Jon Maddog Hall on Linux, His Life and More 42
inkslinger77 writes "In a recent interview Jon 'Maddog' Hall speaks with Computerworld Australia about his life, Linux, and the Linux world conference to be held this year in Sydney. He also talks about Linux International's new direction and the future of FOSS."
Jon "Maddog" Hall, a true class act (Score:5, Interesting)
While I was reading the article (and yes, I read the whole thing), I couldn't help recognizing this quote with a smile on my face.
The word "just" normally sets me off as well, when it is applied to a person, as in "I am just a user, or I am just a teacher." Every human is unique, they are not "just" anything.
During the conversation with Jon at the 2001/2002 Linux Expo, I've said 'Maddog, you are the master, and I'm `just` a user compare to you.' Then he gently smiled (and no, he didn't get "mad" or angry) and told me, 'No. You are not `just` a user. I am a user, you are a user, and we all are users."
How true indeed. The article carries very good impression I had about Jon since then on, the true passion and dedication Jon has for users, not "just" users or specific group of people, but for everyone.
I have a new favorite Maddog quote. (Score:5, Interesting)
Why Bill Hilf can't make it (Score:5, Interesting)
It could be because he can longer put forth the stuff MS was expecting him to spout without curling up in embarassment and dying.
A few weeks ago he was interviewed on the LUG Radio Podcast http://www.lugradio.org/episodes/ [lugradio.org] (see Epsiode 3) in which
he was asked about how Open Source people could go and work for Microsoft.
He stated the Microsoft was OK really, had learned from it's mistakes and that we should judge the company on what it was doing now.
A couple of weeks or so later Microsoft helped hound the Massachusetts guy out of office http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/12
The guy from Gentoo took the honourable way out and resigned. Bill Hilf's mortage is obviously more important to him than his principles. However, being a mortage paying family gut myself can't say that I blame him. It is only software after all.
SGI? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Jon "Maddog" Hall, a true class act (Score:5, Interesting)
The part that impressed me was this ....
Finally, in 1994, I was introduced to Linus Torvalds, and my life was changed forever. I came back from that meeting and told my fellow workers "Linux is inevitable". I even put that message in a slide presentation, in 1994.
I figured it out in 95, and let me tell you it was hell, so I can only imagine what he went thru. The thing that killed me the most was trying to tell this to managers and corporate types, and getting blown off like I didn't know what I was talking about. It was a real eye opener about how 90% of the corporate world are followers who couldn't recoginize a free market force if it ripped them a new one. In my career I have been told phrases like "the internet is a passing fad" (92), "linux is a toy os, not for the enterprise" (97), "the x86 won't work for the data center" (2001). Thankfully I ignored all of them, which is why I'm still in IT today.
So what's the next technology that the business types haven't figured out yet. Well, I would say p2p and the death of the copyright system, but I think the real but kicker this time is not technology, but economics. The US economy has too much debt (esp in housing), too much taxes, too many unfunded obligations (like social security) that can and never will be paid off at face value. The same information technology forces that are predestining the death of copyrights are also pre-destining the death of paper and government "backed" currencies. The global transition will be very very painfull.