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Re:runtime compilers by Big+Jojo · 2000-02-17 00:45 · Score: 2 · on Inside Java 2 Platform Security, Architecture, API Design and Implementation

What about the gnu Java compiler: gcj?

The official site is the Java section of sourceware, and there is a recent news update. It compiles source or class files to native code, and the CNI interface is basically C++ calling; so it's set up to be fast, and in fact has been fast, on the software I've managed to get running there.

Briefly, it's bleeding edge; one looks forward to the next GCC release. I don't know how the very latest snapshots go, but it's been ages since I've gotten one that even compiles smoothly (on Redhat 6.0, very standard).

Significant missing features include the ability to parse JDK 1.1 "inner classes" from Java source. It's coming, but not there yet, and the workaround is just to use a JDK compiler and compile from classfiles.

And as for applying this particular signed code architecture (the one in the book, remember what the alleged topic of this thread is? :-) ... it's a ways off, I'd say. Clearly there'll be some good potential for open source hacking there, both to get the crypto parts going (let's really bang on that new BigInteger code!) and to make sure all the other parts of the runtime interact appropriately. Hard work.

RedHat/Cygnus IA-64 Developer Release README by Richard+Wakefield · 2000-02-16 13:03 · Score: 5 · on More Itanium-Linux Capability

The README for the Linux/ia64 Developer's Release on Cygnus' ftp site (which incidentally is what RedHat's site links to), has some very interesting tidbits:

The entire GNU toolchain has been extended to support IA-64 (this includes binutils, gcc, and gdb).

The compiler generates working code, but does not generated optimized code for the Itanium processor yet. It has some basic optimizations, but no "interesting" optimizations yet.

Binutils is mostly functional, with the exception of shared library support and a few other things.

Gdb has only partial functionality--basic commands work, but most advanced commands are not working.

Providing support would be a pain by Goonie · 2000-02-08 16:24 · Score: 4 · on University of Michigan Linux

I was head tutor (approximately equivalent to a TA) for an introductory university C programming course. To allow students to work from home, we provided a CD including the Cygwin tools and a couple of other free development tools for Windows. It drove me absolutely nuts trying to provide installation support - and, being an Australian university, there weren't enough other staff to help. This was for a simple software package, not an operating system that has to cope with the vagaries of a huge variety of hardware and the joys of repartitioning and reformatting hard disks.

While any IT student who is serious about their profession should install Linux or a BSD on their computer, without a large committment of support resources it's not practical for a university to provide Linux (or Windows, for that matter) for their students.

Perhaps American universities have that luxury. If so, maybe I should consider a move :)

Disclaimer: speaking for me only

More of the same by Enervator · 2000-02-02 22:13 · Score: 1 · on Andover.Net and VA Linux Join Together

Borgificatio n continues as usual . You will be assimilated.

Yahoo news re Red Hat by WillWare · 2000-01-31 04:48 · Score: 1 · on Linux in Embedded OSs

Yahoo has a story about Red Hat's involvement with embedded Linux applications. This appears to be a rehash of the Cygnus acquisition a few months ago, but still interesting reading. Apparently what makes this news is that Red Hat is putting together some new tools for developers, aimed at x86 and PowerPC targets.

Re:Good test Bad conclusions by the+way · 2000-01-25 05:39 · Score: 3 · on Red Hat Finishes Last

It seems that the tests results completly belie the conclusions drawn

No, they didn't. Although RH had better write performance (although only slightly better with cached writes), on many of the more qualitative tests RH came out behind. These qualitative tests were based on the appropriateness of the system for serving up files and printers.

When you're looking after the file server for a hundred people, do you really want the flexibility of scripts and configuration files for the simple tasks you do every day? Have you even looked at Win2k? Using both RH and Win2k every day, I can support the authors' conclusions that the MMC tools in W2k are both fast and powerful for common day to day tasks.

Those who suggest that W2k doesn't have good scripting capabilities are also on the wrong track, IMHO. Windows Scripting Host provides access to much of the administrative interface, and Perl for Win32 can be used to automate pretty much everything (since it can access the COM objects that run the show). You'll also find almost all the GUI tools also have an associated text tool (e.g. try typing 'routemon' into a W2k machine sometime to see how to configure routing and tunnelling from the command line). If you want powerful shell scripting, grab the Cygwin tools which include bash, make, gcc, etc.

