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Interview/Article On John "Maddog" Hall
mister_nate sent us a really cool interview with Jon "Maddog" Hall. I've said this before, but Maddog is the perfect Linux advocate. A lot of Slashdot readers (and I definitely include myself in this statement) can learn a lot by watching the way Jon handles Linux Advocacy. It's amazing.
Maybe we should really call it GNU/Penguin/Linux
Want to work at Transmeta? MicronPC? Hedgefund.net? AT&T?
Can your IM do this?
Oracle is starting a Linux distribution, called Miracle Linux, in Japan. Whether the community will get any contribution from it remains to be seen.
Actually, it used RSX, RSTS, and VAX-VMS, which most of the DECUS software was written for. Digital Unix was an afterthought, and a poor implementation at that.
Just in the interests of keeping everyone fully informed, DEC's Unix-like OS for the VAX was Ultrix. "Ultrix is amazingly customizable; you have to replace two-thirds of it just to get anything to work!"
Digital UNIX (formerly OSF/1 and now Compaq Tru64) is for the Alpha line, and is actually one of the better commercial Unixes, IMNSHO.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
Article: ... Torvalds adopted a General Public License that said anybody could copy his code, change...
thinthief: Let's get our facts right! They are obviously referring to the GPL...
It is called the General Public License. Read it yourself:
http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
"GNU Public License" is technically incorrect.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
With Jon Hall having New Hampshire's (I presume, the article doesn't explicitly say)...
Yes, maddog's Jeep is registered in NH.
FYI, Bruce Dawson [jbd at codemeta dot com] has LINUX in NH. An image of his plate appears on the "Linux License Plate" T-shirts you see at Linux shows and such. The "Live Free or Die" motto is most appropriate.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
Don't get me wrong. I really enjoyed watching Maddog introduce Linus at Comdex last November.
It was my first Comdex, and very exciting all around; mostly cuz of the huge Linux presence.
Maddog is a *big guy* -- I wish someone would put his height into the interviews.
Drinking can be fun, but I bet a lot of people out there know someone who has burn hurt or killed because things got out of control.
When your application dumps core, big deal. But if your brain skews while trying to navigate some tricky curve with friends in the car, well, it's a pretty sad thing.
There are many tragedies in life, be careful with booze. Too many students get in too much trouble with liquor. Don't let people drive when they've had too much, and don't be "ashamed" to take care of your friends. You might be saving a life...
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
unix guru n. See John "maddog" Hall.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
BTW - THURSDAY is the big day here @ Stanford - the DMCA hearings are here at the Business School. Come raise your voice!!!
David E. Weekly
David E. Weekly
Code / Think / Teach / Learn
h4x0r for
IMHO posters to Slashdot should be able to create their own impromptu polls. So that in the post above, you'd actually be able to vote for the options and see the results, then post more comments on them.
It could get kinda stupid, but moderation will hopefully make sure that interesting or funny polls get moderated up, and stupid ones get moderated down.
What I'm thinking of is a new posting option, 'Minipoll', where you enter some XML into the comment submission box which Slashdot process and puts as a set of radio boxes inlined with your comment.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
Bud sucks. but there is also the REAL Budweiser, from a place called Budweis in Tcheckoslovakia(sp?). Very good stuff. tastes quite a bit like Urquell. This is also the reason why there are countries where Bud is a trademark infringement. There is already a beer named Budweiser, Budweiser Budvar
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
According the article, it's option three, John with an 'H' and 'maddog' like a computer person's login name, all lowercase with no spaces. Rob decided that without a 'Hemos the Hamster' answer, though, he was still going to cause trouble and choose both options 2 and 3.
So vote today, and let's see how many new and unique ways we can come up with to torture this poor man's moniker.
BTW, I have nothing but respect for Hall and think that he is a Linux advocacy role model. Not only that, but he's single, so ladies, get in line for that man of your dreams.
...Vancouver, where MGM is filming a movie about an open-source hero battling a Pacific Northwest software monopoly
???
I can just see it now;
It's a deadly game of cat-and-mouse between a suave European programmer/secret agent and a dweeby billionare who's half-man, half-machine and bent on world domination at any cost. Linus Torvalds is... The Torvinator!!!
I think they should cast Tom Hanks as Linus and Quentin Tarantino as Bill Gates. But that's just me.
Netscape, sure, but what Open Source software has Oracle released? (I could just be uninformed, so feel free to enlighten me).
It's amazing how that article was able to allegedly cover the beginnings of the GNU/Linux movement, and *never* once mentioned the words "FSF", "Richard M. Stallman", or "GNU". The article makes it seem like Linus wrote the kernel, and all the rest of the GNU software kind of just 'appeared' out of thin air! I'm no FSF fanatic, but I think that RMS et al have a point. It's articles like this that make me think we should try to emphasize 'GNU/Linux' over just 'Linux'. And 'Free Software', rather than just 'Open Source'.
