Hall earned the nickname “maddog” from his students at Hartford Stare Technical College. He has explained that it "came from a time when I had less control over my temper". He has since embraced that monicker so much that he referee to be address as maddog rather than Jon.
Maddog is a computer engineer who is an advocate for Linux (an open source computing system). He also serves on the board of high tech companies and non- profit organizations.
He publicly came out at the age of 62 in honor of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Alan Turing (computing pioneer who was persecuted for being gay).
“I have made no bones about the fact that Alan Turing is a hero to me... I, too, am homosexual”
Most of the response to his announcement were positive. But he did gave some that said he was going to go to Hell.
But he was motivated by other “young geeks” that are going through the same things he did when he was young. He wanted them know they were not alone, and that it gets better.
He was named to Out Magazine’s 2012 OUT100 list of notable men and women in the LGBT community.
