some quotable lines from Jon "maddog" Hall

[Ken Yap <ken@nhj.nlc.net.au>]

http://linuxtoday.com/stories/5118.html

...
In fact, I just received a letter from some people in Cuba who have put
together a whole medical system of... I think it was like 20 different
Linux servers and something like 1,200 medical people using
them.They said, "Hey, Linux was the way we could do this because we
don't have much money, our financial situation is really bad. But with
Free Software, we can build things and maintain things." 

So, I'd like to spend some real time in China and talk to some of the
people, and get them thinking more about using Linux. 

LT: You feel the same way about Russia? 

maddog: Oh, absolutely. In fact, I think in January of 1995 I went to
Russia. I saw that Linux was already there. There were Trans-Ameritek
CD's, Yggdrasil CDs, the Linux Journal was there, I actually have a
picture of the Linux Journal at the Moscow Unix Expo. 

Absolutely, they know about Linux, and again, they've got not much
money. They are in a financial crisis, and with Linux they can legally
use the software for free. 

These people have pride. They know what stealing is, and they don't
like doing it. Their situation is really bad. They see these little plastic
CDs and they know only cost a dollar to stamp out, yet somebody is
charging like 500 or 600 dollars for them. It's pretty hard to swallow
that. 

LT: Why is it that you care so much about Linux? 

maddog: Computer science has been very good to me over the past 30
years. I've learned a lot from it, I've had a lot of good times. One of the
things that really bothered me was seeing the trend that, if you take it to
the extreme, means that anything that has anything to do with
computer science has to be filtered through Redmond, Washington. I
have more than a slight problem with that. I think there's still some
really big problems out there that have to be solved, and I think that I'd
like to have all the people on the planet, as much as possible, working to
solve those problems. 

I don't want to have to miss out on the next Albert Einstein of
Computer Science. They may come from Brazil, they may come from
China, or Korea, or Japan, or, with tongue-in-cheek, I'll say, "Even as
unlikely a place as Helsinki, Finland." I just don't want to miss out on
finding that person. My feeling is that, if there was only one operating
system and it was maintained and controlled by a company, that
company would not necessarily have computer science move forward at
the pace it normally could.
...