“Linux Journal: How did you first learn about Linux? What were
you doing in your own life at the time? (age, student, occupation,
etc.)”
“Pauline Middlelink: When I was a student on the HIO here in
Enschede, Holland, I was introduced to Xinu. Soon after that, I
became interested in other Unices which were more “capable” (i.e.,
an illegal version of SCO UNIX and the free Minix). The Minix
version especially spoke to me, since it contained source! An
unheard-of phenomenon at that time. Being on the Minix lists, I
heard rumors of some other OS based on Minix, and decided to check
it out. Well … I’m still checking 🙂 “
“LJ: What attracted you to it, compared to FreeBSD, proprietary
UNIX systems or lucrative areas such as Windows? What made you want
to help with development?”
“Pauline: The source, and the way it did things. You could
follow the changes in the source by the patches and develop a real
gut feeling about the OS. Money was of no concern to me in those
days, being a student, so Windows didn’t speak to me, especially
3.1 without network support!”
“LJ: What part of Linux were you personally interested in and
working on? Are you still involved with Linux development? If so,
how?”
“Pauline: I started doing just little improvements to new
patches I saw drifting by on the mailing list, and after that, when
I got my own IP connection, developed a real itch in wanting to
connect all my computers to the ‘net. This called for some real
programming, and since Alan Cox at the same time added code for NAT
and such stuff, I immediately saw the connection and created the IP
masquerading module. After a few iterations, this was approved
by Alan and added to the kernel. Later, the ftp-rewriting modules
were developed. Nowadays, I’m mainly interested in video4linux, for
which I maintain the – in kernel – zoran driver and some VCR
projects.”