My Interview with Ashlee Vance of the Register
Ashlee Vance, Enterprise Editor, The Register Listen to the Interview (7:55)
I first met Ashlee Vance last year at the Ubuntu Developer Summit in Mountain View. Given the snarky style with which he writes and the fact that the Register is a British endeavor I had pictured Ashlee to be some foppish Brit with spectacles and maybe a bow tie.
The occasion of the meeting was to discuss the fact that Canonical was certifying Sun's servers for Ubuntu and that Glassfish would be a part of the Feisty Faun release. When I got in the room where the chat was going to be held I saw a somewhat schlubby looking American guy who I assumed to be an Ubuntu hacker who had wandered into the wrong room. Turns out this was Ashlee.
Unlike what I had expected, Ashlee was very mellow and unassuming, I guess the better to lull his prey into a false since of security :) If you're not familiar with Ashlee's articles here are a few recent ones that will give you an idea of his style:
- GPL whiz Moglen nails Web 2.0 O'Reilly on 'frivolous' charges -- Blow to OSCON propaganda; July 26, 2007
- Dissecting penguins for fun and profit -- LinuxWorld: From Dell to beer and BarCamp; Aug 10, 2007
- IBM embraces - wtf - Sun's Solaris across x86 server line; Aug 16, 2007
Less than a month ago I had a chance to run into Ashlee again up at OSCON. The result of that meeting is the following interview.
Topics: He's neither British nor a woman; What it means to be a snarky writer; What he shares with Mark Shuttleworth; Open Source does it matter as a term, isn't it simply a different distribution method? What is the OSI thinking; How he's come to terms with his name.
Pau for now...
