It was way back in the early 90’s, and I’d just gotten my first computer: a TRS-80. It included the BASIC language, a quick how-to-program guide, and hookups for the TV. I whizzed through the book. Programming quickly became so much to me.

But BASIC was too limited. I began to study some of UNIX, but I was in 8th grade – other than aging texts at the library and some rudimentary access to it on the local college campus when I could sneak in, I couldn’t really get much experience with it.

I needed to start programming in C, and I needed a compiler. A guy I’d met online named R_STALLMAN1989 had a C compiler he let me use, called GCC. It was great! Although working in C on that old TRS-80 was rough, I was able to do it. But it had so many bugs!

That’s why I was so embarrassed when I finally released an OS kernel to emulate UNIX; I called it Ralnux 0.1.

I posted it to a newsgroup, and a young hotshot named Linus was there. He wrote me an email about what license it was under, and then — zap! — my computer was gone. The motherboard fried right out from under me. I couldn’t get back on the BBS’s for two years. My parents were too broke to buy a new computer… and by the time I was able to, and checked the newsgroup, my crummy OS was gone. Linux, written by Linus Torvalds, was all the rage amongst my old crowd, and I felt left out. Besides, I was starting High School. I didn’t have time for programming that was going to lead nowhere.

It wasn’t until 2001 that I looked at the source code to Linux. It was clearly mine. Even some of the same mistakes I made were there.

But I see the contribution that Linux and Open Source has made to the world; I wasn’t going to do anything with it anyway. I’m glad that somebody was there to take the ball and run with it.