CfP: symposium on the history of UNIX, Paris
Call for contributions
International symposium
Unix in Europe: between innovation, diffusion and heritage
Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers, Paris, France – October 19 2017
*Rationale*
The Unix system was born in the 1970s at the crossroads between two
interacting worlds: industry (the Bell Labs at AT&T) and academia
(the University of Berkeley computer science network). Its fast adoption
throughout computer research and engineering networks
across the world signaled the future success of the new system,
fostering software experiments within its open, multi-user and
multi-tasking system running on mini-computers – and later compatible
with a larger part of computer hardware. In the European context,
how was this American innovation propagated, adopted and adapted? Why
was Unix of so much interest in this context, then and now? A solid
culture of Unix users might also explain this success, as well as
subsequent processes of appropriation and inheritance,
due to the long and complex history of Unix versioning. The memory of
Unix users is vivid indeed, fed by early accounts within the computer
world (Salus, 1994) as well as preservation initiatives (Toomey, 2010).
Moreover, the Unix system is a crucial reference
in the history of computing, in particular in the field of free and
open source software (Kelty, 2008), computer networks (Paloque-Berges,
2017), as well as in programming language philosophy (Mélès, 2013).
In order to explore the variety of these interrogations, this symposium
encourages contributions from historians as well as philosophers, social
science researchers, and heritage professionals interested in the
history of computer open systems and software
with a focus on Unix or who have a wider perspective. It will also
welcome protagonists and witnesses of Unix culture and carriers of its
memory. We wish to discuss and shed light on several aspects of the
development of Unix in Europe (including in comparison
or relation with the rest of the world) along three main lines:
historical and sociological, philosophical and epistemological, and
heritage- and preservation-oriented.
/1. Historical and sociological perspectives/
Historically, the Unix system is linked to the promotion and development
in research on open systems and computer networks. How does this fit in
the context of industrial, scientific and technological policies
defined at the national and European level? The
history of Unix thus reaches at least three levels of interrogations:
1/ the forms, places and practices of innovation around Unix in R&D
labs and computing centers in companies, schools and universities; 2/
planning, promoting and negotiating open systems
(norms and standards) from the perspective of science and/or politics;
3/ international geopolitical relations, whether economical or
geopolitical and even geostrategic (for example between Unix users, with
users of other computer equipment or other hardware
and software companies, the role of embargos in the shipping of
mini-computers, of code, and military uses of Unix).
In parallel, how has the world of computer research welcomed,
encouraged, negotiated and propagated uses and innovations related to
Unix systems? This begs the question of how Unix-related research and
development was legitimized - or played a part in the legitimization
of computer science experimentalism in the scientific field and beyond.
We would also like to highlight practices of resistance, the failure to
acknowledge, ignorance of or even the limits of the Unix system, its
software tools and hardware environment (beginning
with the famous PDP and Vax machines from Digital Equipment where the
first Unix versions were implemented). With a focus on occupational
computer uses, we call for analysis which aims to explore and clarify:
- the role of developers, users, and user associations – from the point
of view of pioneers as well as helpers, maintainers and other witnesses
of the implementation of Unix;
- the context, process, and people who determined its propagation, appropriation, and development over time;
- the meaning of concepts of Unix philosophy and ethics such as
“openness” and “autonomy”, from a social, political or economic point of
view.
/2. Philosophical and epistemological perspectives/
We will foster research and reflection at the crossroad of the
theoretical foundations of computer systems and engineering pragmatism,
between the philosophy of computer systems and Unixian practices.
Protagonists in the conception and diffusion of Unix often claim to have
a ‘Unix philosophy’ . But beyond statement of principle, what was the
real influence of this idea on the technical choices underlying the
system’s developments? What are the ethical, moral,
and philosophical motivations – alongside the social, political or
economic dimensions discussed earlier – underpinning the adoption of
Unix or pretending to extend it (for instance in relation to the notions
of sharing, modularity or freedom)? How is the
idea of ‘openness’ attached to Unix practices and heritage (free
software, open source) conceived? What are the theoretical developments
to be drawn from it (for instance with the idea of open software)?
The logical and mathematical foundations of Unix should be readdressed.
