Yale Bulletin and Calendar

October 26, 2001

Volume 30, Number 8

Bill Joy

Alumni to ponder intersection
of law and technology

"Law and Technology" is the theme of the Law School's annual Alumni Weekend, which takes place Friday-Sunday, Nov. 2-4.

Highlights of the event include alumni panels exploring issues at the intersection of law and technology; addresses by such notable alumni as Reed E. Hundt '74, former chair of the Federal Communications Commission, and Bill Joy, cofounder and chief scientist of Sun Microsystems, Inc.; and the presentation of the Yale Law School Alumni Award of Merit to U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman '67 (D-CT).

"More and more, technology plays a role in our daily lives, in the development and practice of law, and in the problems that the legal system must consider," says Law School dean Anthony Kronman in the Alumni Weekend brochure. "The Internet has revolutionized the way many of us communicate, learn, obtain and use information. At the same time, the news is full of legal issues occasioned by advances in technology -- stem cell research, personal privacy, intellectual property, government sovereignty in matters of international law, and missile defense, to name a few. These are just a few areas where the law must fathom deep and uncharted waters."

Members of the public are welcome to attend the Charles S. Mechem Jr. Fellowship Lecture, which will be presented by Bill Joy. His talk on "Technology and the Rule of Law" will take place on Friday, Nov. 2, at 4 p.m. in Rm. 127 of the Law School, 127 Wall St.

An electrical engineer, Joy co-founded Sun Microsystems in 1982 and has been chief scientist of the company since 1998. He also serves as its corporate executive officer. Considered one of the most influential people in the computer industry, Joy designed Sun's Network File System (NFS), was a co-designer of the company's SPARC microprocessors, and was the mastermind behind Java, a platform independent technology that is a foundation for Web and networked services. His newest brainchild, Jini, a technology designed to enable all kinds of electronic devices -- televisions, printers, digital cameras, cell phones, etc. -- to connect via the internet.

Joy made one of his earliest innovations as a graduate student at the University of California Berkeley, where he was the principle designer of Berkeley UNIX. That version of UNIX (BSD) became the standard in education and research, garnering development support from the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. He also introduced virtual memory and internetworking using TCP/IP to UNIX. For his work on UNIX, Joy received the ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award for outstanding work in computer science by individuals under the age of 30. His honors since then have included a Life Achievement Award from the USENIX Association for "profound intellectual achievement and unparalleled services to the UNIX community." He also was a co-recipient in 1999 of the Computerworld Smithsonian Award for Innovation.

In 1997 Joy was appointed by President Clinton as co-chair of the Presidential Information Technology Advisory Committee. The committee provides guidance and advice on all areas of high-performance computing, communications and information technologies to accelerate development and adoption of information technologies vital for American prosperity in the 21st-century.

Twelve law school classes will return to campus for Alumni Weekend. Other topics being explored in panel discussions over the weekend include "Government and the Information Economy: New Rules for the Road?", "Civil Liberties in the High Tech Age," "Innovation and Entrepreneurship: Will Law Enable, Impede or Is it Irrelevant?" and "Democracy and Governance in the High Tech Age."

Further information on the weekend's events is available at www.law.yale.edu/alumni.

T H I SW E E K ' SS T O R I E S

Study shows diet is linked to growing form of cancer

'Architecture or Revolution' recalls years of turbulence, innovation

Locke recalls Yale years, defends affirmative action in Chubb Lecture

Alumni to ponder intersection of law and technology

Legal scholar John Langbein is named Sterling Professor

Historian Cynthia Russett is appointed Larned Professor

Conference honors economist William Brainard

Environmental Science Center opening Oct. 26

Event to celebrate 'Cultures of Native America'

Drama school stages Chekhov's 'compassionate meditation'

Yale Opera students to perform scenes from famous operas

'Practical Logic' series opens with talk on challenge of intersexuality

Talks about Sept. 11 aftermath to focus on questions of gender

Symposium to explore 'material culture' of Colonial New York

Project teaches Head Start parents about computers, cancer

Conservation of biodiversity in China is subject of talk

Stephen Bright to speak at tea

Getting the low-down on downtown

Honoring an 'unsung hero'

Campus Notes