John (J5) Palmieri is a software engineer for Open Source leader Red Hat where he works to make Desktop Computing accessible to all individuals and groups.

    He was born John Anthony Palmieri as his Grandfather's namesake in New Rochelle hospital on July 19th, 1977.  He shares this birth date with his twin sister Kataliya, who was born four minutes before him.

    John grew up in a modest apartment in White Plains, NY while his father pursued a PhD in Pharmacology .  Later on his family would move to a house in the same town.  During his high school career John lived with his Grandparents in New Rochelle while attending Iona Prep where he received the Computer Science award upon graduation.  John quips, "While Iona was an ok high school, not bad but not particularly focused in my area, it was the freedom my Grandparents gave me as well as the computer teacher Mr. Sloat that allowed me to study Computer Science on my own terms".

    During high school John also formed the band Torque as front-man with his public school grade school friends Sean Maloney, Keith LaMattina and Aaron Buttler along with Mark Userin from Iona.   They had the dubious distinction of beating out the Ska band Jiker at one of the Eastchester Battle of the Bands.   "There is no accounting for taste,"  John jokes, "Jiker was clearly a better band than us but we were able to get the crowd more into it."  The key was finishing up with a killer version of Come Together by the Beatles.

    Computers always drew John's interest.

    I can remeber getting our first Apple IIe and playing the game Brickout that my father had learned to write from a book about programming games in Apple Basic.  I was about 10 when I started transcribing code snippets from my 3-2-1 Contact magazine.  From there I learned how to mix and match code I would find from books or people.  I still remember taking peek and poke code a camp counselor had shown me for calibrating joysticks and adding it to my games to add joystick support.

    The really turning point in my computing career came from two events.  The first was when my father bought a new 486 computer from Gateway.  He had order the professional software package because he needed to use Borland Paradox to create databases.  Although the package did not specify it, it came with Borland C++ also.  This launched me into a world of pointers and Object Oriented programming.

    The second event and even more important was the advent of Prodigy and it's mass BBS system.  This is where I got my first glimpse of how great Open Source programming could be even before there was such a thing and before I even knew about Free Software.  What was so amazing was people were sharing code on solving specific problems.  I had previously written some BBS dialing software called ChatCOM that would allow you to download and play games at the same time.  In my 13 year old mind I was going make millions off of it but when I found people collaborating freely I realized it was a much better approach to make good software first.  The money would come later.


    John first learned of Linux as a freshman at the University of Maryland in 1995 from Linux guru across the hall.   As primarily a Dos programmer, John's jump to Linux wasn't all that hard but it happened slowly over time.   "All I could remember is seeing this guy being able to do some pretty cool stuff that I had hit limits on in the Dos environment.  I had to learn Unix for class so why not Linux? Games still kept me glued to Dos and Windows though."

    After not adjusting to life in a big University John ended up dropping out the first semester. "I was totally disappointed in myself after gaining entrance into their prestigious Scholars program but I came to realize I had never really been that far from home before and I needed to do a little growing up first."

    And grow up he did.  John proceeded to enroll in Community College of which he notes, "was the best learning environment" he had ever been in in his life.  During this time he took a job at Morning Star Multimedia and eventually moved to New Jersey to become their Head Software Engineer where he designed and programmed the technical aspects of the children's game Casper: the Interactive Adventure.  "I wan't really sure my programming skills would hold up in a commercial environment but when the work wasn't getting done I stepped and showed I could do it".  The project was eventually released but under a funding gap that saw a mass exodus from the company and remaining employees working without guaranteed paychecks.

    John left after the project was done to continue with his higher education, joining On-Line Design for a brief period and signing up for a semester Leadership Training course run by Outward Bound.   For two months he hiked, climbed and rafted through Colorado, Utah and Wyoming.  "It was fun, a great experience of which I recommend people of any age to experience if you have the time.  I almost quit on the first day because I got sick just prior and was still on antibiotics which made it laborious to breath in the thin air of the Rockies.  I ended up pushing through and had the time of my life learning how to go beyond and eventually expand my circle of comfort.  It was between Outward Bound and the Navy.  I made the right choice."

    Hofstra University was the final institution where John would finish up his Undergrad work and get a BS in Computer Science.  Hofstra ended up being a great choice for John.  He became active in the Long Island Linux Users Group where he eventually became Treasure and then Vice President.  He reinvigorated the Hofstra Computer Science Club as President and helped tutor other students.   It was at Hofstra where John made the jump from being a casual Linux user to using it full time.

    His summers were left to other matters.

    I remember one crazy summer where I wanted to get an internship in California just to see what it was like so called up a friend, taught him how to drive stick and then hopped in my car a week later and drove to visit my sister who was doing her Physical Therapist clinicals down in San Diego.  Along the way we stopped all over including Cleavland, Ohio to see the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,  the Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona, and Vegas, Nevada.

    It just so happened that Sean, who was a former band mate in Torque was going to be down to visit his sister in California the same time we were planning to be in Vegas.  We ended up meeting up, winning some money on the Roulette table and then heading off to San Diego to meet up with my sister and another friend Tom.  We partied in Sand Diego and then I left all my friends to drive up by myself to my final destination Palo Alto, California.  The friend who drove out with me stayed with his Aunt for a week in San Diego and then caught a flight back home.

    In San Fransisco I stayed with family friends and knocked on doors with my resume for a week.  It wasn't so much planned out as a seat of my pants experience.  A week went past with no leads.  I was just about to pack up and leave when the people I was staying with got me an interview with E*Trade.  They hired me on the spot and I started working on their test suite and some English to Chinese translation software with two interns under me.   I ended up having a falling out with the people I was staying with which was very upsetting but my manager ended up giving me a place to stay down in San Jose.  I would end up collaborating with him on a few of his side ventures but ultimately I concentrated on finishing up my degree.


