From: svo @ zurich.ibm.com Subject: Re: history of SIGOPS workshops Date: Mon, 25 Sep 2000 14:11:20 +0200 Message-ID: [...] The very first of the SIGOPS European Workshops indeed took place in the IBM Zurich Research Lab. I was both the general and program chairperson. However: The date was January 28-30, 1985 !!! The title was: Operating Systems in Computer Networks A summary of this workshop was published in the Operating Systems Review, Volume 19, Number 2 (April 1985). If you cannot find this issue any more, I can send you a paper copy - I do not have an online version. Although the workshop in Pala Mesa (spelling?) was the first of the SIGOPS workshops (originally, I was a co-organizer with Barbara Liskov, but I dropped this role when I left MIT and moved to Europe), it really cannot be viewed as the root of the European Workshops. I proposed a SIGOPS-sponsored European workshop at the SIGOPS General business meeting held in connection with SOSP'83 (Bretton Woods). After the successful workshop in Zurich, the decision was made to hold a European workshop in alternative years to SOSP. This lead to the next EW was in 1986 (Amsterdam). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Andrew Herbert Subject: RE: history of SIGOPS workshops Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2000 18:32:07 +0100 Message-ID: Liba Thanks for jogging our memories - it seems a long time ago. I agree Pala Mesa was not the first European workshop, but I think in Marc's summary, it should be allowed a footnote as a piece of "pre-history". My recollection is the success of that workshop motivated people to have something more informal in the alternate years, and then this hooked up with your Bretton Woods suggestion to do something that would be attractive to Europeans for whom the expense of attending SOSP and the difficulty of getting funding if not a paper author was an major issue. Andrew ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Sape Mullender Subject: RE: history of SIGOPS workshops Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2000 19:25:56 -0400 The Zürich workshop was in January of 1985 and it, as far as I can tell, was the first of the workshops. It was organized as a one-time affair. The idea to have a regular European workshop in the off-sosp years was born in Zürich, during the workshop. I had a hand in that (but not more than that) and I offered to host the follow-up to SOSP. That was held in 1986. Cambridge was in 1988 and Bologna in 1990, following the Distributed Systems Course Bologna'90. Liba would know how the Zürich workshop came about. Sape