Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!purdue!haven!aplcen!osiris!consult
From: consult@osiris.UUCP (Unix Consultation Mailbox )
Newsgroups: comp.databases
Subject: Re: Ingres User's Association Meeting
Keywords: comments, requests, tools
Message-ID: <2890@osiris.UUCP>
Date: 3 May 89 14:53:02 GMT
References: <3044@tank.uchicago.edu>
Reply-To: phil@osiris.UUCP (Phil Kos)
Distribution: usa
Organization: The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Information Systems
Lines: 55

Interesting to see comments on the IUA meeting here.  I hope someone from
RTI (Dave?) will comment on some of the technical points contained in
cs_bob's message.

I too was surprised that a list of attendees was not distributed.  The fact
that registration exceeded 860, making it by far the largest NAIUA ever
(the last conference was thought to be well-attended at about half that
number) may have had something to do with this change, though marketing
issues could certainly have something to do with it (I have gotten
considerable quantities of DBMS-related junk mail at an old address which
was lifted from an IUA registration list so I know that people use them).

I wanted to take this opportunity to remind all Ingres users on the net
that there are two groups within the North American IUA which were more-or-
less formed in San Diego (April, 1988 - the Love Boat conference :-) and
which might prove helpful to both new and experienced users of Ingres.

The first is the User Request Group, which was created to provide an
official channel from the North American Ingres user community to RTI
for requests for enhancements and comments on other features of current
and future Ingres releases.  At their meeting in New Orleans, lines of
communication between the Group (chaired by Eric Palmer of The Palmer
Group, an Ingres consulting company in Atlanta) and RTI were proposed and
discussed as well as anyone can discuss anything at 7:30am the morning
after the conference dinner/dance/bacchanal.

The other group (which did exist prior to the San Deigo conference, though
in a much smaller and less organized form) is the Ingres Tools Committee,
which is still accepting submissions of useful DBA and application tools
and techniques for on-demand distribution to NAIUA members.  Request forms
exist now (after much discussion with various lawyers about liability
issues), although some of the details have changed, and submission forms
will be available soon.  Complicating any short-term dealings with the
Tools Committee is the fact that the original chairperson, Tom Lyttle of
Los Alamos, has resigned his post.  A quorum was not available as the
committee meeting to elect or appoint a new chairperson, so this group is
temporarily headless.  In any case, Tom assured me that the process of
completing the forms and organizing the distribution process will be done
very soon.

I am the primary UNIX specialist on both the User Request Group and the
Tools Committee.  There is not currently an established communication
channel for the User Request Group.  RTI needs to make some decisions
about how to handle requests before this will be done.  I can accept
requests from users for forwarding to the Group, however.  I can also
send copies of the current tools distribution request form to interested
parties.



Phil Kos
...!uunet!pyrdc!osiris!phil, ...!mimsy.cs.umd.edu!aplcen!osiris!phil
UNIX Specialist, NAIUA Tools Committee and User Request Group
Technical Support, Information Services Organization
The Johns Hopkins Hospital