The article is also right that W2k's documentation is fantastic. Commonly used tasks get dozens of examples and step by step instructions (e.g. look up 'routing and remote access' in the help) and more arcane commands and options still contain a thorough explanation (e.g. look up 'routemon' in the help).

Before people here start making judgement on Win2k, please use it. And that means try it on a machine you actually use, for a few months--give it the same air time that you'd ask somebody trying out Linux for the first time to give.

Having said all that, I should balance this by mentioning what a great OS Linux is too (really--I like both Linux and W2k!). For serving up web pages it's got the wonderful Apache (which on Win32 is still immature), and the benefits of Open Source can not be understated. The mass of information in the HOWTOs makes complex tasks tractable, whereas with W2k if you go past the scope of the documentation you are often SOL.

Re:VM's will always be slow by Matt+Welsh · 2000-01-19 10:57 · Score: 1 · on Java Performance under Linux

First off, remember that IBM's JDK includes one of the fastest (if not the fastest) JIT compilers available for Java -- on any platform. It's really impressive.

Secondly, I wanted to point out that TowerJ is not the only "static" Java compiler for Linux. Another very good system is GCJ, a Java front-end for GCC, which is entirely open source, based on EGCS, and has pretty impressive performance!

Matt Welsh

Re:VM's will always be slow by Anonymous Coward · 2000-01-18 23:06 · Score: 0 · on Java Performance under Linux

Now if just someone could get on the stick and create a Java-like language that compiles directly to run on bare metal

You mean like gcj?

http://sourceware.cygnus.com/java

So? by Svartalf · 2000-01-12 05:37 · Score: 3 · on Metrowerks Putting Linux on Hold

"There are hundreds of web browsers, too, but most of them suck. CodeWarrior is robust, fast, and mature, and it has a large user base already."

Only in the Mac community and to a lesser extent in the Windows community. And, there is one free alternative and one no-so-free alternative that stand out as being usable and as good as (or better than- depending on how you view it...) CodeWarrior.

Code Crusader is the freebie and is a best of breed IDE and is what I've been using for some of my work projects and all of my at home projects. It's worth a look-see.

CodeFusion, from Red Hat, is the other one. It's a little clumsy to use at first, but once you get the hang of it, it's also a great alternative to CodeWarrior. (It's what we're using for our stuff at work now- we're needing cross-platform... :-)

"However, I think that having CodeWarrior available for Linux would help entice developers coming from the Windows/Mac world."

Actually, we've got a lot there with the other two- if MetroWerks/Motorola aren't interested in us, it's their loss.

Did Code Fusion kill Codewarrior? by Telcontar · 2000-01-12 02:25 · Score: 3 · on Metrowerks Putting Linux on Hold

Besides Open Source tools like Glade and JX Builder, Code Fusion (and other commercial tools like the Motif based BX pro) make for some very serious competition for Code Warrior. Maybe the abundance of such tools (and the availability of excellent Open Source ones) killed Codewarrior?
So instead of worrying too much about this (admittedly heavy) loss, look forward to new tools, and try one of the other ones!

eCos instead of Linux for PDAs? by Chouser · 2000-01-11 23:25 · Score: 1 · on Linux on DaVincis

I agree that Linux seems like somewhat of a poor fit for a PDA. Linux is designed around some hardware assumptions that just aren't true on a PDA (large slow disk + small fast RAM, for example).

On the other hand, PalmOS is closed. Oops.

So what about something like eCos? It's an Open Source Operating System from a well-known company with a decent track record, both technically and license-wise. Does anyone know how well it would work on a PDA? Is there such a project going on already?

--Chouser

GDB has non-command-line interfaces by Anonymous Coward · 2000-01-08 04:04 · Score: 0 · on Gnome Developers Conference

GDB has interfaces designed for interfacing with a GUI. It has many :-). See http://sourceware.cygnus.com/gdb/papers/libgdb2/ for a nice summary of the various interfaces (including what is wrong with many of them and how people are working on fixing it).

Agreed that none of them are where things should be, but in open source we don't call that "brokenness" we call it a "volunteer opportunity" :-).

This can't be true by rent · 2000-01-06 07:57 · Score: 0 · on Cygnus Announces Game Boy Devel Environment

If this story would be true, then the this would be announced on the cygnus press release page..

