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- From: Jeffrey S. Haemer <jsh@usenix.org>
-
- Son of WeirdNIX
-
- USENIX Association
-
- 23 July 1990
-
- Norman Bangerter, Governor of Utah, declared April 23-27
- ``POSIX week'' in the state of Utah. Spurred on by the
- spirit of that declaration, the USENIX Association is
- announcing its 1990 POSIX contest.
-
- Prizes (besides notoriety) include
-
- + a copy of the ``POSIX Week'' declaration,
-
- + an official, 40-foot, red-and-white ``Welcome POSIX''
- banner,
-
- + and -- thanks to UNISYS and the state of Utah --
- + two round-trip tickets to Salt Lake City, plus
- + weekend accommodations at a hotel yet to be named.
-
- If you were at the Snowbird meetings, or have ever been to
- Utah for any reason, you'll know this is a great prize. If
- you haven't, take our word for it.
-
- ``What,'' you're asking, ``do I have to do to win?''
- Designing a contest isn't easy. We toyed with the idea of
- holding a Roger Martin look-alike contest. We almost
- decided on, ``If POSIX were made into a movie, who would
- play the attendees?'' [Sample answer: Jack Nicholson as Jim
- Isaak (Jim says he'd prefer ``Cary Grant''), Oscar the
- Grouch as John Quarterman, ...]
-
- Finally, we decided on a second, not-at-all-annual, WeirdNIX
- Contest. As with the first one, which is described in
- section B.1.2.12 of ANSI/IEEE 1003.1-1988, the goal is to
- find:
-
- the best new and technically legal interpretation of the POSIX standard
- which nevertheless violates the intuitive intent of the POSIX standard.
-
- Both
-
- + 1003.1 (``The Ugly Green Book''), and
-
- + 1003.2 (draft 10 or later)
-
- are fair game. The former is available from
-
-
- - 2 -
-
- IEEE Service Center
- 445 Hoes Lane
- Piscataway, NJ 08854
- U.S.A.
- (201) 981-0060
-
- the latter from
-
- Lisa Granoien
- IEEE Computer Society
- 1730 Massachusetts Ave NW
- Washington, DC 20036-1903
- (202) 371-0101
-
- While the only version of 1003.1 currently available is IEEE
- 1003.1-1988, we won't give high marks to cheap shots, so
- problems fixed in IEEE 1003.1-1990 (soon to be published,
- and formerly found in documents labeled 1003.1a) aren't good
- targets.
-
- In the earlier contest, separate prizes were awarded for
- ``Best'' and for ``Most Demented.'' We debated doing this
- again but, in the end, decided that one prize of two tickets
- makes more sense than two prizes of one ticket. The judges
- may choose to announce winners in a variety of categories,
- but the prize mentioned above is a grand prize: we'll award
- the prize to whichever entry we think is the best, whatever
- its orientation.
-
- Judges are:
-
- Donn Terry (Chair, 1003.1),
- Hal Jespersen (Chair, 1003.2),
- N. Ray Wilkes, (Vice chair, 1003.3),
- John Quarterman (USENIX Standards liaison), and
- Jeffrey S. Haemer (USENIX report editor).
-
- Please mail entries to Jeffrey S. Haemer <jsh@usenix.org>.
- If you don't get an acknowledgement, I haven't gotten it.
- Previous winners may compete, but previous entries aren't
- allowed.
-
- Entries must be submitted by November 21, 1990, to give us
- time to judge them.
-
- We'll announce the winner at the Winter USENIX Conference in
- Dallas, January 21-25, 1991.
-
- Volume-Number: Volume 20, Number 147
-
-