Weekly Edition
Return to the Kernel page
| |||||||||||||
Alan Cox goes on sabbatical
At the end of September I'm off back to University on a years sabbatical from Red Hat to study for an MBA. I've made the decision that I'm basically going to vanish for the year so I can concentrate on the course, and on the pet side project of learning Welsh. I've passed all my userspace projects on to other people already, and I'll be vanishing from kernel space too (except to a few priviledged processes ;)). Lots of people send me stuff as a gateway to getting it into 2.4 and 2.6. Lots of people send me security related stuff. Can you in future please send stuff to Security: vendor-sec@lst.de 2.4: Marcelo/the list/someone he nominates to do that job 2.6: Andrew Morton or for small stuff Rusty Russell's trivial patch manager. The 2.2 tree needs a new maintainer, someone who can spend their entire life refusing patches, being ignored by the mainstream (because 2.2 is boring) and by vendors (who don't ship 2.2 any more). I'm not sure what to do about the -ac patch. Most of the remaining stuff is "pending Marcelo" for 2.4 mainstream, but not the O(1) scheduler and some of the odder cool stuff (like the morse bits). As 2.6 becomes relevant 2.4-ac basically becomes a fixed collection of add-ons that aren't mainstream anyway. And of course there are other people keeping patch sets in the same way nowdays. A few years ago I'd have worried about doing this, the great thing is that with the kernel community we have today I know I'm not a critical cog in the machine. In fact I'm surrounded by people far better than I am and we even have Andrew Morton to keep Linus in check 8) Dal ati! Alan - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/ (Log in to post comments)
Alan Cox goes on sabbatical Posted Aug 20, 2003 14:05 UTC (Wed) by broom (subscriber, #2914) [Link] Alan wrote: > the great thing is that with the kernel community we have today I know But an extremely valuable one nonetheless. Have a great break. Bradley
Alan Cox goes on sabbatical Posted Aug 20, 2003 14:32 UTC (Wed) by dwalters (subscriber, #4207) [Link] Alan has done so much more for Linux than just work on the kernel. He's also supported great causes such as the anti-software patent movement in Europe.Have a great break Alan. And for those who don't speak Welsh, Pob lwc yn y brifysgol, Alan.
Alan Cox goes on sabbatical Posted Aug 20, 2003 15:22 UTC (Wed) by smoogen (subscriber, #97) [Link] When I worked for Red Hat support, Alan was a great help in getting problems fixed or debugged even when it wasnt his problem. I think he is an all around great guy who definately deserves a good sabbatical. Maybe with his MBA he can come back and work on GNUCash!
Alan Cox as userspace programmer? Posted Aug 20, 2003 18:41 UTC (Wed) by proski (subscriber, #104) [Link] I don't think Alan will work on GnuCash. The difference between working on the kernel and working on a user space program is the entry barrier. With the kernel, only people strong in C, who understand some software design principles will submit patches to the code. Others may submit patches to the documentation or spelling fixes, but they don't normally try to mess with the code.With user space software, you get a lot of people who think that they can change the code, while in fact they are incompetent. They will suggest workarounds for an existing bug without even realizing that it's a bug. They with add more and more command line options to interactive programs because they are to lazy to change the configuration dialog. They will suggest hacks that break portability without even realizing it. They will put their name to comments and document their changes, rather than the changed code as a whole (e.g. /* changed by Max to fix search */). They will send patches against obsolete versions and tell you that they are too afraid to upgrade. The only person I know who converted from kernel to userspace programming is Eric Raymond, the co-author of the famous How To Ask Questions The Smart Way. It's hard to manage a userspace project without constantly referring users to that document. I don't know Alan in person, but I really doubt that he'll work on GnuCash.
Alan Cox as userspace programmer? Posted Aug 20, 2003 19:48 UTC (Wed) by dvrabel (subscriber, #9500) [Link] "With the kernel, only people strong in C, who understand some software design principles will submit patches to the code."Most of the kernel is device drivers which anyone with some skill, the hardware, and plenty of patience can contribute to. David Vrabel
will he switch projects? Posted Aug 20, 2003 17:27 UTC (Wed) by coriordan (subscriber, #7544) [Link] I have great respect for Cox, both for his coding, and his willingness to stand firm on political issues. As the most level headed Linux hacker, he's worth keeping an eye on.I wonder if he'll come back as a hacker of another free software project, or if he'll develop new free software as part of his MBA. Of course idle speculation is pointless but he's recently posted a few comments to the Xouvert project mailing list which seems like a strange move for someone that seems to be opting out of development soon. (xouvert.org) With his stature, he'd be able to bring level headedness to almost any project he chooses to get involved in. Worth keeping an intermitent eye on. Ciaran O'Riordan
will he switch projects? Posted Aug 20, 2003 17:32 UTC (Wed) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] "Of course idle speculation is pointless but he's recently posted a few comments to the Xouvert project mailing list which seems like a strange move for someone that seems to be opting out of development soon." Alan (or his famous army of gnomes) has always tended to wander broadly. Often he's been seen in places where relations between free software developers (or their projects) need some patching up. I wouldn't read much into his posts outside of the kernel world.
will he switch projects? Posted Aug 21, 2003 0:28 UTC (Thu) by AlanCox (guest, #4858) [Link] Actually you read too much into that. I'm the maintainer (sort of) of the old Cyrix X drivers and help VIA in merging their stuff. I don't plan to be doing that end of September either.I may have to fix one or two bits during term breaks just because I'm possibly the only person on the planet with some of the old Cyrix docs except NatSe^W AMD 8) I'd also take issue with the other posters comment about user space. I started as a games programmer, I've done GUI stuff too. The kernel demands a certain set of skills and ability to think about hardware, but you don't have to think about extremely large systems, complex API's and other things that are required of other classes of programmer. Far too many kernel types don't appreciate how hard good GUI work is, nor why tools like python are so good for GUI work. Anyone who thinks the kernel is somehow magically harder should go read Pango - and thats "just a library that renders characters" right....
will he switch projects? Posted Aug 29, 2003 6:43 UTC (Fri) by csamuel (subscriber, #2624) [Link] Alan Cox wrote:> I started as a games programmer A quick blast from the past: d.rail, btidy, box, auto & extern. Chwarae teg, Alan me old mate, you deserve a break. :-) Chris
will he switch projects? Posted Aug 21, 2003 8:16 UTC (Thu) by error27 (subscriber, #8346) [Link] Alan Cox is on every email list...Shocking but true.
|
|||||||||||||