| Here's the whole Roger Story, rather than the distorted bits and
pieces.... (But a previous observation about Roger "jumping around"
hits the mark pretty well, though).
Joined Digital in the mid-1970's to work on RSX (I think he graduated
from WPI with at least a degree in Art, although this parenthesized
material may be my contribution to the confusion; he was the whimsical
free-hand illustrator of the "Engineering a Compiler" book).
Contributed to VAX VMS V1 (I believe), PL/I, and C.
Went with the original founding wave to DECWest, where he worked on
MicroVAX I and the ELN operating system.
Came back to New England about 1985, before PRISM really took off, and
became what, at that time, really amounted to Technical Director of
Software; he was Bill Heffner's technical guy.
Roger, more than anyone, is responsible for forcing VMS off of VMS's
losing proprietary GUI (UIS) that VAX workstations had at that time,
and onto X11 / DECWindows / Motif.
(When Roger went out to his car a short time after the UIS cancellation
meeting that he conducted in ZKO, his BMW's windows were smashed.
It turned out to be a simple radar theft, but caused a bit of
a "Holy Macaroni" reaction at the time, since those at the meeting
were pretty mad at Roger [this from Roger himself and from Jake
VanNoy, the DECWindows architect]).
When PRISM was cancelled and Cutler resigned, Roger went back to
DECwest to run the place for a few months. When Heffner lost UNIX,
Roger came back to New England again to be Vice President of UNIX.
Not too long after this, he left Digital and went to California to be a
Vice President at Apple. Since Apple was on the upswing, he probably
made lots of money there before going to Microsoft to be V.P. of the
Developer's Division.
Roger didn't go to Microsoft to join Cutler; quite the opposite.
Since the "DECwest mafia" who built Windows/NT at Microsoft held Roger
largely responsible for the cancellation of PRISM, there were not
warm feelings there. Cutler personally felt that Roger had become
a beauracrat.
At Microsoft, Roger suceeded in hiring away many of Digital's best and
brightest senior software people from the east coast, just as Cutler
had done with the west coast Digital people.
And now, after probably making a TON of money at Microsoft, he's
crossing the country for about the 6th time to retire to New England.
Roger was a clear thinker, very smart and articulate and dedicated, and
like Dave Cutler, was a much better example of what once made Digital
great than are the less-capable detractors who are still at Digital
criticizing these guys.
However, I must observe that by the time Roger left Digital, many
people were calling him "The Black Prince"; this reflected his mode of
dress, and also some less-than-flattering connotations that are
reflected in his soured relationship with Dave Cutler.
In spite of having personally experienced the "Black Prince" aspect
when crossing swords with Roger, and having some permanent stylistic
differences with him, I think Digital could to a lot worse than for
Roger to decide to come out of retirement here in New England and come
back to Digital.
|
| What I liked about Roger was that when he was a high level guy and I
was a first-level manager trying to defend my product, and he wanted to
kill it, I sent him a mail message saying "How about you come watch a
demo first". He came. He paid attention. No other person at his
level did the same.
I can't remember whether he continued to press for killing the product,
but I do remember that when my assignment became 1/2 time technical
doing performance work on X11/DECWindows/Motif, he sent my boss a
thank-you note.
|