USENIX Standards Funding Decisions

[John S. Quarterman]

Submitted-by: jsq at tic.com (John S. Quarterman)

The previous USENIX funding for most standards activities expired on
Halloween (see <106937 at uunet.UU.NET>).  The WG15 reports were funded as
requested back in September.  The snitch report editor has apparently
made an arrangement for the interim until the next board meeting in
January.  Efforts are being made to produce proposals for funding other
USENIX standards activities.  However, since the USENIX board has
expressed philosophical objection to funding moderation of a newsgroup,
it is very unlikely that there will ever be support from them for
comp.std.unix.

For the moment, I have chosen to continue as moderator while seeking
support from other quarters.  Preliminary thanks to those who are
already looking into it.

If no funding materializes, I simply cannot afford to continue
taking adequate time to moderate the newsgroup properly, and
we will have to consider opening nominations for a volunteer
moderator and voting on it by the usual USENET procedures.

I strongly recommend keeping comp.std.unix moderated, because:
1) The original request for the newsgroup, from IEEE 1003 back
in 1985 (the first article was posted 25 June 1985), made it
clear that most standards participants would only read a
moderated newsgroup.
2) Comparing 1989 (unfunded) to 1990 (funded), the increased signal
to noise ratio and the increased number of interesting postings
(partly attributable also to the snitch reports, themselves due
to funding of editing) supports the original request.
3) See comp.unix.wizards for what is likely to happen to an
unmoderated comp.std.unix.

Meanwhile, there will be a guest moderator, John B. Chambers,
while I am overseas 6-27 November.  Please send submissions
to the usual address, i.e., std-unix at uunet.uu.net.

John S. Quarterman, moderator, comp.std.unix and std-unix at uunet.uu.net
--
John S. Quarterman
Texas Internet Consulting	jsq at tic.com	tel: +1-512-320-9031
701 Brazos, Suite 500	  uunet!longway!jsq	fax: +1-512-320-5821
Austin, TX 78701

Volume-Number: Volume 22, Number 19