From: Tony Gore (Tony_at_email.domain.hidden)
Date: 2003-10-03 08:15:13
This is a difficult one. However, I like the name "Communicating Process
Architecture Society".
I think that a transition is needed, but have a suggestion as to how to
keep the WoTUG "brand"
Call it "Communicating Process Architecture Society incorporating WoTUG"
for a transition period of a couple of years or so, and then eventually
the "incorporating WoTUG" can be dropped. This is what some companies
and learned societies do when abosrbing or merging.
I believe with the name "Communicating Process Architecture Society",
which is completely architecture and language agnostic over a period of
a few years it should be possible to increase the group size by a factor
of 10. In my line of business there are a lot of researchers I could
point to such a group, but cannot whilst it is WoTUG because of the
historic and preconceived connotations it has.
I review a lot of embedded parallel processing projects for the EC and
it is clear that there is no forum that really addresses their issues.
If you change to CPAS I could foresee that you might have several
sub-groups eventually, one of which would be embedded; another might be
theory and another languages, compilers and libraries. I make this point
because it is important to keep focus - for some embedded people, they
are really interested in the solutions and not the discussions about
some of the theory - there is nothing to stop them being in those groups
if they are interested.
Best regards
Tony Gore
email tony_at_aspen.uk.com (alternative if problems
tonygore_at_compuserve.com)
tel +44-1278-761001 FAX +44-1278-760006 GSM +44-7768-598570
URL: www.aspen.uk.com
Aspen Enterprises Limited
Registered in England and Wales no. 3055963 Reg.Office Aspen House,
Burton Row, Brent Knoll, Somerset TA9 4BW. UK
-----Original Message-----
From: Ruth Ivimey-Cook [mailto:Ruth.Ivimey-Cook_at_ivimey.org]
Sent: 03 October 2003 00:43
To: occam-com_at_kent.ac.uk
Subject: Perception of WoTUG and occam and transputers
Folks,
As a committee member of WoTUG I am seeking information about how an
issue affects you (if at all) and what your thoughts are on it. I am
asking you
because occam-com is the closest WoTUG has to an email list for its
members[1].
At the Twente conference the name WoTUG was brought up by some of the
delegates as being a stumbling block to getting funding and achieving
academic acceptance. They proposed that we should therefore change the
name to something less problematic, for example "Occam User Group --
OUG"[2] or possibly "Communicating Process Architecture Society". No
alternative name is especially favoured at the time. Reasons to do this
included a perception that we are still stuck with 80's viewpoint and
technology (transputers) and that we were playing with a dead language
(occam). This is to some extent based on the knowledge of how the name
WoTUG used to be derived.
Opposition to changing the name, notably from some on the committee,
includes the brand recognition we have developed over the years (about
10) and the fact that the world is now finally catching up with the
transputer concept[3]. Some people have noted that more recent
generations of researchers have latched on to transputers and occam very
well and without negative connotations. It is also important to
recognise that difficulties do exist in selecting an appropriate
internet domain name and redirecting visitors looking for WoTUG to look
for X instead (and not just on the internet).
Please note that it is as useful to know that this issue is not
important to you as knowing that it is.
There has been some really exciting things happening in recent times;
the work done on CSP and FDR has been really promising and the teams at
Kent and Twente have shown us what can be done when you try: we on the
committee want to take this impetus and run with it, but concerns about
perception don't help.
Please Help us to make occam, CSP and the work derived from them as well
known in their field as SQL and relational databases are in the database
world!
My thanks for your time,
Ruth Ivimey-Cook
WoTUG Treasurer.
1] If you would like to comment on WoTUG-managed email lists or policies
please feel free. And if this mail doesn't get to people you feel should
comment, do pass it on.
2] OUG was the name the group had until Inmos requested that we change
it.
3] There are 2 recent highly parallel chips based on transputer-like
cells -- one from ?Intel, one from picoChip, both recently developed,
and many of the
supercomputers of today borrow much from the ideas.
-- Ruth Ivimey-Cook Software engineer and technical writer.
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