Ted Ts'o wins FSF award [LWN.net]

The Free Software Foundation has announced that the winner of the 2006 Award for the Advancement of Free Software is Ted Ts'o. "Theodore Ts'o was recognized for his many and varied contributions to free software, including his work on the kernel Linux. His role as project leader in the development of Kerberos---the first single sign-on authentication system---and his work on the Open Network Computing Remote Procedure (ONC RPC) are representative of his important role in Internet security. He was also cited for his work as maintainer and developer of the key utilities under the project "E2fs", which are used to maintain file systems for GNU/Linux. Ts'o has also played an important role in community efforts, organizing the annual summit for kernel developers and publishing educational materials and tutorials."

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Ted Ts'o wins FSF award

Posted Mar 28, 2007 16:20 UTC (Wed) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link] (4 responses)

> ...including his work on the kernel Linux.

What's a kernel Linux? Is this a typo for "the Linux kernel"?

Ted Ts'o wins FSF award

Posted Mar 28, 2007 16:39 UTC (Wed) by busterb (subscriber, #560) [Link] (1 responses)

Maybe they meant it like 'Attorney General', or the 'Brothers
Karamazov', or the 'River Jordan'. The Kernel Linux has a nice ring to it
too.

Ted Ts'o wins FSF award

Posted Mar 28, 2007 19:42 UTC (Wed) by proski (guest, #104) [Link]

An equivalent to 'Attorney General' would be 'Linux Colonel'

Ted Ts'o wins FSF award

Posted Mar 28, 2007 17:38 UTC (Wed) by sbergman27 (guest, #10767) [Link]

They wanted to make sure to emphasize the "important" fact that Linux is just one kernel among many. It's a typical FSF word game and to be expected.

the kernel Linux

Posted Mar 28, 2007 18:06 UTC (Wed) by rfunk (subscriber, #4054) [Link]

"the Linux kernel" implies that the kernel is a piece of the larger Linux system.
"the kernel Linux" implies that Linux is a particular type of kernel.

The former is by far the more common usage, but the latter is more technically correct.

let's stop with the language police

Posted Mar 28, 2007 21:25 UTC (Wed) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] (2 responses)

A lot of us pay for LWN, let's not continue to pollute it with the same repetitive, content-free threads. We all know that the FSF has a thing about language; it is not news, it is not worthy of comment, and it particularly isn't worth arguing about.

The FSF is giving its highest honor to a Linux kernel hacker, and listing that contribution first. Yes, there are a number of conflicts (concerning language, DRM, GPLv3, etc) but the message is that despite these differences, it's a community, and it's nice sometimes to honor what the various sides have in common.

let's stop with the language police

Posted Mar 28, 2007 23:34 UTC (Wed) by sbergman27 (guest, #10767) [Link]

Nice it is see to kernel Linux hacker so honored be.

Agreed.

let's stop with the language police

Posted Mar 29, 2007 9:37 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

Well, personally I think Kerberos is probably the single most influential (and amazing) thing Ted has ever done. But whichever thing you focus on, he certainly deserves this award.

Ted Ts'o wins FSF award

Posted Mar 29, 2007 13:39 UTC (Thu) by pr1268 (guest, #24648) [Link]

I can still remember the first Linux kernel code I saw that was authored by Ted... drivers/char/random.c (used for /dev/random and /dev/urandom, dating all the way back to 1994). Talk about a brilliant work of art!

Congratulations to Ted. He truly deserves this award.