• Admission of Weakness in Marketing: The author admits that marketing is not their strong suit and they are better at writing articles that developers and free-software supporters rely on. They encourage readers to subscribe to help them continue doing this and avoid getting good at marketing.

• Philip Hazel's Long Career in Free Software:

  • Began the Exim message transfer agent project in 1995 at 51 and maintained it until 2007.
  • Then started the Perl-Compatible Regular Expressions (PCRE) project in 1998 and continued to maintain it for more than 27 years until 2021. Now, he is ready to hand off PCRE2 if a successor can be found.

• Journey from Punch Cards to Flat Screens:

  • Started with an International Computers and Tabulators (ICT) 1301 computer at the University of Cape Town, reading punched cards and writing test programs.
  • Moved to the University of Cambridge and worked with various computers like the Titan, IBM 1130, IBM 360, and PDP-7.
  • Eventually joined the Cambridge Computing Service as a software developer and worked with Unix systems and the Internet Protocol.

• Development of Exim:

  • Started working on Exim in 1995 due to difficulties with configuring Sendmail.
  • Brooks was interested in trying it out even without documentation. Exim was put into service and gained popularity, being ported to other operating systems and finding its way to Linux.

• Creation of PCRE:

  • Wanted more flexible regular expressions for Exim and chose Henry Spencer's regular-expression library.
  • Decided to write his own regular-expression library (PCRE) as he found the existing one limiting.
  • PCRE was adopted by Apache HTTPD and Postfix. In 2014, Hazel started working on PCRE2 due to limitations in the API.

• Thoughts on Long-Term Free-Software Maintenance:

  • Hazel does not have post-PCRE plans and has not felt the need to write new software since retiring.
  • He will continue to maintain non-PCRE2 projects if necessary and help with PCRE2 if needed.
  • He advises that the effort to maintain successful software over its lifetime is greater than writing it initially and suggests thinking about testing during design.
  • When asked about vetting PCRE2 maintainers, he has no answer and has received no offers so far.

In summary, Philip Hazel has had a long and influential career in free software, from the early days of punch cards to the modern era of flat screens. His projects Exim and PCRE have had a significant impact, and he is now ready to pass the baton while sharing his insights and experiences with the next generation.