Interview With A Maddog

DubiousFreak writes "Tinyminds.org sits down with Linux International Director, Jon "Maddog" Hall. Jon has been in the computer industry since 1969, using Unix since 1977, and Linux since 1994. He has been a software engineer, systems administrator, product manager, marketing manager and professional educator. Jon has been the Executive Director of Linux International since 1995, the first four years as a volunteer. Jon has been employed by VA Linux systems, Compaq Computer Corporation in the Digital UNIX Marketing group and Bell Laboratories among other companies. Read the full interview at Tinyminds.org."

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[jay-be-em]

Tinyminds surely will be /.'d, so time for some karma whoring!

Tm: Anyone who searches for your name online, will come across an organization known as Linux International. What are LI's goals and what is its general purpose?

MD: In 1994 an Australian named Patrick D'Cruze saw the need for a vendor-based organization to care about vendor needs with Linux. He tried to start the organization in Australia, but found that the Australian Linux market was not ready for it at that time. Instead he transferred the idea to the United States where a group of small companies ran with the idea.

Linux International's job is simply to promote Linux among companies and governments. We try to do what is difficult for any one company or individual to do. It was Linux International who first protected the Linux trademark from being held captive by an individual who wanted to hold it ransom, and got the mark assigned to Linus. LI member companies also started the Linux Standard Base project, which later spun off to become the Free Standards Organization.

LI helped to sponsor the concept of Systems Administration Certification, and now works closely with the Linux Professional Institute to spread this concept around the world.

LI has helped major tradeshow and conference companies (IDG, Jupitermedia, Logon, Messe) to put on Linux Conferences and events all over the world.

Finally, LI has tried to act as a vendor-neutral, rational voice for the Linux community to the press.

Tm: What part do you play in Linux International?

MD: Since 1995 I have been Executive Director

Tm: As the mess with SCO unfolds, where do you see Linux heading? Is there really anything to be concerned about regarding their claims?

MD: What mess with SCO?

Seriously, this issue comes down to two issues:

# when will SCO disclose whatever code they say is "tainted"
# how long after that will it take for the Linux community to either:

* prove it is untainted (i.e. it is not SCO's code)

* remove whatever code may belong to SCO from the kernel

SCO HAS to disclose the code under current copyright law. Some of this code has leaked, and people have stated that the leaked code is not SCO's to claim. If the rest of the code that SCO claims is also not theirs, then there will be nothing to remove. This type of issue has happened before with proprietary code, and even in cases of blatant copying, the courts have given time for the offending code to be removed.

Tm: What role will Linux International play in the SCO debacle?

MD: My lawyers tell me not to say anything. Sorry.

Tm: Anyone who reads your bio will note that you've been using Unix since the late 70's and Linux since 1994. What are some of the greatest advances you feel that have been made in the operating system in that time?

MD: Unix in the late 70's was a scientific operating system, not a business-oriented system. It had no real scalability. It was not SMP, could not do threads, had no journaled filesystem, no clustering (not even failover), no async I/O, a very simple scheduler, no ability to do soft realtime. Today, commercial Unix systems can rival even the most mature mainframe operating systems in these areas.

Linux started out much the same as these early Unix systems, and has followed almost the same path, with several major differences:

1) Linux kernel code runs on a variety of hardware architectures

Commercial Unix systems of the past tended to run on only one or two architectures. This meant that a AIX running on an R6000 was different from Solaris running on a SPARC.

Today you can get the same Linux kernel running on an R6000, a SPARC, an Alpha and other hardware architectures. Oh yes, it runs on Intel too.

This allows the user to select the hardware architecture that meets their needs, while preserving the same programming interfaces and systems administration interfaces that they know.

Just Tiny Minds?

[peterdaly]

Tiny Minds must have Tiny Server two. :-)

That's the fastest ./'ing I've seen in a while.

-Pete