Interview with Dinah McNutt, URES '14 program chair

In 2014, we will be holding our first USENIX Release Engineering Summit (URES '14). Dinah McNutt, program chair for URES '14, offers a preview of what to expect at this inaugural event. The URES '14 Call for Participation is open until March 21, 2014. If you have questions, contact the organizers via email at ures14chair@usenix.org.

Rikki: What inspired URES '14?

Dinah: It's been a pet project of mine for several years now and it's great to see it finally happen. I think release engineering (releng) as a career is very much where systems administration was 25 years ago. My first LISA was LISA IV and it seemed logical that USENIX should play the same role in advancing release engineering as it did systems administration. There are no technical conferences where release engineers (also called releng) can go to meet with other releng and attend technical talks and tutorials.

Rikki: Who should attend?

Dinah: Anyone interested in release engineering should attend this summit. Even if you are a part-time releng, you will benefit. Technical presentations! The hallway track! Tutorials! Plus the USENIX Configuration Management Summit (UCMS '14) will be held the day before and its program will fit nicely with the URES program. Two days of technical talks.

The program is still in the preliminary stages, but I anticipate talks from Facebook and Google. I am also putting together a best practices panel — the first of its kind. The focus of the program committee is to offer a technical program with plenty of "take homes," information you can take back to work and immediately start applying.

Rikki: Do you have any talks or speakers lined up yet?

Dinah: We are accepting submissions until March 21, 2014. A summit is not quite as formal as the main USENIX technical conference or LISA, so don't hesitate to submit an idea for a talk. This is an excellent forum to get your feet wet if you have been thinking about presenting at a conference. We are also looking for people to teach tutorials. If there is a talk or tutorial you would like to see at the summit, let us know and we will find someone to do it.

See you in Philly!

In the first USENIX Release Engineering Summit (URES ‘14), we will bring members of the release engineering community together to advance the state of release engineering, discuss its problems and solutions, and enhance the community of this quickly growing field. We solicit original presentations and discussions on a wide range of topics, but we particularly encourage presentations on novel, pragmatic approaches and solutions to vexing problems in release engineering.

URES '14 will take place during USENIX Federated Conferences Week, June 17–20, 2014, in Philadelphia.