People

Jon "maddog" Hall

Jon "maddog" Hall
Photo: Olaf Kosinsky, CC BY-SA 3.0 de · Wikimedia Commons

b. 1950, United States · Linux International; early commercial Linux evangelist

Also known as: maddog, Jon Hall, Jon maddog Hall

Jon "maddog" Hall ran Linux International from 1994 onwards and was one of the earliest commercial advocates for Linux. As an engineer at Digital Equipment Corporation in 1994 he arranged a loaner Alpha workstation for Linus Torvalds, enabling the first non-x86 port of the Linux kernel and proving Linux could run on serious 64-bit hardware.

He continues to advocate for free software internationally.

Related people: Linus Torvalds, Eric Raymond, Richard Stallman

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