[AUUG-Talk]: Press article on creation of John Lions chair...

[Stephen Jenkin]

Sam Varghese of The Age (Fairfax, Melb) has written up a piece on the
creation of the John Lions Chair in Operating System (with a silent Open
Source).  It's appeared as the lead piece in the SMH/Age technology
section on-line today - not in the printed editions.

(links to same article)
http://www.theage.com.au/news/technology/chair-honours-unix-veteran/2005/11/24/1132703300871.html
http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/chair-honours-unix-veteran/2005/11/24/1132703300871.html

Sam also wrote a 6,000 word piece on Theo de Raadt and is very keen to
write about local Unix/Open Source identities...
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/10/07/1097089476287.html

He would like to interview people.  Preferably in person.
He's sensitive to the fact most computer people are shy of the press.
He's interested in the whole person and a sense of history - not just a
few technical achievements.  I quite like his story on Theo, YMMV.

He's asked me to come up with a list of people he can interview.
I know 6-8 people, but there are a bunch of people & places I don't
know and I would like your help on...

* Woolongong Uni, under Juris Reinfelds, produced the first port of Unix
  (Richard Miller) and spawned the successful "Woolongong Group" and ???
* Melbourne Uni had 'kre' at munnari - but who else??
* Monash Uni now has an excellent Computing Faculty - but what
  about the 70's & 80's. It must have been going then...
* U of Tas had Arthur Sale - big in the world of Pascal. And???
  Somehow that led to 'Trumpet Software' and their TCP/IP stack for Win3
* Sydney Uni spawned ACSnet (Piers & BobK).  And others??
* Then there's Simon Hackett from Adelaide. And who???
* and Perth has a very strong Unix & SysAdmin community - but I don't know
  them.  Can anyone on the list introduce me to people, history??
* Qld (BrisVegas?) has really interesting things going on up there now,
  but what about their history & pioneers??

If you have any ideas, contacts or suggestions, please get back to me!

At some point, I will need to directly introduce Sam to the 'candidates'
and to do good in-depth interviews, he needs some biographic notes...
If you don't have time to compose something, include a phone number and
I'll talk to you, take notes & go away and edit them and forward to Sam.

Being Indian originally, Sam keeps wondering why we Australians haven't
written about our best people and our best work (and also other stuff
about why we do things the way we do).  He's very genuine and enthusiastic
about this and keen as mustard to make a start :-)

I'm looking forward to being flooded by your responses!

cheers
steve


Steve Jenkin, Unix Sys Admin
0412 786 915 (+61 412 786 915)
PO Box 48, Kippax ACT 2615, AUSTRALIA

sjenkin at canb.auug.org.au http://www.tip.net.au/~sjenkin