I'm terrified beyond all capacity for rational thought.
--
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
"What are your pet projects?"
1) Mouse support for vi
2) Making the world safe for pee cees
3) Petrefing household pets
4) Studing the Zen wisdom of CowboyNeal
"How many hours each day do you spend at work?"
1) 8
2) 10
3) 12
4) 23.5
What's your work space like?
1) Cubicle
2) Janitor closet 2.0
3) Basement ("Maybe I should burn the place down")
4) I decorate with a hand grenade..like it?
"(Number of Linux computers, number of computers without a case, number of Windows machines (and why), number of monitors, etc.)"
[I'll let the hungry masses fill in that one..]
How about favorite beers?
1) Bud
2) Coors
3) Anything German
4) Anything Microbrewed
5) Whatever CmdrTaco is ordering
And who says polls are getting stale!
"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." Mark Twain
Indeed. I recently did the linux from scratch thing. 90% of what I downloaded came from gnu project stuff. RMS is not crazy for insisting on "GNU/linux". They reimplemented most of *nix, and gave it way. And that was the whole point. Fucking beautiful.
I may have to bite the interviewer on the leg for calling us that! (grrrh)
tangent - art and creation are a higher purpose
postmoderncore - art and creation are a higher purpose
I thought the article was severly lacking (check out the /. interview for many more interesting words from da man. A couple of blurbs from maddog, and several inacuracies in their relating of computer history, like:
:)
Unix became the system of choice for developers in the flowering of the microcomputer world, partly because much of it could be shared freely between programmers.
This is simply not true. When I was a little geek with my Amiga, me and my friends used to speculate what this fabled UNIX, Internet and TCP/IP was all about. There was no way a small time enthousiast could access a UNIX system outside of academia or business until Linux came along.
This is the real power of Linux to me. It brought the power and complexity of Unix to microcomputers at a *really* low price.
"People come up (at technology seminars) and say, 'It's just like it was back in the early days. This is the way Unix was 20 years ago, and it feels so good. Like something was ripped out of your body 20 years ago and now it's been put back,' " said Hall.
This blurb just made my day. I've read the jargon file, about the feats of the early Unix and internet gurus like Kernigham, Thompson, Vint Cerf, Bob Kahn etc. countless times, and I've always felt a like I had missed the real computer revolution, that it would only settle down from then on. Hearing this from a guy who's been there and seen it is just great. These are great times we live in
And I won't spare you with the funniest one I saw:
An ill-structured but worldwide community soon sprang up to write software tools and add-ons that would make Linux useful in the real world, creating a phenomenon so powerful that Microsoft has expressed concern about erosion of its Windows franchise.
ROFLMAO! Ooooh. They expressed concern. Imagine that, a couple hundred crazy bearded programming anarchists are out to create an OS the way they think it should be, giving it away for free and creating a vocal community around it. Some guys even manage to make money out of it. We damn better do something about that, right? Can't let all this unorderly creativity cut into our 5 year plan can we?
Hehe. (Sorry for the "rabid zealotry" at the end...)
I strongly believe that trying to be clever is detrimental to your health. -- Linus Torvalds
Hadn't we both "GNU/Linux" and "Linux", as well as both "Open Source" and "Free Software", a lot more people would be missing the Indestructible Liberty ideal of FSF/RMS/GPL.
I have come to think that is the greatest achievement of OSI/ESR, not speeding up the Linux World Domination Project (LWDP).
I think, therefore thoughts exist. Ego is just an impression.
I was tested at 136, thankyouverymuch, and I run Windows 98.
:)
143 and running Linux
See trend?
(not flaming, only joking)
Finkployd
This past spring John came and gave a lecture for the ACM Chapter at Bucknell University, which I run. He's was nothing short of incredible for the 2 days we spent with him. Very on-the-ball about everything, not to mention a really nice guy. He definately sees the bigger picture.
Pictures are available at http://penguinempire.n3.net
Most fun was going to the bar after the talk. The man drank us all under the table - and told the most interesting stories about various places throughout the world.
If you get a chance to meet him, make the effort.
or at least one of the two IT's that i'm thinking of. maddog is the type of guy i really want to be like. when kids talk about growing up...they say "i want to be a fireman, a policeman"
:) I want to be like these guys. I place maddog next to torvalds on my list of guys who "get it"...or who have actually done an incredible amount, not just for the linux community, or the open source community, but for the computer/internet community.
:P ) but they're the type of people you can't think of one bad thing to say about.
Personally. when i grow up (not for the next 30 years
That's not to say i think maddog or Linus are gods (that word is only reserved for Stephen Hawking
"uhhh...sir. we've traced all the AC/Natalie Portman posting back to some guy named hall's house in New Hampshire"
FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
Heineken? FUCK THAT SHIT! Pabst Blue Ribbon!