Jim Warren

Jim Clarke Warren Jr. (July 20, 1936 – November 24, 2021) was an American computer professional, editor, and activist.

Warren co-founded the West Coast Computer Faire, and was the creator of the publication that became InfoWorld.

Early life and education Warren was born in Oakland, California; he was an only child. His father, Jim Warren Sr., piloted military transport aircraft during World War II, and Jim Jr. was raised in San Antonio, Texas. He graduated from Southwest Texas State University with a degree in mathematics and education and then on a National Science Foundation grant earned a master's degree in mathematics and statistics from the University of Texas. He threw large parties at his house in Woodside, with free love, nudity, and drugs, one of which was filmed for a BBC documentary. An article in the San Francisco Chronicle on the parties, in which he was not named, led to his forced resignation from his job. In 1983, he sold the Faire to Prentice-Hall, "for 100% down; nothin' to pay".

Warren founded and co-founded a number of computer publications. To promote the Computer Faires and circulate news and gossip about the then-infant microcomputer industry, he founded and edited the first free tabloid newspaper about microcomputing, the irregular Silicon Gulch Gazette (SGG), published from issue #0 in February 1977, through issue #43, in January 1986, with one issue named Business Systems Journal. He was also the founding editor of Dr. Dobb's Journal of Computer Calisthenics & Orthodontia, the first computer magazine to focus on microcomputer software, created and published by the nonprofit People's Computer Company.

Beginning in 1978, Warren created and published Intelligent Machines Journal He also founded and published the short-lived DataCast magazine, edited by Tony Bove and Cheryl Rhodes, focused on in-depth tutorials about specific microcomputer programs, and was the founder and producer of the equally ill-fated Video Initiative, providing similar self-paced videotape tutorials.

He also hosted the first two seasons of PBS television's Computer Chronicles,

From 1990 to 1995, he was a member of the Board of Directors of Autodesk, one of the best-known publishers of computer-aided design programs for microcomputers, with AutoCAD as its flagship product. At the time, it was one of the largest microcomputer software publishers, with a market capitalization sometimes near a billion dollars. His tenure there including presenting Autodesk's position opposing software patents, and chairing the Board's CEO Search Committee that found and selected Carol Bartz as its CEO.

Activism Warren founded and chaired the first Computers, Freedom and Privacy Conference, held in 1991.

In 1993, he assisted Debra Bowen pro-bono, then a freshman member of the California State Assembly, in drafting Assembly Bill 1624 and organized much of the statewide support that helped it pass four committee votes and three floor votes without a single dissenting vote. When the law took effect on January 1, 1994, it made California the first state in the nation to open all of its computerized public legislative records, statutes, constitution and regulations, to fee-free access via the Internet. In this influential bill, he described the Internet, which was relatively unknown at the time, as "the largest nonproprietary, nonprofit cooperative public computer network". This was necessary to forestall objections from naive politicians to giving away public records to a private Internet "company".

In 1996–1997, he served on the California Senate's Task Force on Electronic Access to Public Records, that produced recommendations regarding how to make computerized state and local public government records available to the public in electronic form. Warren was one of the minority who advocated online access without agency fees, and charging no more than the direct incremental cost of copying, when copies were requested in physical form. The majority of Task Force members were from city and county agencies, almost entirely advocating making the records available in electronic form, but only for fees far in excess of direct copying costs.

Political career

In the 1980s, Warren was elected countywide to the board of trustees of the three-college San Mateo County Community College District .

In 1986, knowing he had no chance of winning, Warren nonetheless ran unsuccessfully for San Mateo County Supervisor against the then President of the County Board of Supervisors, Anna Eshoo, as a protest of her representation of the county's rural minority that composed much of her supervisorial district.

Other works Aside from the several periodicals and conference proceedings mentioned above, Warren also created, published and edited the Peninsula Citizens' Advocate tabloid newspaper, addressing local rural political issues (very irregularly, 1984–1986).

Warren was the Futures columnist for Microtimes, writing a monthly "Realizable Fantasies" column (1990–2001); the Government Access columnist for Boardwatch magazine (1994–1996), and the Public Access columnist for Government Technology magazine (1993–1996, 2000). Warren also wrote the nontechnical "Coastside Curmudgeon" column for the Half Moon Bay Review, Half Moon Bay, CA (1994–1996).

He also wrote the first invited, refereed survey of early personal computer developments in Computer magazine, a 15-year retrospective called "We, The People, In The Information Age" in Dr. Dobb's Journal, January 1991, etc.

Personal life and death Warren was married to Malee Warren. He died in Silverdale, Washington on November 24, 2021, from lung cancer.

Awards First-year recipient of the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Pioneer Award (1992) The Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award from the Playboy Foundation (1994) The James Madison Freedom-of-Information Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, Northern California (1994) The John Dvorak Lifetime Achievement Award (1995)