Doghouse: Meet the maddog :FDDLE@KP

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Jon ‘maddog’ Hall introduces himself and rolls out the first installment in his new monthly community-focused column.

BY JON ‘MADDOG’ HALL

own products – Digital Unix, in particu- Sometimes you will read something I lar – I also started talking about , write and you might think that it is obvi- , and the Free Software ous because I’ll occasionally discuss top- Foundation. ics of interest to people who are new to the open source community. Also, I Cffb`e^8_\X[ might help explain a particular concept or the first installment of my new What should you expect from my col- to people who are not programmers, monthly column in Linux Maga- umn? “Everything Free and Open Source which might also help you explain it to =zine, I decided to write an intro- Software” – from discussions around your boss, spouse, or legislator. Often, I duction and tell you a little about myself. licensing and patent issues, to environ- will use stories from the history of com- mentally friendly computing and how puters to help explain these concepts be- 9XZb^ifle[ it can save you money. cause I have been lucky enough to have I started programming in 1969, moving At heart, I am a capitalist, so I will met some of the great programmers and from being an electrical engineering stu- also write about business cases in which computer scientists, and some of my dent into the relatively new world of people have either made or saved money conversations with them are worth pass- software. Since that time, I have worked with free software. ing on to readers. as a programmer, systems administrator, I also speak at conferences around the quality engineer, product manager, and world. As I write this column, I am on 8cc9Xib#Ef9`k\ technical marketing manager. While in an airplane flying to City for a Finally, this is your column, too. If you this last role, I met Linus Torvalds in conference, and then I’m off to Bogatá, have something you would like me to May of 1994 and recognized that Linux for a Campus Party event [1]. discuss, send me email at pawprints@ had a commercial future. I orchestrated In August, I’m attending the DebConf linux-magazine. com and I will try to the effort to get Linus an Alpha proces- conference in [2]; some Li- address your request. Also, you can read sor from Digital Equipment Corporation, nuxPark events in Brasilia, Curitiba, and my Linux Magazine at: http:// www. and I helped put together a team to do [3]; and Jornadas Re- linux-magazine. com/ pawprints. If you the port of Linux to the Alpha, which gionales de Software Libre 2008 [4] in see me at a conference or event, feel free also formally moved Linux from being , Argentina, and I plan to to talk to me – although I bark a lot, I a 32-bit system to a 64-bit system, and – write about those events. hardly ever bite. p through the restructuring of the source code tree – made it easier to port to Gifa\Zkj INFO other platforms. You might think that this hectic travel [1] Campus Party (in Spanish): Although I had been using “free soft- schedule would leave me little time for http:// www. campus-party. org/ ware” – what we used to just call “soft- “real work,” but I am also heavily in- [2] DebConf: http:// www. debconf. org/ ware” – for a long time and had even volved in environmentally friendly com- helped publish collections of it for Digi- puting and trying to bridge the “Digital [3] LinuxPark (in Portuguese): http:// www. linuxpark. com. br/ lp/ tal’s customers, meeting Linus Torvalds Divide,” which some people prefer to and being introduced to the Linux com- think of as “Digital Inclusion.” This [4] Jornadas Regionales de Software munity is what made me start thinking focus accesses the more technical side of Libre 2008: http:// jornadas. cafelug. org. ar/ 8/ es/ home. php about the implications of free software my nature, and when I find interesting on the world’s stage. From that point on, topics in this area, I will also write about [5] maddog’s blog: http:// www. as I continued to talk about Digital’s them. linux-magazine. com/ pawprints

SEPTEMBER 2008 ISSUE 94 87