The IEEE Technical Committee on Operating Systems and Application Environments proceeded at a similar pace as in the past, i.e. we are still struggling to improve contributions to our membership and to engage our membership more actively. So far our major contribution was in organizing events, which seems to reflect the situation of some other TCes. TCOS is in an especially unfavorable situation given the strong leadership of its sister organizations, ACM SIGOPS and USENIX, which established leadership in the field of operating systems. My intention with respect to this fact (ever since I was nominated and subsequently elected for the chair) was not to compete, but rather to complement them.

One exciting new event, in line with IEEE and Computer Society spirit, and in line with the idea of complementing ACM SIGOPS and USENIX, is WIESS'2000, the First Workshop on Industrial Experiences with Systems Software. This event will be co-sponsored by USENIX, ACM SIGOPS, and IEEE-CS TCOS. This year, WIESS will be co-located with USENIX OSDI, and next year with ACM SIGOPS SOSP. The main idea is to bring back industrial experiences and provide an opportunity to academics dominating OSDI/SOSP to meet with industry people (see also details about WIESS below).

TCOS (co-)sponsored events (ordered by the percentage of sponsorship) consist of:

• HOTOS'2001, The Hot Topics in Operating Systems, to be held in Germany in May 2001. This is the TCOS flagship event, the only one sponsored exclusively by TCOS. This event takes place every second year.
• WMCSA'2000, The 2nd IEEE Workshop on Mobile Computing Systems and Applications, to be held on 7-8 December 2000, in Monterey, California. This event will be co-sponsored by TCOS and the Technical Committee on Internet, 50%.
• WIESS'2000, The First Workshop on Industrial Experiences with Systems Software, collocated with the 4th USENIX OSDI, October 22, 2000, San Diego, CA. This event is co-sponsored by USENIX, TCOS, and ACM-SIGOPS. Next year it should be collocated with ACM SOSP. TCOS co-sponsors WIESS'2000 with 34%.
• AIWoRC'2000, Virtual Enterprises and Mobile Technologies: An Academia/Industry Workshop on Research Challenges, Buffalo, NY, October 1-2, 2000. In cooperation with INFORMS, ACM-SIGMOBILE. TCOS co-sponsors this event with 30%.
• OSDI'2000, The Operating Systems Design and Implementation Symposium, sponsored by USENIX, October 22, 2000, San Diego, CA. TCOS co-sponsors OSDI with 10%.

We continued collaboration with the IEEE Concurrency magazine. In the January-February issue, an advertisement for the WIESS 2000 appeared (see wiessAd.pdf), as well as a summary of the IEEE-TCOS (see tcosAd2.pdf). IEEE Concurrency will feature a special issue on "Applied Operating Systems Research and Development", (see call for papers). Some of the best papers from WIESS'2000 will be invited for this special issue. In addition, IEEE Concurrency allowed us to make available two new set of interviews, on mobile agents and on Internet technology. In both of them you will find interviewees from the operating systems areas.

In the past letter from the chair, I have mentioned the membership renewal process. Unfortunately, it has not yet started due to the change of the staff in the technical activities board who help us with administrative arrangements. My current thinking is to conduct it jointly with the new chair election which will take place within the next 5-6 months. I would also like to re-consider the membership fees as a part of this process. So far, all IEEE CS technical committees are free of charge to both IEEE-CS members and non-members. As a result, we have approximately 3500 members, however few of them are active. Membership renewal will significantly drop the membership number, but a) it will more accurately reflect active membership and provide realistic numbers, b) it will cleanup the obsolete addresses and members, and c) it will give us opportunity to activate the existing members, by requesting feedback to a questionnaire, to allow opportunity for value-add membership (see next paragraph), etc.

I have taken some initial steps in checking if it is possible to provide some value add to membership in return for membership fees. This is not intended to impose a membership fee to all members (free membership would still remain optional), rather the idea is to allow reduced subscriptions to IEEE magazines, journals, digital library access, etc. in exchange for a membership fee. The membership fee will entirely go into the value add, since TCOS is not for profit and all money goes back to its members. Given this fact, I was also of the opinion that TCOS needs to earn more money in order to be more beneficial to its members. USENIX is an excellent example. It earns on big conferences and then subsidizes smaller events that are known apriori to lose money; it gives away student grants, etc. TCOS membership is for free, but it also cannot offer much to its members either. I would like to change this. All input is welcome, especially interestng, useful, and realistic ideas.

Finally, I have tried to setup the Mission/Vision/Purpose for the IEEE TCOS. I'd encourage the membership to comment to my original proposal in order for us to synchronize on this important aspect of our organization.

Vision (where to): provide timely, customized information from the systems software (operating systems and application environments) community.

Mission (what and by when): organize system software related events and spread information (by means of the Newsletter, Web site, and email) as long as this area is relevant to our community.

Purpose (why and for whom):  keep TCOS and IEEE-CS members informed about the relevant research and development in the area of systems software.

Dejan S. Milojicic
Palo Alto, CA.

Contact Information  Dejan S. Milojicic  Hewlett-Packard Laboratories  1501 Page Mill Road  MailStop 3U-18  Palo Alto, CA 94303  phone: (650) 236 2906  fax:   (650) 857 7029    dejan@hpl.hp.com    http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Dejan_Milojicic/