John "maddog" Hall is the Executive Director of Linux International (www.li.org), a non-profit association of computer vendors who wish to support and promote the Linux operating system. During his career which spans over thirty years, Mr. Hall has been a programmer, systems designer, systems administrator, product manager, technical marketing manager, author, consultant to local, state and national governments worldwide and college educator. He has worked for such companies as Western Electric Corporation, Aetna Life and Casualty, Bell Laboratories, Digital Equipment Corporation, VA Linux Systems, and is currently funded by SGI.

Mr. Hall serves on the boards of several companies, and several non-profit organizations, including the USENIX Association. He is a well known elder statesman of the programming community, and a leader of the open source movement.

The nickname "maddog" was given to him by his students at Hartford State Technical College, where he was the Department Head of Computer Science. He now prefers to be called by this name. He holds and MS in Computer Science from RPI (1977) and a BS in Commerce and Engineering from Drexel University (1973).