Frank Pohlmann has been a committed Linux user since January 1996. He installed Slackware and, surprisingly, it worked. He started writing about Unix and Linux systems two years later, working for companies as varied as AT&T and SUSE. He became technical editor of the UK-based LinuxUser & Developer magazine in 2002 and refuses to stop writing about free software. He is a much-published writer on open-source issues, and has a deep and sustained interest in the history of computer science.<br/>In a previous life, he worked on a PhD on early Persian literature; text-editing problems led him to Perl, and ultimately he "interrupted" his PhD. Frank threatened his supervisor with resuming his pursuit of this PhD, an event that led him to become a full professor in Germany. Frank lives in the UK and India, and has hobbies that usually involve languages and a lot of food.