 |
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
From: Duane Rettig <du...@franz.com>
Date: 22 Jul 2005 08:14:42 -0700
Local: Fri, Jul 22 2005 11:14 am
Subject: Re: CLRFI and the ALU [was: delete-file & probe-file on directories]
[Disclaimer: I am replying as a member of the ALU board, but not Paolo Amoroso <amor...@mclink.it> writes: Until this year, this was absolutely true. One of the things we > Peter Seibel <pe...@gigamonkeys.com> writes: > > myself, I think a vibrant CLRFI process seems like the kind of thing > I have the deepest respect for the ALU board and members. But, as an couldn't even do was to get minutes together from the board meetings, but at least from my memory even as far back as 2000, where we were deciding whether to disband the ALU or not, we were aware of the problem, which seemed to be that the ALU had lost its teeth. We finally made the decision to scale back our goals, since we had no money, and to concentrate on the one thing that we absolutely must do, which was to organize conferences. > It is no longer able to do For reasons which I won't go into, including preserving one or more > anything except organizing Lisp conferences--which is important and > useful, mind you. reputations, I'd prefer not to elaborate much, but you actually have this backward. We (the ALU) are now, as of this year, finally able to put on a conference by ourselves. Until this year, we were not able to do so. Putting on yearly conferences is still our only stated goal (though I do see some fluff on the website about other goals, which are either misguided or out of date). Now that we've finally had our own successful conference, we are now working on stating more clearly our mission statement and adding goals, including things that perhaps obviously should have been goals based on our name and the mission it implies. But none of this was explicit, and I fear that this is the reason why I've heard from so many of you as to the ALU board's ineffectiveness to perform according to your expectations. The long and short of it was that we were constantly on the verge of not existing at all. We are out of those woods now, and can now concentrate on what we will be able to tell you we will do for you. Rest assured that we will make the goals we decide upon explicit, and it will be placed on the website as soon as we decide. > After over a year from my first inquiry, I still don't know whether I The ILC2003 conference was our first attempt to run a conference > will be able to purchase a copy of the ILC 2003 proceedings. Several > weeks ago ALU contacted me and asked my postal address for shipping a > CD with the proceedings. > But things halted when I discovered that someone else from ALU, > My trust in ALU's ability to do anything at all is limited right now. ourselves. In many respects, it appeared to be a success. In other ways, it was a failure that almost turned to disaster, as those of you who tried to register at the hotel that Saturday may have discovered. Some fast thinking people, including Heow Eide-Goodman (now a board member, and I believe principal organizer of the Lispnyk group) and Lilliana Avila from Franz, as well as some of the board members, pulled the conference out of the flames. We lost money, we lost records, and only last month finally pulled enough of the proceedings together to be able to make a cd out of it. We're still discussing what to do with any extra copies of the cds, after every conference attendee is sure to have received one (another problem, since our record of attendance conflicts). Paolo, I don't remember, but if you were an ILC2003 attendee, you are due a free copy of the cd, otherwise you'll probably have to wait a bit longer. And yes, I understand that it is a travesty to have had to wait this long for proceedings, but that is part of the nature of this failure. The ILC2005 conference went much, much smoother, and we even had I've never said anything about the ALU to date, because frankly I -- You must Sign in before you can post messages.
To post a message you must first join this group.
Please update your nickname on the subscription settings page before posting.
You do not have the permission required to post.
| |||||||||||||