History of the League of Professional System Administrators

Recent Updates

2009 Predictions - 7d

Upcoming events

SCaLE University / LOPSA Training (42 days)
ScaLE 7x -- Southern California Linux Expo (43 days)

Pre-history

LOPSA's history begins in the early 1990s. Then, a group of system administrators decided that it was time to address the issues of System Administration as a profession. Their efforts lead to the founding of SAGE -- The System Administrators' Guild. Since the founders are active participants in USENIX and its LISA conference, they decided to work with USENIX to organize SAGE. While it was never intended that SAGE be a permanent part of USENIX, SAGE began as the first (and only) USENIX Special Technical Group.

However, running a professional society for one group of people under the auspicies of an organization with different goals comes with challenges. Serving the profession of system administration required a different focus and different resources than USENIX's mission of advanced computer systems research and conferences. Therefore, after years of growing pains and differences, the leadership of both SAGE and USENIX decided to make a change.

2004: SAGE disbanded and charted a roadmap for a new organization

In June 2004, the USENIX Board disbanded the SAGE special technical group, and established a roadmap for the creation of an independant SAGE, including the transition of assets from the SAGE to the new organization. They asked the former SAGE Executive Committee if they were interested in persuing that course. Three members of the Executive Committee (Geoff Halprin, Trey Harris and David Parter), with the endorsement of the rest of the executive committee agreed to serve as the transition committee. They were joined by Lorette Cheswick.

2004-2005: Transition Committee and Interim Board; Elections

The transition committee incorporated The System Administrators Guild, a New Jersey Non-Profit corporation in November 2004, and became the interim Board of Directors, or NewSAGE. Throughout the fall of 2004 and Spring of 2005, the Interim Board worked on the building blocks of the new organization, and laying the groundwork for the transition from USENIX. The Interim Board recruited a Leadership Committee (Greg Rose, Esther Filderman, Adam Moskowitz, Mario Obejas) to recruit candidates and oversee the election of the first full Board of Directors. Jesse Trucks and Matt Okeson-Harlow of Cyberius' Network volunteered to write the election software and conduct the online election, which was held in June 2005. The election results were announced on June 28, 2005.

Summer/Fall 2005: Preparing for the transition

The first elected Board of Directors met in Mount Laurel, NJ on July 29-31, 2005. Tom Perrine was elected the President, Pat Wilson Vice President, and Andrew Hume Secretary-Treasurer. Sam Albrecht (from Association Headquarters) was approved as our Executive Director.

During the remainder of the Summer and early Fall of 2005, NewSAGE attempted to work with USENIX on the promised transition of services and assets.

In October, Geoff Halprin resigned from the SAGE Board because of conflict of interest, citing "advice of counsel regarding the negotiations in progress between USENIX and SAGE", since Geoff was also a member of the USENIX Board of Directors at the time.

November 2005: LOPSA is born

In November 2005, negotiations with USENIX broke down, and Mike Jones, USENIX President, sent an email message to all USENIX and SAGE members announcing that the USENIX Board decided not to proceed with separating SAGE from USENIX. It then became clear that USENIX's plans and expectations had changed, and that USENIX was no longer willing to continue with negotiations towards separation.

However, the fundamental issues underlying SAGE's growing pains and USENIX had not changed; indeed they were greater due to SAGE's dormancy for a year. The Board of the newly formed organization unanimously believed that the need for an independent professional society for system administrators was as manifest as ever. Therefore, the Board decided to continue on, and The League of Professional System Administrators -- LOPSA was born. A lot of hard work by a group of dedicated volunteers ensued, and after a few days, the new lopsa.org website went live on November 11, 2005.

SAGE continues to exist as a separate entity run as a special interest group of Usenix (also a 501c(3)).

LOPSA at LISA '05

LOPSA made its live debut at the LISA '05 conference. We conducted a Community Meeting to discuss our future plans and intentions; the room was full and spilling into the hallway, and the feeling was positive and energized. By the week's end, more than 200 members had signed up to join LOPSA.

USENIX has supported LOPSA's emergence, providing space at conferences for LOPSA booths; relations between the two organizations (and the sub-organization SAGE) remain informal but friendly. For more information regarding SAGE, see http://www.usenix.org/

2006: LOPSA Now

In 2006, LOPSA is concentrating on growing and expanding the organization, adding feature to the web site, involving more member volunteers, and adding programs. Our membership continues to grow, and our focus is on serving our profession and being the independent voice of system administration. We have been building contacts and partnerships with a number of technical organizations and companies, and moving forward on a number of fronts to best serve system administration.

The independence of LOSPA has achieved one major goal already; the LOPSA board has been freed of focusing on governance and structural decisions, and is instead focusing on the programs and benefits that best serve a system administrator's professional society.