Subject: petition

From: [email-masked] (Sreejit Chakravarty)
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 92 13:41:22 EDT

I endorse the following petition.

Prof. Sreejit Chakravarty
State University of New York
Buffalo, NY 14260
-----------------------------------------------
			     THE PETITION

We, the undersigned computer scientists and engineers, find the report
``Computing the Future: A Broader Agenda for Computer Science and
Engineering'' misleading and even harmful as an agenda for future
research.  We have four objections.  First, it defines computer
science in terms of a narrow set of applied objectives.  Second, it
suggests that the tone of computer science is to be set by government
agencies, university administrators and industrialists and that
computer scientists are just the ``soldiers on the ground''.  Third,
it pre-emptively surrenders to the bad idea that basic research should
not be supported and that all support for science should be based on
``concrete demonstration of benefit to the nation.''  Fourth, it lacks
an adequate summary of scientific research goals and the resources
needed to achieve them.

We request that the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board
withdraw the report for rewriting, especially the Preface and
Executive Summary.  Chapters 2 and 3 also need to be replaced.  The
revision should discuss computer science in terms of the questions
computer scientists are curious about, and should emphasize that the
research goals, as in all sciences, are determined primarily by the
researchers.

End of Petition.  Email to [email-masked] will be
automatically counted as endorsing this petition.  Comments should go
to [email-masked].

----- End Included Message -----