I also think Cygnus tends to concentrate on developing software tools for more modern 32bit and 64bit processors, instead wasteing its resources to develop tools for the outdated 8bit Z80 CPU found in the gameboy. Have a look at the above link to get a better idea.

Linux on gameboy would be almost impossible too. There might be enough memory for the kernal to load in, but loading X or any other decent apps would be impossible.

Whose Bugs Are These? by Christopher+B.+Brown · 2000-01-04 23:52 · Score: 3 · on Linux Opera Beta Released

Heh. You noticed the same thing I did.

This really ought to get directed to Ulrich Drepper; that could provide a straighter answer as to whether the problem represents:

A serious problem with GLIBC 2.1
A serious problem with an interaction between GLIBC 2.1 and Linux
A serious problem with the understanding that the developers have of POSIX and/or ANSI C that causes these "unexplainable anomalies" to be "unexplainable."
(In other words, they might be misusing file pointers or close() and the anomalies would thus be their fault.)

After the number of other misunderstandings that I've seen of versions of LIBC, I somewhat suspect the third option, although there's not enough evidence to strongly support any position. Best to contact Ulrich with a test case.

GCJ and classpath will set the standard by Anonymous Coward · 1999-12-23 16:43 · Score: 0 · on RMS on Java and GPL

Read here.

Re:Relevance of the GPL by Tom+Christiansen · 1999-12-22 21:44 · Score: 2 · on On The Linux Culture and Money

Even if Red Hat goes bankrupt tomorrow, all their code will be around for anyone to use. And just as importantly, their code will not be used in a way that is harmful to the Open Source communitiy, such as in a closed source distro by Microsoft or another giant corporation. Why? Because of the GPL.

Your point has genuine merit. Let's look at real-world cases that might apply.

The commercial BSD vendor, Berkeley Software Design, Inc., and Eric Allman's companym, Sendmail, Inc., share several characterics. (Note: I may be wrong about some of the following. Corrections welcome) They both started with free software. They both added proprietary enhancements. The both sell their value-added product as a revenue source. Both give you source code to the product you bought. And both forbid you from redistributing that source or changes to it to those who don't hold a licence.

Two critical questions are:

What's the current technology transfer? To what extend do corporate BSDI enhancements return to the free BSD distributions?
If these companies go down, what happens to their code? Licence holders still have the source, but so what? Is it dead?

I think these two cases are worth looking at because they did not start with GPL'd software, and thus were free to create a traditional fee-for-licence business model for their software systems. Are your points cited above relevant to them? Do companies like that matter to free software--and if so, do they help or hinder it? Or is that too facile a question; perhaps they help some things, hinder others?

To add one more pair of companies to the stack, consider John Ousterhout's TCL-based Scriptics company, or the Canadian Perl-related firm, ActiveState. My understanding is that there's more technology transfer between these two companies and their core free software roots than might be immediately obvious with the previous pair. I cannot really speak of the TCL world, but in the case of the Perl one, that firm funds not only the salary of the Perl release manager, they also fund development for porting to non-free systems. For example, they've made Perl's fork() call work "right" on Microsoft systems (actually, Microsoft paid for that work!) and have immediately returned those corporately funded enhancements back to the world of free software.

Yes, that means that the current developer release of Perl, version 5.005_63, supports fork(2) with Unix semantics even on Microsoft. Hurray!

If you want other mixed-mode business models, think about Alladin Ghostscript. The interesting issue of licensing is covered in the FAQ. There's also Sleepycat Software, whose database product, Berkeley DB, was used in Netscape with neither credit nor compensation, thus triggering a good bit of bad blood on the authors' parts because of lack of public recognition and appreciate for their work. The resulting `poison pill' licence seeks to avoid a repeat of this unpleasantry.

Now, we have in contrast to those situations, look at companies that are making a business, or trying to make a business, out of GPL'd software. The two most obvious examples, RHAT and LNUX, are hardly typical cases due to their current market valuations, which are obviously astronomically overvalued. But even in their cases, you'll find things that aren't what you would call "free software". In fact, they aren't even open source; look at the way Redhat ships "demo versions" of things without source. Now, I would be willing to argue that this is in fact a good thing because it shows people that Redhat's operating system is a viable platform for traditional licensed software. Others, however, dispute this, pointing out that that software would be orphaned if the company who produces it were to die.

