Older readers may know of Jon “Maddog” Hall. Although we hear less from him these days, he’s been a force in the open source movement for many years. I just came across a video in which he talks about Unix and Linux history. As Hall says, 2019 is a year with a lot of anniversaries for our community including 50 years of Unix and 25 years of Linux.
Much of the talk represents his personal memories of events and he tells some stories I hadn’t heard before. For example, it was Hall’s personal intervention and efforts that provided Linus with an Alpha machine for the Linux Alpha port. In those days, Alphas cost about $30,000 so this was a significant achievement.
There are other interesting stories too. The video is just short of 56 minutes so you’ll need to plan ahead. The history he recounts is part of our shared heritage and hearing those stories is worth your time.