It's been ten years since Slashdot emerged from Rob Malda's personal Chips & Dip site. Also known by his Slashdot signature, Cmdr Taco, Malda was a student at Hope College on Lake Macatawa in Michigan, an institution of The Reformed Church In America, at the time. The setting sounds a little like the Prairie Home Companion's Lake WoeBeGone. The result was an enduring fixture of the open source community.

Malda had an interest in developments outside the computer department at the college and started posting newsy items to his personal site on early pieces of open source code, such as Linux, little known at the time.

It was important that such a site emerge. With computers in the hands of thousands of people who could contribute code but didn't know how to link up with other like minded souls, Slashdot emerged as a focal point of comment, opinion and practical feedback on open source proposals.

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