    John forgo a minor in mathematics to spend his last semester studying Politics in London.  It wasn't his first choice.  He had originally wanted to go to the Melbourne, Australia program that had just been started.  A week before the London application was due he was rejected from the Australian program because he was not a Political Science major.  Being too late to apply to Parliament in London John was assigned an internship with a Law Office in Hackney.  "This was a wonderful experience as I got to work with people from all walks of life.  Computer Science tends to be a very limited social career path.  Interning at a public law firm was quite the opposite experience."  He was eventually able to combine his expertise in computers with what he had picked up in London by writing a final paper on the effects of the Data Protection Act in Europe and comparisons to similar legislature in the US.

    London was also where John picked up the J5 moniker.  "What can I say?  I lived with a bunch of frat boys.  They named me Johnny 5 for obvious reasons.   I never like the name Johnny so I shortened it to J5 and it stuck.  The moniker works wonders when there are more than one Johns in the room, which is often."

    John ended up traveling Europe and falling in love with the various cultures.  "This is really where I fell in love with traveling.  I mean we just rented a car and drove from London, England down to Barcelona, Spain.  I would never do that again but then again you haven't lived until you have driven on the right hand side of the car in the right hand side of the road.  It was quite a trip with some really scary parts and loads of fun."  According to John Italy was his favorite destination.  " The hostels were amazing.  If you are ever in Florance make sure you go to the Ostello Archi Rossi.  I had been to Thailand to see my Mother's culture when I was younger.  This was the first time I could experience a part of my Father's heritage.  It was amazing.  There is nothing like sitting out in a piazza cafe, with a half carafe of wine and just watch the people as they shuffle by."

     Finishing up school did not bring the success John had hoped for.  It was a bad time to be in the technology field.   The Internet Bubble had just burst and for the first time John found it hard to get a job.  As a fresh college grad he felt as if he was starting from scratch.  "I had an offer from a small startup of a kid I interned with at On-Line Design but he wasn't very reliable in those days and I wanted a career I felt would last or at least offered a steady salary." 

    Fortunes would take a turn for the worse when John woke up to go to a job fare.

    It was September 11th 2001.  I woke up hoping to find a job and get out of this rut I was in.  I went to the Internet to check on the times and I couldn't get anywhere.  I finally was able to get on cnn.com where I read about a plane crashing into one of the Twin Towers.  My first reaction was a small plane had gone off course and hit the building.  Tragic, but no reason for worry.  It didn't hit me until I went to flip on the TV to watch the news when I realized none of them were coming in.  We didn't have cable at the time and the Towers held the broadcast antennas for most of the networks.  I finally found a channel that I believe was broadcasting from the Empire State Building, just in time to see what I did not want to see.  The second plane smashed into the second tower.  I had friends who worked in the City.  None of them were hurt but I spent the rest of the day trying to reach many of them.  To this day I can't bring myself to go see the site where the Towers once stood.


    The job fair was rescheduled for a month later.  John went, pretty much drained by this point but hope he would find something.  At every booth it was the same, unemployed IT workers were a dime a dozen.  John submitted his resume and chatted it up with as many recruiters as he could and then went how to see who would bite.

    The first company to call was Primerica.  They had identified themselves as a Citigroup company and were starting a new office in White Plains which was looking for people of John's expertise.  "About the only true thing they told me was that they were a branch of Citigroup.  It turned out to be a pyramid scheme aimed at getting friends and family to take on debt.  I remember being disgusted as they brought in a kid from the street who couldn't be more than 18 and proceeded to ask him things like. 'You like money, right? You want to be rich?'.  They then told him to get $300 from his mother so he could sign up for the course.  It took a lot of self control at that point to not blow up."

    All was not waisted though.  A short time later John got an interview with Lowestloan.com.  He got the job as a database administrator for an MS SQL database.  Not being in a Linux environment didn't deter him as he quickly complemented the vendor work flow solution with a from scratch CRM system that ran on Linux and Java and integrated with the vendor's product.

    Almost a year into his work at Lowestloan the market had still not recovered fully and most of the people were laid off.  John had been gathered himself in this period and watched for the perfect opportunity to get into the Linux market.  It presented itself three months later when Bascom was looking for an intern for a Linux programming position.  John quickly e-mailed them asking if they  were looking for someone full time.  They ended up interviewing him and giving him the job on the spot.  "It really was a great company and brought me full circle to where I wanted to be.  Really good things come not to those that wait but to those that are patient and make the right moves at the right time.  I came to find out later while looking at some old company picnic photos that the guy who got me into Linux all the way back in 1995 had graduated from Maryland and ended up working at Bascom."

    Red Hat came calling a year and a half later.   "It just so happened that the GNOME Summit decided one year to be held in Brooklyn, NY.  It was just a short train ride to the site so I decided to go.  I was surprised to find that people knew my name from the mailing lists and from working on projects like Scaffold.  The J5 really came in handy there.  When Havoc posted that Red Hat had job openings I jumped.  They hired me after some months of me sitting on edge.  I had wanted to work for Red Hat ever since I downloaded Doom from Id's ftp servers and the disclaimer would read Red Hat Professional Linux FTP server.  Any company that could make a hobby into a profession was tops in my books."

    John has been with Red Hat for over two years now and has worked on things like D-Bus, HAL, multimedia and Gtk+.  "This is a very fast moving company, just the way I like it.  It has changed much in the short time I have worked here. The Boston area has also become my home, I don't think I could trade it for the world."

    On his free time he can be found skiing in Killington, relaxing at a bar playing trivia or writing songs at his Cambridge apartment.