5 Mar 2002 sits   » (Journeyer)

John Tucker, Department head of Computer Science at Swansea.
John Jones, BT Ignite Web Services
Alan Cox, Redhat Linux Developer
Dick Porter, Ximian Developer

Tucker: Delighted to see people. Discussions of milestones in computing such as Fortran, Visicalc. There is an invisible part to the world of software development. Many transformations over the past 50 years.

Charles Symmoney (creator of Microsoft Word, Excel). The founder of Adobe. Creator of visicalc which was later surpassed by Lotus. Jeff Raskin. Only well known by those who have been forced to study the arcane history of software.

John then went to to talk about how the two speakers did lots of work at university(?) and that the Swansea Univeristy Computer Society was a nuturing ground for program development.

John Jones: Ignite is part of the reformation of BT. Talked about how an Internet based business should no longer have location as a barrier. Ignite was started in 2000. Many web hosting companies are suffering because they are running out of power and only offered one hotel like service. BT Ignite offers end to end services.

£100,000 investment in building in Cardiff Bay. Awareness of what is on our doorstep. Delighted to sponsor this and many more events.

[Clapping]

TUcker: Big place is increasingly weired up. Alan Cox graduated from Swansea in 1991 and Dick in 1992. Brief plug for itwalesonline newsletter.

Alan Cox: Doing Things Differently Linux, Past, Present and Future

When I was at university peole told me that you needed to work hard and have a plan. However, the reason why I started working on Linux was because I was trying to improve a game I was writing.

People used to throw software in with hardware but this changed wwith Bill Gates when he started to threaten hobbiests who were sharing his BASIC interpreter.

Unix was started by AT&T (and was originally designed to play the game Space War, proving that all good software is originally designed to run games). Originally it was readily available because AT&T were to open their work because they were overcharging and running a monopoly.

Many operating systems courses are often 20 years out of date. Unix licences were expensive so it was not possible to show students the currently in use techniques.

Talked about the development of Uzi and Steve Hosgood's OMU.

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