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GCN Home > 07/05/05 issue

The real cost of open-source software

By Joab Jackson, GCN Staff

Although Linus Torvalds may be the person most people associate with the Linux operating system, Jon “Maddog” Hall, with his hippie-length white hair and Santa Claus beard, is a close second as the public face of the open-source movement. As executive director of nonprofit Linux International, he travels the world talking about the value Linux and open-source software can offer to large enterprises.

Prior to joining Amherst, N.H.-based Linux International in 1995, Hall worked in engineering and marketing capacities for Digital Equipment Corp. (later acquired by Compaq Computer Corp.), VA Linux Systems (now VA Software Corp.), and AT&T Corp.’s Bell Laboratories (now part of Lucent Technologies Inc.). He also served as computer science department head at Hartford State Technical College in Hartford, Conn. Hall has a master’s in computer science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a bachelor’s in commerce and engineering from Drexel University.

GCN associate writer Joab Jackson spoke with Hall after a presentation he gave at a Washington D.C. Beowulf Users Group meeting in Arlington, Va.

GCN: How did you get started in the computer business?

Hall: As a student, I worked for Western Electric in Baltimore. That was where I started in the software aspects of computers. The company had a correspondence course on how to program an IBM 1130 [Computing System, introduced in 1965]. So I learned how to punch cards and program in Fortran. Eventually, I did a project for them to do multiple-regression analysis, trying to relate physical characteristics of wire to electrical characteristics.

After that, I went to work for Bell Laboratories as a systems administrator, and that is where I learned Unix and became very much a fan of Unix. Then, when Digital started its engineering group and wanted some engineers to help them help develop a product, I went to do that. I had a lot of respect for Digital. [At college,] there were times I just had no money and my computer was broken, and they came in and fixed the problem and I never saw the bill.

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