Hi All. Kudos to Warren for helping me track down the original USENET postings that make up a fun DMR story. In October of 1985, a guy from Teklabs posted a long rant against both Unix and the people at USENIX conferences. The original rant is available here (thanks Warren!): Dennis replied - the relevant part of what he was replying to is in his message available here: Here is the full text of Dennis's note: | Groupies | | dmr at dutoit.UUCP dmr at dutoit.UUCP | Wed Oct 9 15:30:04 AEST 1985 | |------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | tekadg!davidl writes, at considerable length and with widespread distribution: | | > ... Socially, Usenix is like a | > spherical glob, with a handful of original software authors at the center (the | > ones who wrote the original code, like the developers of Unix, C, etc. - the | > ones whose names are always being bandied about). Around these, there's a | > surrounding shell of what has been aptly called "Unix groupies" trying to | > associate themselves, both logically and physically, with the "illuminati" | > at the center. Typically, these loathsome little insects are system | > administrators and hackers who spend their time either on the net or | > endlessly rewriting UUCP or NROFF or, or, or... And, I'm told, there are | > even some real, honest-to-goodness groupies (of the rock-star variety) who | > spend their time trying get near the "inner circle" for - never mind... | > it's believable, though - it's certainly consistent with the demeanor of | > the rest of the proceedings. | | Usenix conventions, which are undeniably and appropriately narrow-minded | and introverted, sport more than a few bores, but are notable for absence | of loathsome insects. Even the irascible Rob Pike remarked after Portland, | "Goodness, there were very few loathesome insects there." | | They are also marked by a lack of honest-to-goodness rock-star-variety | groupies. Believe me on this. The free cocaine was nowhere in evidence, | I consumed no cigar-sized hash bombers, the insistent, complaisant | lovelies were elsewhere by the time I got back from dinner. Indeed, the | plaster of Paris I had obtained in case anyone wanted a cast of my genitals | went entirely unused. | | Still, I understand the party that AT&T threw in Washington | was pretty wild. Too bad I missed it. | | DMR All this was in October 1985. At the Atlanta USENIX in the summer of 1986, there was some kind of contest (I don't remember what) and they announced (undoubtedly as a joke) that one of the prizes was "a plaster cast of Dennis Ritchie's genitals." It got a good laugh. Arnold