My point is that I believe we now have a sufficiently long list of corporate endeavours which are based, at least with respect to some definitions of the term, free software. That means we have actual cases to look at, not hypothetical cases. I'm sure I've only named a couple of them here. What about other companies? I'm not talking about simple packagers and distributors. I mean firms that do serious development work based on free software. (I would mention Cygnus, but they've recently become an acquisition by Redhat.)

Do we have examples of companies that have died or otherwise abandoned their work in these areas? The university Ingress experience and Britten-Lee? Can we come up with other examples to look at? What has happened to the product of their work? Has it truly gone the way of all things, or did humanity derive some benefit from it?

Re:Use for assembler by sterwill · 1999-12-07 09:46 · Score: 3 · on V2 OS

Actually, these days, it's rare to write the only compiler for a new platform in assembly. It's very time-consuming. Most compilers (for new platforms) are developed as back-ends for existing compilers; cross-compilers are used to create the native compiler excutable for that new platform. Of course other binary utilities are needed to make the round trip. GCC is, to my knowledge, the most ported compiler in use today, and Cygnus has done plenty of this sort of work.

Of course intimate knowledge of the new platform's architecture (including its assembly vocabulary) is required to write an effective back-end to the compiler, but little application development is done in pure assembly. Browse through the GCC source tree some time.

--

Re:SGI and the future of Linux by Ereinion · 1999-11-24 16:11 · Score: 1 · on Dave McAllister (SGI) on Linux and Chilli

I have Linux just sitting on my machine, I've yet to find a 'killer app' for it...
I use NT for day-to-day work, and I'm not stuck with a single desktop any more - I run the Litestep window manager and have Cygwin for all my command-line needs, so I get the benefits of a unix interface and still get to use all my Windows apps...the best of both worlds :)

port to cygwin ? by Darxus · 1999-11-23 20:44 · Score: 1 · on Debian FreeBSD Distro?

I think the port to FreeBSD is a cool idea. I'd also like to see a port to cygwin.

Assigning copyright to the FSF by Carl · 1999-11-19 01:14 · Score: 2 · on Salon Article on Red Hat and Cygnus

I found the following piece amusing:

Any code that has at one time been protected by the GPL will still always be freely available, but new versions of that code could conceivably be released under different terms, even, potentially, as proprietary, closed-source software. The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is considered by most programmers to be highly unlikely to perpetrate any such license changes for the software to which it holds the copyright.

It is simply impossible for the FSF to distribute proprietary code. If you have ever assigned any code to the FSF you would know that the assignment contract you sign obligates the FSF to always distribute the assigned code and any code based on your work as Free Software, although they might not distribute it under (a specific version of) the GPL.

cygwin licensing terms. by Joseph+Vigneau · 1999-11-19 00:24 · Score: 2 · on Salon Article on Red Hat and Cygnus

From http://sourceware.cygnus.com/cyg win/licensing.html:

What are the licensing terms?

Most of the tools are covered by the GNU GPL, some are public domain, and others have a Berkeley style copyright. To cover the GNU GPL `restrictions', the basic rule is if you give out any binaries, you must also make the source available. For the full details, be sure to read the text of the GNU General Public License (GPL).

The Cygwin API library found in the winsup subdirectory of the source code is also covered by the GNU GPL. By default, all executables link against this library (and in the process include GPL'd Cygwin glue code). This means that unless you modify the tools so that compiled executables do not make use of the Cygwin library, your compiled programs will also have to be free software distributed under the GPL with source code available to all.

Cygnus' Native Win32 GNUPro subscriptions include a commercial license for Cygwin that is more suitable for commercial use of the Cygwin library. Pricing for a GNUPro Subscription starts at $6000 for three developers and includes GNUPro Toolkit, Developer Support, and a commercial-use license for 100 copies of the Cygwin library. Contact info@cygnus.com for more information about this license. All other questions should be sent to the project mailing list cygwin@sourceware.cygnus.com.

cygwin licensing terms. by Joseph+Vigneau · 1999-11-19 00:24 · Score: 2 · on Salon Article on Red Hat and Cygnus

From http://sourceware.cygnus.com/cyg win/licensing.html:

What are the licensing terms?

Most of the tools are covered by the GNU GPL, some are public domain, and others have a Berkeley style copyright. To cover the GNU GPL `restrictions', the basic rule is if you give out any binaries, you must also make the source available. For the full details, be sure to read the text of the GNU General Public License (GPL).

