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Profile: Rich Teerby Daniel P. Dern (ddern@world.std.com)May 15, 2005 Solaris proponent Rich Teer is probably best known in his various roles as Unix system administrator, consultant, and author. "I am a Solaris and UNIX hacker, and have been for more than 15 years," says Teer. He is a Sun Certified System Administrator (SCSA), Network Administrator (SCNA), and Security Administrator (SCSA). In addition, Teer has taken part in several Sun "by invitation" pilot and beta programs, including the S9 and S10 betas, and he beta-tested the Sun Certified Security Administrator Exam. Prentice Hall published his Solaris Systems Programming, which he wrote using Teer has also written a handful of articles (some for the Sun Developer Network and Browser Magazine, plus a few he's posted directly to his own web site), along with numerous postings to comp.unix.solaris and other Usenet newsgroups. One indication of Teer's status in the Solaris community: Sun invited him to participate in the OpenSolaris project as one of the select few external people. "To help get the OpenSolaris project going as expeditiously as possible, they invited a small number of external people to sign NDAs and participate in the OpenSolaris pilot program," according to Teer. "We're giving feedback ... at the end of the day, it's a Sun project, but we get to comment, give feedback, and give suggestions to the teams building OpenSolaris. "My understanding is that there are about 50 external people like myself, and several [hundred] internal Sun engineers. I was among the first batch [of] about a dozen or so." Born in 1967, in Kent, England, Teer currently lives in Kelowna ("ca-lo-nah") in British Columbia, Canada, about a third of the way from Vancouver to Calgary. "I initially moved here in 1976, with my mom and then-step-dad." says Teer. "I fell in love with the scenery and lifestyle, so though I moved back to England to finish my schooling and education, it had always been my intention to move back when done with school. [It] just took me a little longer than I intended. I like the scenery and the lifestyle, and climate." Teer lives with his wife Jenny Teer, and his dog Judge, a fourteen-year-old shepherd-lab cross the Teers brought over from England with them in 1999. Having successfully run a British computer consultancy called Risc Key Developments, Rich Teer decided to move to Canada, and in 1999 set up his current company, The Rite Group, which offers services that include Unix programming and consulting, and web hosting on Sun servers. At present, the company consists solely of Teer, but his long-term plan is to have multiple companies, "and more people, so I don't have to do all the work." Computing Since 1980 with a 2001 Teer's involvement with computers goes back to his first computer in 1980, a Commodore PET 2001. "It had a built-in cassette deck and monitor, a massive 8K of RAM, and an awful chiclet keyboard," he notes on his web site. "Still, it was enough to get me hooked on programming; first BASIC, and then 6502 machine code (the latter was pretty tricky without an assembler!)." He subsequently went on to a BBC Micro, and currently has a dual-450Mhz Sun Ultra 60 with 2GB of RAM, dual 9GB 10K RPM SCSI disks, and two Creator 3D Series 3 frame buffers); his wife uses a Sun Blade 100 (for email, the Web, and StarOffice). "Nearly all the programming I do is in C, but I still like to play with 65C02, 68000 and more recently, SPARC assemblers," Teer notes. In terms of tools, " Teer's involvement with C began in college (Mid-Kent College of Higher & Further Education, in Chatham, Kent, England), when he first heard about it. "It was this language used in industry, so I took it upon myself to learn it. And I liked its conciseness and expressibility; you could express things succinctly. "Also, at college, we had a DEC VAX 11/750 minicomputer, running BSD 4.2 or 4.3 Unix. I liked what I saw, and felt that people were more likely to use Unix in the real world than Ataris, so I got interested in using Unix." This was also Teer's first exposure to Sun systems. "We had some Suns at college as well," he notes. "I used them, and my interest was kindled. But it wasn't until my first contract, with Ultra Electronics back in England, that I first used Sun hardware in earnest ... I'd followed Sun for a long time, I wanted to buy a workstation, never having owned a PC, and so I bought a used Sun 380. And once I owned one, I got interested, and got bitten by the bug ... the more you use something, the more interested you get." A Firm Believer In Sun and Solaris People sometimes call Teer "a well-respected Solaris hacker and administrator" and "a prominent member of the Solaris community." Asked why, he speculates, "One reason, I guess, is that I'm one of the more vocal and supportive and visible members of the Solaris community that doesn't work for Sun. I'm in the Sun newsgroups, especially comp.unix.solaris, in terms of traffic, I often have lots to say in there. And I post in other Sun and Unix newsgroups ... typing my name in Google gets a lot of hits." (About 8,000 as of early January 2005.) "Overall, I'm a firm believer in Sun's vision, and believe that Solaris is the best operating system on the planet," says Teer. "But at the same time, I'm OK about vocalizing constructive criticism if I deem it necessary." What leads Teer to designate Solaris as "best" OS? "Mostly it's the technology that's in it: Solaris, especially on Sun hardware, 'just works,'" he answers. "Much as I'm a geek, I believe computers are just a tool, and computers that you have to keep cajoling are just useless. A tool that just works is worth its weight in gold." Solaris has lots of "-ables," according to Teer. "It's more scalable, reliable, and observable--you can see what's happening within the OS, if you have a problem, performance issues, etc., it's a very transparent OS. This is relative to Linux distros, other Unixes, and Microsoft OSes, which is the yardstick by which I measure. Linux has strengths and weaknesses, Windows has weaknesses. I believe Solaris also has weaknesses, but I believe its strengths far outweigh them." Asked for an example of Solaris' weaknesses, Teer offers, "Support from third-party devices would be the biggest one; for example, if you look at TV tuner PCI cards." What does Teer think about open source? "In broad strokes, I think open source is a good thing, but I wouldn't say its the panacea that its supporters would have us believe. I'm not saying that closed-source is evil ... one can point to closed-source of equal or better quality than some open source. For example, the Solaris kernel, in my opinion, is better than Linux's--the availability of source isn't a guarantee of better quality. If something is done voluntarily, then if a problem doesn't annoy someone, it won't be fixed." Initially, when Teer heard about the OpenSolaris proposal, "I was of the frame of mind, 'Why would Sun want to do it, what's in it for them?' But having listened to Jim Grisanzio and Jonathan Schwartz's arguments, I agree it's a good thing. It will open more doors for Sun than it will close, as did OpenOffice for StarOffice." The first open source event Teer attended, he reports, was ApacheCon 2004 in Las Vegas. "I wish I had the money to go to things like Sun Network and Usenix." Teer's hobbies include high-end audio--"I like to tinker, but it's a means to an end, I like to listen to music. I have a collection of about 1,300 records. I currently use a Forsell AirForce1 Signature turntable. I have a pair of Spendor SP1 Mark II speakers." In his reading, he acknowledges that he fits into the stereotype, reading fantasy and science fiction, and likes to watch Star Trek (all the series), although "I don't do as much reading as I would like because recently I've been spending a lot of time writing ... and lately I've been reading a lot by Donald Trump." From a technology perspective, he's interested in PDA/phone combos like the Palm Treo 600, although he doesn't have one yet. In terms of plans, Teer reports, "Currently, I can see myself doing either of two things in the next six months. One publisher wants me to write a book about Solaris 10. The last book took me nearly four years. Also, I'm considering converting my current book into a format suitable for teaching as a week-long course." Daniel P. Dern is a freelance technology writer. His web site is at www.dern.com. |
