About Code Writing Other

My name's Rob Landley. I'm a geek.

Most people who come to my website are interested in downloading code I've written, reading things I've written, checking my blog, or emailing me. All of that's in the menu bar on the left.

I'm currently living in Austin, Texas (on and off since 1996).

My wife's name is Fade. We got married at Penguicon 2007. Fade's boss Steve Jackson officiated, and Eric Raymond was best man. (The wedding fit into a 1 hour panel slot and was moved once so as not to conflict with an Elizabeth Bear panel Fade wanted to attend, and a Charlie Stross panel Steve wanted to attend. Yes, we're all that geeky.)

I do Linux systems and embedded software. I wrote a largeish chunk of BusyBox in the 1.0-pre3 to 1.2.2 timeframe, and was even the project's maintainer for a while, but work on Toybox and Aboriginal Linux instead these days. I've been programming for fun since shortly before I turned 11, and although I've been paid for it on a somewhat regular basis for the past couple decades I still consider it a hobby that's gotten a bit out of hand. (In 2008 I launched an embedded Linux company, but the economy didn't cooperate. If I were to take another stab at not having a $DAYJOB someday I'd probably just try to make a go of patreon.)

Another hobby I've gotten paid for is writing. Some of it's linux-related, and some is totally unrelated (such as the stock market investment column I wrote for The Motley Fool from 1998-2000). Links to most of it can be found in the writing section. I've been researching a book on computer history for years, and some day I actually may get around to writing it.

Yet another hobby I've gotten paid for is teaching, back when I was adjunct faculty at Austin Community College for a couple years (mostly introductory level computer science night courses). If I ever manage to get a master's degree (ha) I may swap hobbies and turn that one into my day job. I've presented panels at various conventions and conferences (LinuxWorld Expo, CELF, Ottawa Linux Symposium, Flourish, Ohio Linuxfest...)

Another hobby (which generally winds up costing me money) is founding conventions. Penguicon which I co-founded with Tracy Worcester is still going strong (although my involvement in organizing it ended at year five in 2007), but Linucon petered out after a couple years. (I handed it off after year one, greatly reduced my involvement in it for year two, and moved to Pennsylvania for what would have been year three.)

Here is my PGP key, which should also still be on www.keyserver.net.

I drink a lot of tea.

There's still a lot of info in my old index page that I need to port over, but that's probably enough for now.