The Cygwin API library found in the winsup subdirectory of the source code is also covered by the GNU GPL. By default, all executables link against this library (and in the process include GPL'd Cygwin glue code). This means that unless you modify the tools so that compiled executables do not make use of the Cygwin library, your compiled programs will also have to be free software distributed under the GPL with source code available to all.

Cygnus' Native Win32 GNUPro subscriptions include a commercial license for Cygwin that is more suitable for commercial use of the Cygwin library. Pricing for a GNUPro Subscription starts at $6000 for three developers and includes GNUPro Toolkit, Developer Support, and a commercial-use license for 100 copies of the Cygwin library. Contact info@cygnus.com for more information about this license. All other questions should be sent to the project mailing list cygwin@sourceware.cygnus.com.

cygwin licensing terms. by Joseph+Vigneau · 1999-11-19 00:24 · Score: 2 · on Salon Article on Red Hat and Cygnus

From http://sourceware.cygnus.com/cyg win/licensing.html:

What are the licensing terms?

Most of the tools are covered by the GNU GPL, some are public domain, and others have a Berkeley style copyright. To cover the GNU GPL `restrictions', the basic rule is if you give out any binaries, you must also make the source available. For the full details, be sure to read the text of the GNU General Public License (GPL).

The Cygwin API library found in the winsup subdirectory of the source code is also covered by the GNU GPL. By default, all executables link against this library (and in the process include GPL'd Cygwin glue code). This means that unless you modify the tools so that compiled executables do not make use of the Cygwin library, your compiled programs will also have to be free software distributed under the GPL with source code available to all.

Cygnus' Native Win32 GNUPro subscriptions include a commercial license for Cygwin that is more suitable for commercial use of the Cygwin library. Pricing for a GNUPro Subscription starts at $6000 for three developers and includes GNUPro Toolkit, Developer Support, and a commercial-use license for 100 copies of the Cygwin library. Contact info@cygnus.com for more information about this license. All other questions should be sent to the project mailing list cygwin@sourceware.cygnus.com.

cygwin licensing terms. by Joseph+Vigneau · 1999-11-19 00:24 · Score: 2 · on Salon Article on Red Hat and Cygnus

From http://sourceware.cygnus.com/cyg win/licensing.html:

What are the licensing terms?

Most of the tools are covered by the GNU GPL, some are public domain, and others have a Berkeley style copyright. To cover the GNU GPL `restrictions', the basic rule is if you give out any binaries, you must also make the source available. For the full details, be sure to read the text of the GNU General Public License (GPL).

The Cygwin API library found in the winsup subdirectory of the source code is also covered by the GNU GPL. By default, all executables link against this library (and in the process include GPL'd Cygwin glue code). This means that unless you modify the tools so that compiled executables do not make use of the Cygwin library, your compiled programs will also have to be free software distributed under the GPL with source code available to all.

Cygnus' Native Win32 GNUPro subscriptions include a commercial license for Cygwin that is more suitable for commercial use of the Cygwin library. Pricing for a GNUPro Subscription starts at $6000 for three developers and includes GNUPro Toolkit, Developer Support, and a commercial-use license for 100 copies of the Cygwin library. Contact info@cygnus.com for more information about this license. All other questions should be sent to the project mailing list cygwin@sourceware.cygnus.com.

GCC and Cygnus by kjd · 1999-11-15 03:17 · Score: 1 · on It's Official: Red Hat Buys Cygnus

What's with all the GCC paranoia? GCC is not controlled by Cygnus or Redhat.

From the GCC FAQ:

What is the relationship between GCC and Cygnus

It is a common mis-conception that Cygnus controls either directly or indirectly GCC.

While Cygnus does donate hardware, network connections, code and developer time to GCC development, Cygnus does not control GCC.

Overall control of GCC is in the hands of the GCC Steering Committee which includes people from a variety of different organizations and backgrounds. The purpose of the steering committee is to make decisions in the best interest of GCC and to help ensure that no individual or company has control over the project.

To summarize, Cygnus contributes to GCCproject, but does not exert a controlling influence over GCC.

GCC and Cygnus by kjd · 1999-11-15 03:17 · Score: 1 · on It's Official: Red Hat Buys Cygnus

What's with all the GCC paranoia? GCC is not controlled by Cygnus or Redhat.

From the GCC FAQ:

What is the relationship between GCC and Cygnus

It is a common mis-conception that Cygnus controls either directly or indirectly GCC.

