After more than a year of deliberation and negotiations, the September IFIP General Assembly (GA), meeting in Budapest, approved the admission of the Computer Society of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE-CS) and the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) as Full Members, to succeed the current Full Member from the US, (the Federation on Computing in the US — FOCUS, which is jointly supported by the ACM and IEEE-CS). This required an amendment of an IFIP statute, which now reads as follows (the italicized portions constitute the amendment):
In each country, a national scientific or technical society...may become a Full Member,
with the restriction that there shall normally be only one Full Member for any
country and that it will be representative of activities in the field of Information
Processing. In very exceptional circumstances, the GA may approve the admission of
more than one Full Member from the USA, providing that
1) each such Full Member shall satisfy the entry requirements stated above and
2) such Full Members shall mutually support each other's membership applications.
Such Full Members shall enjoy the same rights and obligations as other Full Members.
The principle of one Member per nation was inherent in the original structure of IFIP. In his "Personal Recollections on the Origin of IFIP" published in A Quarter Century of IFIP (ed. Zemanek), Mr. Isaac Auerbach (USA), the founder of the Federation, wrote the following:
We [founders] agreed that the federation would be a society of societies, and would not have individual members so as not to compete with national professional societies. Furthermore, the federation would have only one national technical society per country as a member, and certain Eastern European countries could register their National Academy of Sciences as the representative. The rationale for this decision was that one society for each country would keep the voting balanced and controlled.
Dr. Richard Tanaka (USA), a former president of IFIP, recalls Mr. Auerbach telling him that at the time of the founding of IFIP (1959), the US was by far the dominant power in information processing, so that in order to avoid making IFIP a predominantly American federation, the UN model of one vote per national society was chosen.
Nonetheless, the desirability of permitting multiple Full Members from one country was raised a while ago for a variety of reasons, including providing a means for allowing the computer professionals of a nation to be represented by a second society that is active and vital when the original IFIP Member society is inactive. Under the current statutes, once an organization has been admitted to Full Membership, it cannot be replaced, even if another society is or becomes the most important society in the country. This may result in a situation that is bad for the country and bad for IFIP. (For this reason, it behooves the Admissions Committee to carefully check to determine whether a society applying for Full Membership is the best candidate from the country.)
IFIP Member societies were asked in 1997 by Prof. Kurt Bauknecht (CH), then the IFIP president, whether they were in favor of multiple memberships. The replies were split about 50-50.
At the September 1997 GA in Canela, Brazil, Dr. Bruce Shriver (USA), chair of FOCUS, proposed the creation of a new category of membership: the International Professional Society. Such an organization would have a significant number of its members in multiple countries, provide its services in many countries, and have significant international representation on its governing boards. Both the IEEE-CS and ACM satisfy these criteria.
At the subsequent Council meeting, in Manchester, UK, last March, it was announced that the IEEE-CS would withdraw from FOCUS, leaving the ACM as its sole member. The majority of Council members were in favor of the admission of the ACM and IEEE-CS as Full Members of IFIP but uncertain whether the creation of a new category of membership was the way to do it, since these two societies were likely to be the only ones to qualify as IPSs.
This year, Prof. Bauknecht again wrote each Member society to ask, "…irrespective of whether you may or may not be in favor of more than one Full Member [from] your country, it would be very helpful to have your view on admitting both ACM and IEEE Computer Society as Full Members for the US." Eight out of thirteen replies were completely in favor, and an additional two were positive if the US were limited to one vote. If this had been representative of the entire GA, there would not have been enough votes (75%) to amend the statues to permit the admission of both societies, each with a vote.
Dr. Doris Carver, president of the IEEE-CS, and Dr. Michael Elliott, its executive director, went to Budapest to discuss this matter with the Executive Board and the GA. Dr. Carver pointed out that her Society's non-US membership is expected to exceed 50% before long. She stressed the importance of considering the Society as an international society and not one with a US label. (She said that the ACM had a similar viewpoint.) Having the US label "would not be acceptable," she said.
It was made known by Prof. Bauknecht and Prof. Robert Aiken, the FOCUS representative to IFIP, that if the IEEE-CS and ACM were not admitted as Full Members, FOCUS would be dissolved at the end of 1998, which would leave no US Membership in IFIP. If, however, the two societies were admitted without being identified as US societies, FOCUS could — if IFIP wished so — be continued for an additional year until another US society could be found with the interest and resources (e.g., funds for dues and to support the travel of GA and Technical Committee representatives to IFIP meetings) to assume Full Membership in IFIP.
During the GA debate, it was stressed that the Full Members of IFIP are societies — not nations — and that GA representatives represent their societies' members rather than their countries. A question arose concerning who would represent US computer professionals in IFIP if the ACM and IEEE-CS viewed themselves as international societies with international memberships. A concern was voiced that if the US were no longer represented in IFIP, our activities "would be impoverished."
After very tortuous deliberations (at one point, it was even proposed that a vote be "recommitted"), the amendment quoted above was passed, with the required 75% vote. The GA also approved Full Membership for the two US societies, effective 1 January 1999, with the understanding that FOCUS will be dissolved at the end of 1998. Although this does not resolve all the issues raised, it does take a first step in that direction.
When this Newsletter went to print, both US societies had expressed their intention to apply for Full Membership effective 1 January 1999 and appoint GA and TC representatives. Prof. Aiken was likely to be the GA representative of the ACM and retain his office of IFIP vice-president.