Another note of thanks for The Complete FreeBSD. I first bought the
third edition published by Walnut Creek CDROM. In fact, it's sitting on
my desk now. It's the book that kept me at FreeBSD when I was most
frustrated. I'm still relatively new at this, but I love learning all I
can about the OS of all OSes ^_^
Regards,
James
--- Begin Message ---
Bill Schoolcraft wrote:
Greg,
I want to thank you for you help in making FreeBSD what it is today.
I first met Greg on a fluke and a weird one that that too.
While working in techsupport at Linuxcare, and the only one to my
knowledge doing so running FreeBSD, I was sitting there one day and
this fellow comes in, scans the room and makes a bee-line to my work
area. I at the time was the only techsupport with my personal
library of Unix/Linux tech books. Having just left the Machinist
Union for the 'dot-com' I was alway one for self help.
This guy, with the scraggly beard reaches over me, grabs the first
FreeBSD book written by Greg Lehey and opens it.
At that time in San Francisco we were having alot of homeless people
getting into the office building and sometimes wandering the halls
on drugs, drunk or whatever.
When I asked him "Hey..., can I help you?" He said, "I wrote this
book!"
At that time I was sure he was "5150" (the penal code for being
nuts) and I was about to get up and escort him out when one of my
co-workers, knowing my background as an ex-steelworker at the San
Francisco waterfront "quickly" jumped in and introduced "Greg Lehey"
to me, I then realized it was not a joke, Greg was not a homeless
person, and I've felt honored ever since to have been a co-worker of
his, briefly sharing the same domain name in our work's email
address.
A few weeks later Richard Stallman came through the office... I
had the exact same inkling this time but jumped up pre-emptively and
again my co-worker came to the rescue.
I could write a book of the stuff that I've experienced, maybe call
it "From the Shipyards to Silicon Valley" or something....
The one thing I've learned (besides FreeBSD kicks ass) is that in
this industry you can NEVER, EVER judge a book by it's cover!
Fine story; and demonstrates a point: something to the effect of,
"Free software is *real* software, made for use by people, *real* people,
by people, *real* people, who at least have the courage to care
about **something** and want to make the world a better place with
the skills they have."
So, kudos to Grog for this move, and for his advocacy, authorship,
coding, community participation ... and whatever else; I'm sure
there's been lots of stuff (and also that you can probably read about
lots of it in his diary).
And to the rest of the hackers.
It's said that "you can't get something for nothing", but, in the case
of FreeBSD, we've almost proved that the saying isn't true - at least
for those willing to not judge an OS by its "cover" ....
Kevin Kinsey
--
I never expected to see the day when girls would get sunburned in the
places they do today.
-- Will Rogers
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