Do the fundamental concepts of Unix have an ontological or metaphysical
significance beyond the sole research aim of technical efficiency? What
role do aesthetics play in the formulation
of general principles and technical choices? How can we analyze
programming languages such as C and its successors, scripts, software,
and generally speaking, the proliferating source codes of Unix? How do
we consider the system, the software environment,
as well as the hardware in which Unix is implemented and executed?
Such philosophical questions also cover the modalities of the
transmission of Unix, extending to the investigation of the respective
roles of theory and practice in the teaching of the system, the teaching
of knowledge and tools underlying the system or supporting
the system.
/3. Unix heritage and ‘heritagization’/
France is now the home to multiple initiatives taking place to build and
preserve a material and immaterial heritage of computer science and
technology – such as ‘Software Heritage’ at INRIA, a global software
archive in progress. The Museum of Arts et Métiers
gave impetus to the MINF initiative (‘Pour un Musée de l’informatique
et du numérique’) and coordinates the ‘Patstec Mission’ dealing with
contemporary scientific and technological heritage preservation,
including computer science. At an international scale
and with a grassroots perspective carried by the community of Unix
users, the TUHS (The Unix Heritage Society) demonstrates the current
interest in the specific heritage linked to Unix. We encourage
reflections on this heritage and its specific features:
- What is the place of Unix in the construction of computer science
heritage? Is it possible to map Unix systems and their heritage, from
the standpoint of machines, languages and software? What has already
been collected? What corpus, data bases, and/or platforms
with a patrimonial mission are concerned with Unix and to what purpose?
- How are the questions of training, constitution and diffusion of a
Unix culture incorporated in the effort to collect heritage? How do we
evaluate and put forward the importance of immaterial heritage attached
to Unix, considering the effects of community
and memory in its history and for the writing of its history?
- What are the practices and modalities advocated by the unixian
heritage itself? What has been its influence on the field of computer
engineering and research as well as diverse fields such as:
popularization of science and technology, ‘hacker’ movements and
many ‘maker’ practices today (Lallement, 2016)?
Communications and discussions will be held in French or English.
*Schedules*
Please send a one-page abstract (maximum 500 words) with a short biography by June 30, 2017 to: camille.paloque-berges@cnam.fr
*Organizing committee*
Isabelle Astic (Musée des arts et métiers)
Raphaël Fournier-S’niehotta (Cédric, Cnam)
Pierre-Eric Mounier-Kuhn (CRM, Paris 1)
Camille Paloque-Berges (HT2S, Cnam)
Loïc Petitgirard (HT2S, Cnam)
*Scientific committee*
François Anceau (UMPC-LIP6)
Pierre Cubaud (Cédric, Cnam)
Liesbeth de Mol (STL, Lille 3)
Claudine Fontanon (CAK, EHESS)
Gérald Kembellec (DICEN, Cnam)
Baptiste Mélès (Archives Henri Poincaré, CNRS)
Giuseppe Primiero (Middlesex University)
Lionel Tabourier (LIP6, Paris 6)
*Partners:*
- Project « Hist.Pat.info.Cnam », HT2S, Cnam – Research program
supported by the Excellence laboratory History and Anthropology of
Knoweldge, Technics and Beliefs (HASTEC), and in partnership with the
laboratories CEDRIC (Cnam), DICEN (Cnam), and the Center
Alexandre Koyré (EHESS).
- « Histoire de l’informatique » (« History of computing » seminar)
seminar - (Musée des arts et métiers, CRM, Paris 1, UMPC-LIP6)
- « Source code » seminar - (CNRS, Cnam, Université Paris 6).
With support from the DHST/DLMPST for the History and Philosophy of Computing (HAPOC)
*Bibliography*
Kelty, Christopher M. 2008. Two Bits: The Cultural Significance of Free Software. Durham: Duke University Press Books.
Lallement, Michel. 2016. L’âge du faire, Seuil.
Mélès, Baptiste. 2003. « Unix selon l’ordre des raisons : la philosophie
de la pratique informatique ». Philosophia Scientiæ 17 (3): 181‑98.
Salus, Peter H. 1994. A quarter century of UNIX. Addison-Wesley. Reading.
Toomey, Warren. 2010. « First Edition Unix: Its Creation and Restoration
». IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 32 (3): 74‑82.