Jon "maddog" Hall

Jon "maddog" Hall is the Executive Director of Linux International (www.li.org), a non-profit association of computer vendors who wish to support and promote the Linux Operating System. During his career which spans over thirty years, Mr. Hall has been a programmer, systems designer, systems administrator, product manager, technical marketing manager, author, consultant to local, state and national governments worldwide and college educator. He has worked for such companies as Western Electric Corporation, Aetna Life and Casualty, Bell Laboratories, Digital Equipment Corporation, VA Linux Systems, and is currently funded by SGI.

Mr. Hall serves on the boards of several companies, and several non-profit organizations, including the USENIX Association.

...and aren't we all Indians?

Free and Open Source has often been heralded as a method for third world countries to bridge the Digital Divide. As the speaker has traveled the world he has seen many examples of how closed-source, proprietary software has impeded progress, and how Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) has allowed progress to resume, creating jobs and solving problems. Yet in the most powerful country on earth, in some of the richest companies the closed nature of proprietary software has a hidden cost that keeps them from moving forward.

This talk explains how the use of FOSS may help propel so-called "third world nations" ahead of the United States, saving them time and money.