Technology, Theology, and Anything In Between

I would like to encourage you to donate to the Free Software Foundation. While I primarily help customers that use Microsoft Windows, and the associated tools that go with it, I also provide support for “free” and “open source” applications and operating systems, such as FreeBSD and Linux. I think that the work that the Free Software Foundation is important, and is a big part of helping advance software design. I’ve decided that I will start to donate to them, because of how free software has helped me out with my career over the years. Here’s my story:

I grew up programming on the TI/99-4A computer. I was very fascinated that you could make a computer do what you wanted to do by programming it with instructions. I quickly learned the BASIC language, and programmed in that language until I got an Intel 8088 in my early teens. I started to program Pascal (I was given Turbo Pascal for free), and then was told that the C language was the one to learn. I was able to get a C compiler for free (I think it was K&R; instead of ANSI). So I could program about three languages before I graduated high school.

I started to get interested in TCP/IP networking over Amateur Radio (my family had a limited number of local calls on their telephone service, so I couldn’t do much with dial-up service for awhile). Some of the commands for the program we used were similar to unix.

My senior year in high school was when I installed my first Linux distribution. I had been told by the dean of Electrical Engineering at one of the colleges I had visited that many students ran Linux in their dorm to connect to the servers in the Electrical Engineering/Computer Science lab. So I bought a 5 CD set of Linux distributions. I installed Slackware and learned from that. I was the valedictorian of my high school class, and I wrote my speech in emacs.

Learning Linux and using free software helped me to learn about UNIX and computer programming in such detail that I was able to land a job doing things with UNIX, and eventually a real-time Linux kernel. My career was unquestionably influenced by learning free software and the skills that I gained from administration of my own systems.

I encourage you to consider making a donation or becoming a member of the Free Software Foundation. It is important that free software continues to grow and be developed.

I would also mention that I am not exclusively free software. I support both Windows, Linux, and FreeBSD in my consulting work. While I donate to the FSF, I do not support or agree with all the positions. I’m probably more of an “open source” guy, but in any case, I see it as a way to balance out what is happening with closed-source proprietary software.

I want my children to grow up in a world where they can learn how to program a computer, and have the freedom to do so, and learn from code. I also think that free software benefits everyone, as companies that profit from software are forced to compete with the grassroots efforts of programmers worldwide.

I’ve also contributed to the Electronic Frontier Foundation. I want to make sure that our rights are not stripped away by large corporations. You can join them at this link.