 Michael K. Johnson ("mkj" of Red Hat and Fedora fame) claimed in 1996 to have written the first Linux version of this error message, however he as well as Herbert Rosmanith and Alan Cox (all Linux developers) have acknowledged that the phrase existed in Unix in different forms prior to his Linux printer implementation.Since then, the lp printer code has spread across all sorts of POSIX-compliant operating systems, which often still retain this legacy message.Modern printer drivers and support have improved and hidden low-level error messages from users, so most Unix/Linux users today have never seen the "on fire" message.