[ale] Missing photo

Mon Sep 27 13:07:10 EDT 2021

I will not attempt to explain anything for or about Linus, so I will use an unnamed person:

Imagine that you are a nice young university student and you were working on a nice "fun" project...that is not going to be big and famous like.....Minix.   Something "just for fun".

Suddenly you are thrust into the limelight and are receiving requests from around the world to go to various user groups to give a one hour talk and then have people fawn over you for the rest of the day when the thing you really want to do is sit down with your laptop with reasonably fast Internet (remember this is 1991-1994), answer email, review submits (remember this is before Git) and integrate code.

You do this for three years.   People take pictures of you, always with beer (you don't even like most beers...Guinness is OK...)......lots of pictures.   And when you want to have a real nice technical discussion people interrupt you for "just another pic".

By the time 1994 comes around and people start putting your "fun project" into real distributions you really do not want any additioal hoopla.

And "wearing a Tux" means that you have to get fitted for a Tux, rent a Tux, take the Tux back to wherever you got it.   A "day event" is at least three days (maybe longer) unless it is within driving distance.

[Note: the author purchased his Master's Degree cap and gown just so he would never have to rent them again as he attended graduation ceremonies.   I still have them forty five years later.

Now imagine that there are several hundred user groups, lots of universities, many media outlets that all want to have you speak at their event, and while there hundreds of people want to take a picture of you and/or have an interview.

It was not just "wearing the Tux"....it was having to do the whole event.

However, I convinced that nice young man (who I know fairly well) that:

o It would be great to get into the "Hall of Fellows" before Gates or Jobs (who STILL have not been admitted)...to do that not for himself, but for Linux and Free Software...the whole community.  At his acceptance speech he did just that, as I knew he would.

o It would be great to "turn the crank" of the Babbage engine (and have the docent explain it to him)

o And once he arrived he might even have some fun (which is why I was involved anyway...I can be a "fun guy"...or so I am told)

As someone who, for the past thirty years, traveled internationally at least twice a month and often four times a month...I can attest that it loses its glitter fast.

By the way, Wednesday I keynote at the National Cyber Security Summit, my first in-person talk in over two years, in Huntsville, Alabama.

Warmest regards,

md

P.S.  That nice young man, when confronted with this issue, looked at me with steely eyes and said "That is why we have YOU."

On 09/27/2021 12:14 PM Scott Plante via Ale <ale at ale.org> wrote:

What irony that the founder of the OS with the brand character named "Tux" didn't want to receive an award because he'd have to wear a tux!? 😝

Great story--thanks for sharing!

On Sat, Sep 25, 2021 at 3:29 PM jon.maddog.hall--- via Ale < ale at ale.org mailto:ale at ale.org > wrote:
I am sure that there are many people that are not represented in that row of pictures:

Alan Turing - considered to be the father of computer science, broke the enigma code, cut two years off WW II, saved an estimated 14,000,000 lives.

Dr. Maurice Wilkes - Head of the EDSAC Project (first computer that could store its own programming in its own memory); credited with creating microcode, credited with creation of subroutines

Ken Thompson

Dennis Ritchie

Douglas McIlroy - Head of the department that hired Ken and Dennis, conceived of pipes and filters, wrote some of first Unix commands to demonstrate their use, credited with the creation of macros.

Vint Cerf - Considered to be the Father of the Internet

Sir Tim Berners-Lee - Considered to be the Father of the WWW

Richard M. Stallman - started GNU project and FSF

There are many, many more.

The Computer History Museum (CHM) has a "Hall of Fellows", where they induct three people every year.

https://computerhistory.org/hall-of-fellows/

About the year 2005 I started thinking that it would be a shame if either Bill Gates or Steve Jobs got inducted into the Hall of Fellows before Linus did, so I got online and nominated Linus for induction.    Then I forgot about it.

Two years later I got a telephone call from the CHM that Linus had been selected for the year 2008 and could I help CHM convince Linus that he really wanted to attend the ceremony (which he normally hates) to receive it.

I told them I was very happy that Linus had received the award and I would try to convince him to show up....but no promises.

I started to look at their web pages, and got an idea.   I called up Linus (who by that time knew he had been inducted) and asked him if he would go.  "I would have to wear a Tuxedo", Linus said.   "I hate that".

"I know, but you would also get to turn the crank of a full-size replica of the Babbage Difference Engine, and see it compute" I said.

"I will go", Linus said.   And he did go.   And he did crank the engine.  All was good.

And to this day neither Bill Gates nor Steve Jobs have been inducted....but The Woz made it in early.

And now you know the rest of the story.

md
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