Goodbye, Warthawg

Image credit: Triple 3 Ranch.

Linux.com columnist and long-time free open source software (FOSS) evangelist Joe Barr died yesterday. While I never knew him personally, I've read his work, both at Linux.com and elsewhere.

Barr, who went by the appellation "Warthawg" for some reason, was a geek from the early days of personal computers. Anyone who writes a book entitled CLI For Newbies has all the geek credentials he needs. (For those who aren't all that computer-savvy, CLI is an acronym for Command Line Interface.) As someone who has worked with computers in one capacity or another for most of my career, I've encountered his writings over the years. I knew that he was a geek. What I didn't know until I looked at his website is that he was also something of a progressive. I'm not too surprised, though. Here's a sample:

I did something I never do any more last week, as I was driving into town. I tuned into the Mush Limbo — aka Rush Limbaugh — hatecast on WOAI AM in San Antonio.

I admit I used to listen to Mush irregularly in the early 90s, just for the shock of hearing opening racist, neo-con ispired hate speech advocating greed as the highest “family value” and worshipping Reagan for all the wrong reasons. It was sort of like poking a snake with a stick, and I got tired of it, and stopped listening.

Does the Limbaugh meltdown mean the end of hate radio?

He was also an animal lover. He and his wife Susan raised miniature donkeys and rescued puppies. In an article about the pregnancy of one of them, Joe wrote:

And here’s [a photo] of me, reading the book explaining the gestation period to Anna, when she refused to produce her foal on our schedule. It didn’t work. She took her time and gave birth when she was good and ready.

About The Triple 3 Ranch

He clearly had both the instincts and the sense of humor of a geek. I know I'll be missing him, and I'm sorry that our paths never crossed.

UPDATE (July 18): Here's another tribute to Joe by someone who met him a time or two.