[gghh]

Jon Hall was essentially Linus Torvalds' agent in the 90s. While at DEC, he got Linus to the right places and meet the right people, so that his "hobby, nothing big or professional" OS entered the trajectory to become what we know today.

I'm about 30 years younger than Jon Hall, so I couldn't be familiar with his accomplishments other than by oral/written accounts. Since he hasn't written big hit books I could read or software I could use (alright alright, Linux for Dummies), I constantly saw people calling him a legend but never understood why. I finally asked around in the Linux kernel community, and was explained the extent of his contribution: he was Linus' mentor in a way. When they met in 1994, Linus was a 25 yo student and Jon a 44 yo DEC marketing manager. I like to think of their conversation as something like "Listen to me kid, this is what you gonna do".

With this in mind, a line in Jon Hall's wikipedia bio stands out: It was during his time with Digital that he initially became interested in Linux and was instrumental in obtaining equipment and resources for Linus Torvalds to accomplish his first port, to Digital's Alpha platform.. Another one in his linkedin work history reflects this view: Senior Marketing Manager, DEC, 1983-1998: In 1994 met Linus Torvalds, recognized commercial value of Linux, obtained funding for port of Linux to 64-bit Alpha processor, opening up a billion dollar line of Linux-based High Performance Computing Super Computers.

WP: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Hall_(programmer)

LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maddog/