While Cygnus does donate hardware, network connections, code and developer time to GCC development, Cygnus does not control GCC.

Overall control of GCC is in the hands of the GCC Steering Committee which includes people from a variety of different organizations and backgrounds. The purpose of the steering committee is to make decisions in the best interest of GCC and to help ensure that no individual or company has control over the project.

To summarize, Cygnus contributes to GCCproject, but does not exert a controlling influence over GCC.

Re:Kick ass! by Dave+Fiddes · 1999-11-14 20:19 · Score: 1 · on It's Official: Red Hat Buys Cygnus

I hope they stay good and give some of that technology back to the community.

Have you visited Sourceware recently? The vast majority of Cygnus technology is given back to community...some of it more quickly that others but it all ends in publicly available distributions of gcc, binutils, etc eventually. The only exceptions to this are non-GPL Cygwin users, SourceFoundry and SourceNavigator.

Cygnus is one of those wierdo software companies. One that a) understands Open Source (hell, they largely defined it!) and b) make a genuine profit.

Redhat on the other hand just another Linux/ internet rah rah company which is built on hopes and promises rather than sound business sense.

This is not a good day for Open Source (as opposed to Linux).

Good move for the community by q[alex] · 1999-11-14 20:13 · Score: 1 · on It's Official: Red Hat Buys Cygnus

I believe this is a positive move. As long as RedHat maintains Cygnus' attitude towards open source (develop, enhance, support), adding RedHat's revenue stream to support Cygnus' development effort makes good business, and I think makes good sense for the Open Source community. Of course, only time will tell. *shrug*

For more info, check out (this was jointly developed by RedHat and Cygnus, so it's obviously partisan):

http://www.cygnus.com/news/c-rh_faq.html

RedHat/Cygnus FAQ by jbrw · 1999-11-14 20:07 · Score: 4 · on It's Official: Red Hat Buys Cygnus

There's a FAQ up on the Cygnus site regarding the merger.

Most interestingly (perhaps) is that a new CEO will be taking the helm at RedHat.

Re:Who's Cygnus: Started by who? by Anonymous Coward · 1999-11-10 04:14 · Score: 0 · on Red Hat Buying Cygnus?

Cygnus was founded in 1989 by Michael Tiemann (author of GNU C++ and the original 386 and SPARC ports of GCC, also he's the guy who had the original idea for Cygnus), David Henkel-Wallace (nicknamed "gumby", MIT AI Lab lisp machine guru and amazing generalist), and John Gilmore (Sun emp #5, co-founder of the Usenet "alt" groups, the cypherpunks, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, ex-GDB maintainer). I believe they were the very first open source company other than small consultancies.

Infamous early Cygnus employees include Fred Fish (Amiga & later BeOS free software god), Sean Fagan (general troublemaker on the net), Tom Jennings (author of the original FidoNet software), Brendan Kehoe (G++ maintainer, author of Zen and the Art of the Internet, one of the first open source books and one of the first popular books about the 'net), Steve Chamberlain (extraordinary speed hacker, creator of Cygwin which built on DJGPP - he's now at TranceMeta), Ian Taylor (author of GNU/Taylor UUCP), and others too infamous to mention.

Re:Who's Cygnus: Started by who? by Anonymous Coward · 1999-11-10 04:14 · Score: 0 · on Red Hat Buying Cygnus?

Cygnus was founded in 1989 by Michael Tiemann (author of GNU C++ and the original 386 and SPARC ports of GCC, also he's the guy who had the original idea for Cygnus), David Henkel-Wallace (nicknamed "gumby", MIT AI Lab lisp machine guru and amazing generalist), and John Gilmore (Sun emp #5, co-founder of the Usenet "alt" groups, the cypherpunks, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, ex-GDB maintainer). I believe they were the very first open source company other than small consultancies.

Infamous early Cygnus employees include Fred Fish (Amiga & later BeOS free software god), Sean Fagan (general troublemaker on the net), Tom Jennings (author of the original FidoNet software), Brendan Kehoe (G++ maintainer, author of Zen and the Art of the Internet, one of the first open source books and one of the first popular books about the 'net), Steve Chamberlain (extraordinary speed hacker, creator of Cygwin which built on DJGPP - he's now at TranceMeta), Ian Taylor (author of GNU/Taylor UUCP), and others too infamous to mention.