Overview:

The 15th Workshop on Hot Topics in Operating Systems will bring together researchers and practitioners in computer systems, broadly construed. Continuing the HotOS tradition, participants will present and discuss new ideas about systems research and how technological advances and new applications are shaping our computational infrastructure.

Computing systems encompass both traditional platforms—smartphones, desktops, and datacenters—and new technologies, like implantable embedded devices, geographically distributed stream processing systems, and autonomous flight control. In this context, a deluge of personal, corporate, sensitive, ephemeral, or historical information being produced, transmitted, processed, and stored poses interesting systems challenges. Systems are expected to guard this information, and do so better, faster, and using less energy.

We solicit position papers that propose new directions of systems research, advocate innovative approaches to long-standing systems problems, or report on deep insights gained from experience with real-world systems. HotOS areas of interest include operating systems, storage, networking, distributed systems, programming languages, security, dependability, and manageability. We are also interested in systems contributions influenced by other fields such as hardware design, machine learning, control theory, networking, economics, social organization, and biological or other nontraditional computing systems.

To ensure a vigorous workshop, attendance is by invitation only. Authors will be invited based on their submission’s originality, topical relevance, technical merit, and likelihood of leading to insightful technical discussions that will influence future systems research. We will heavily favor submissions that are radical, forward-looking, and open-ended, as opposed to mature work on the verge of conference publication.

Paper Submission Instructions:

Position papers must be received by the paper submission deadline mentioned above. This is a hard deadline, and no extensions will be granted.

Submissions must be no longer than 5 pages including figures and tables, plus as many pages as needed for references. Text should be formatted in two columns on 8.5 x 11-inch paper using 10-point Times-Roman font on 12-point (single-spaced) leading, 1-inch margins, and a 0.25-inch gutter (separation between the columns). The title, author names, affiliations, and an abstract should appear on the first page. Pages should be numbered. Figures and tables should not require magnification for viewing; they may contain color, but should be legible when printed or displayed in black and white. Submissions not meeting these criteria will be rejected without review, and no deadline extensions will be granted for reformatting. Papers should be submitted as PDF files via the Web submission form, which will be available here soon.

Revised versions of all accepted papers will be available online to registered attendees before the workshop. After the workshop, accepted papers will be made available on the USENIX Web site, along with slides of the presentation, and a summary of the discussion at the workshop. Registered users of the USENIX Web site will have the ability to comment and/or ask questions, and the authors will be able to respond online, as well as expand their ideas and produce new versions of their papers. This online discussion will constitute an active history of how the idea or system evolves from the "hot idea" stage to mature work published in conferences and eventually released into the real world.

Simultaneous submission of the same work to multiple venues, submission of previously published work, or plagiarism constitutes dishonesty or fraud. USENIX, like other scientific and technical conferences and journals, prohibits these practices and may take action against authors who have committed them. See the USENIX Conference Submissions Policy for details.

Questions? Contact the program chair, hotos15chair@usenix.org, or the USENIX office, submissionspolicy@usenix.org.

Papers accompanied by nondisclosure agreement forms will not be considered. Accepted submissions will be treated as confidential prior to publication on the USENIX HotOS XV Web site; rejected submissions will be permanently treated as confidential.