dan GeerDan GeerDan Geer is a computer security analyst and risk management specialist. He is recognized for raising awareness of critical computer and network security issues before the risks were widely understood, and for ground-breaking work on the economics of security....
- 2010 Ward CunninghamWard CunninghamHoward G. "Ward" Cunningham is an American computer programmer who developed the first wiki. A pioneer in both design patterns and Extreme Programming, he started programming the software WikiWikiWeb in 1994 and installed it on the website of his software consultancy, Cunningham & Cunningham , on...
- 2009 Gerald J. PopekGerald J. PopekGerald John "Jerry" Popek was an American computer scientist, known for his research on operating systems and virtualization.With Robert P...
- 2008 Andrew S. TanenbaumAndrew S. TanenbaumAndrew Stuart "Andy" Tanenbaum is a professor of computer science at the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam in the Netherlands. He is best known as the author of MINIX, a free Unix-like operating system for teaching purposes, and for his computer science textbooks, regarded as standard texts in the...
- 2007 Peter Honeyman
- 2006 Radia PerlmanRadia PerlmanRadia Joy Perlman is a software designer and network engineer sometimes referred to as the "Mother of the Internet." She is most famous for her invention of the spanning-tree protocol , which is fundamental to the operation of network bridges, while working for Digital Equipment Corporation...
- 2005 Michael StonebrakerMichael StonebrakerMichael Ralph Stonebraker is a computer scientist specializing in database research.Through a series of academic prototypes and commercial startups, Stonebraker's research and products are central to many relational database systems on the market today...
- 2004 M. Douglas McIlroy
- 2003 Rick AdamsRick Adams (Internet pioneer)Richard L. Adams, Jr. was an Internet pioneer and the founder of UUNET, which, in the mid and late 1990s, was the world's largest Internet Service Provider ....
- 2002 James GoslingJames GoslingJames A. Gosling, OC is a computer scientist, best known as the father of the Java programming language.-Education and career:In 1977, Gosling received a B.Sc in Computer Science from the University of Calgary...
- 2001 The GNU ProjectGNU ProjectThe GNU Project is a free software, mass collaboration project, announced on September 27, 1983, by Richard Stallman at MIT. It initiated GNU operating system development in January, 1984...
and all its contributors - 2000 W. Richard StevensW. Richard StevensWilliam Richard Stevens was one of the most famous and widely acclaimed authors of UNIX and TCP/IP books.-Biography:...
- 1999 "The X Window SystemX Window SystemThe X window system is a computer software system and network protocol that provides a basis for graphical user interfaces and rich input device capability for networked computers...
Community at Large" - 1998 Tim Berners-LeeTim Berners-LeeSir Timothy John "Tim" Berners-Lee, , also known as "TimBL", is a British computer scientist, MIT professor and the inventor of the World Wide Web...
- 1997 Brian W. Kernighan
- 1996 The Software Tools Project
- 1995 The Creation of USENETUsenetUsenet is a worldwide distributed Internet discussion system. It developed from the general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name.Duke University graduate students Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979 and it was established in 1980...
by Jim EllisJim Ellis (computing)James Tice Ellis was a computer scientist best known as the co-creator of Usenet, along with Tom Truscott.Born in Nashville, Tennessee, Ellis grew up in Orlando, Florida. Before developing Usenet, Ellis attended Duke University. He later worked as an Internet security consultant for Sun...
and Tom TruscottTom TruscottTom Truscott is a computer scientist best known for creating Usenet with Jim Ellis, when both were graduate students at Duke University. He is also a member of ACM, IEEE, and Sigma Xi. One of his the first endeavors into computers were writing a computer chess program and then later working on a... - 1994 Networking Technologies
- 1993 Berkeley UNIX
See also
- AUUGAUUGAUUG is an Australian association and users' group.It describes itself as the organisation for Unix, Linux and Open Source professionals.Its aim is to build a community of those interested in open systems and open standards. Both people and institutions may be members.The newsletter AUUGN is...
- LISA (conference)LISA (conference)LISA is the Large Installation System Administration Conference, co-sponsored by the computing professional organizations USENIX and SAGE.The word "large" was dropped from the title of the 6th conference in 1992 . The full acronym was restored in the title of the 2003 conference and remains in use...
- Marshall Kirk McKusickMarshall Kirk McKusickMarshall Kirk McKusick is a computer scientist, known for his extensive work on BSD, from the 1980s to FreeBSD in the present day. He was president of the USENIX Association from 1990 to 1992 and again from 2002 to 2004, and still serves on the board. He is also on the editorial board of...
- SAGE (organization)SAGE (organization)SAGE is the USENIX Special Interest Group for Sysadmins, an international nonprofit professional association of system administrators.SAGE describes itself thus:Its goal is to serve the system administration community by:...
- UnixUnixUnix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...