Khaotic Musings
Random musings on Linux and Free and Open Source Software.
Tuesday 12 May 2009, 2:10 AM
Obituary: Anthony Rumble - Linux pioneer and enthusiast
Anthony Rumble, one of Australia's long-time supporters of Linux and free software, died on the weekend. The announcement, made on the Sydney Linux Users Group mailing list, indicated that the death was sudden, caused by a regular household accident.
Anthony exemplified everything which you imagine a Linux enthusiast to be; energetic, smart, passionate. A true geek-at-heart who was more than capable of building his own PC from parts, running a complex network of servers or coding in a range of programming languages. He was also a businessman, starting one of Australia's first major Linux ventures and even a Linux-oriented retail store in Sydney.
I'd known Anthony since the earliest days of Linux; back in 1992, we were all involved in sharing this new operating systems around via the 'PostalNet' - that would be the network where someone would copy all 50 5.25" floppies of then en-vogue Linux distro, most likely the Manchester Computing Centre (MCC) Interim Linux, and post these to someone else, who would also then make another copy and send it in turn to the next burgeoning Linux enthusiast across town or across the country. All of this was co-ordinated by the then 'new technology' called the Internet, via email. While the Internet existed, paltry modem line-speeds meant that it was impractical to FTP copy large slabs of Linux distro from point to point, thus our resorting to the 'PostalNet' ;-)
We did all this because we loved the technology, we loved the functionality and capabilities that the Unix-like Linux offered, and we loved the fact that we could acquire all this technology without having to purchase proprietary (and expensive!) Unix hardware and software. And keeping expenses low was a vital aspect in running a small business - a group of us had started Cybersource, to bring commercial support for the Internet and for the open source software stack running atop Unix-like platforms, only the year before. Linux therefore played a critical part in our nascent business's survival.
But while the financial gains of using Linux and open source were important, the real reason we selected these technologies was because we were geeks; we knew that the Linux and Internet way of doing platforms and networks - open, inter-operable, IP-unencumbered, community-controlled - was the right way. And it's through that community where one would meet individuals like Anthony Rumble, a real person, with all the usual issues and joys of life, and with a real person's perspective on computers; someone who bypassed the pretense and ofttime commercial crassness of the corporate 'vendor space'.
It's this spirit within the community which forms the core of Linux's success, a success that Anthony did much to bring about. His unfortunate death confirms the fleeting transience of life, and brought home to me the importance of enjoying life while you have it, and doing the things you want to do, which for true geeks-at-heart, is to live a life in passionate exploration of technology and its potential.
Vale Anthony Rumble.
Anthony exemplified everything which you imagine a Linux enthusiast to be; energetic, smart, passionate. A true geek-at-heart who was more than capable of building his own PC from parts, running a complex network of servers or coding in a range of programming languages. He was also a businessman, starting one of Australia's first major Linux ventures and even a Linux-oriented retail store in Sydney.
I'd known Anthony since the earliest days of Linux; back in 1992, we were all involved in sharing this new operating systems around via the 'PostalNet' - that would be the network where someone would copy all 50 5.25" floppies of then en-vogue Linux distro, most likely the Manchester Computing Centre (MCC) Interim Linux, and post these to someone else, who would also then make another copy and send it in turn to the next burgeoning Linux enthusiast across town or across the country. All of this was co-ordinated by the then 'new technology' called the Internet, via email. While the Internet existed, paltry modem line-speeds meant that it was impractical to FTP copy large slabs of Linux distro from point to point, thus our resorting to the 'PostalNet' ;-)
We did all this because we loved the technology, we loved the functionality and capabilities that the Unix-like Linux offered, and we loved the fact that we could acquire all this technology without having to purchase proprietary (and expensive!) Unix hardware and software. And keeping expenses low was a vital aspect in running a small business - a group of us had started Cybersource, to bring commercial support for the Internet and for the open source software stack running atop Unix-like platforms, only the year before. Linux therefore played a critical part in our nascent business's survival.
But while the financial gains of using Linux and open source were important, the real reason we selected these technologies was because we were geeks; we knew that the Linux and Internet way of doing platforms and networks - open, inter-operable, IP-unencumbered, community-controlled - was the right way. And it's through that community where one would meet individuals like Anthony Rumble, a real person, with all the usual issues and joys of life, and with a real person's perspective on computers; someone who bypassed the pretense and ofttime commercial crassness of the corporate 'vendor space'.
It's this spirit within the community which forms the core of Linux's success, a success that Anthony did much to bring about. His unfortunate death confirms the fleeting transience of life, and brought home to me the importance of enjoying life while you have it, and doing the things you want to do, which for true geeks-at-heart, is to live a life in passionate exploration of technology and its potential.
Vale Anthony Rumble.
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