7 ms·

Linux md maintainer, Shaohua Li, has died

320 points by cmurf 8y ago

staunch 8y ago
Giving open source software to the world is a great contribution to humanity. Thank you Shaohua Li.
datumy 8y ago
I guess coding can kill pain, sometimes. Thank you Shaohua Li.
sowbug 8y ago
The post where he offered to step up as md maintainer: https://lkml.org/lkml/2016/1/4/455 https://lkml.org/lkml/2016/1/4/455 and discussion about the change: http://www.linux-magazine.com/Issues/2016/186/Kernel-News http://www.linux-magazine.com/Issues/2016/186/Kernel-News A very brief bio: https://raid.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/User:Shaohua_Li https://raid.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/User:Shaohua_Li Patches to Linux kernel while at Facebook: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/log/?qt=author&q=shli%40fb.com https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/lin...
- l1k 8y ago
  Only 232 patches were submitted under the Facebook e-mail address (since 2015). He worked at Fusion I/O and Intel before that, encompassing a total of 576 commits: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/log/?qt=author&q=Shaohua+Li https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/lin... Additionally there were 47 commits with his involvement in the pre-git era (starting Sep 2003): https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tglx/history.git/log/?qt=grep&q=Shaohua+Li https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tglx/history... Sad to see a prolific longtime contributor pass away.
jensv 8y ago
md is multiple devices. It's a RAID implementation in Linux kernel available since kernel release 2.0. It allows you to create RAID level 0, 10, 4, 5 and 6. It has various optimizations like utilizing SSE and MMX instructions. It's a standard software RAID in Linux.
- throwaway2048 8y ago
  it does many things besides RAID, its more or less a generic "do things with abstracted block layers" tool these days.
  - thoxahr 8y ago
    The similarly named "dm" (device mapper) is a generic abstract block layer tool. md is still specifically a software raid implementation.
- babuskov 8y ago
  > It allows you to create RAID level 0, 10, 4, 5 and 6. I'm pretty sure it supports RAID level 1 as well: https://raid.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/RAID_setup#RAID-1 https://raid.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/RAID_setup#RAID-1 Or am I misunderstanding something?
  - dspillett 8y ago
    It does. Also the less standard RAID10-over-three-devices (similar to the scheme called RAID1E by some hardware RAID controllers, though with more layout options than they usually supply).
    - rincebrain 8y ago
      At first I thought you were describing a 3-way mirror, then I looked into it, and that's a cleverly kinky idea.
- nailer 8y ago
  I thought it was 'meta devices'? Hrm the docs don't actually say: https://raid.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/A_guide_to_mdadm https://raid.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/A_guide_to_mdadm
  - tyingq 8y ago
    Here's a 2002 reference to mdadm being referred to as "multiple devices admin". https://web.archive.org/web/20180211041128/www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2002/12/05/RAID.html https://web.archive.org/web/20180211041128/www.linuxdevcente...
joecool1029 8y ago
Although I never had a chance to interact with Shaohua Li, I'm glad there was someone else that could step in to maintain for awhile. It always sucks losing someone in the community and cancer sucks... Most of the years I was a heavy user of md it seemed like Neil Brown was the only person working on it, so for every weird use case or if documentation was lacking I'd shoot him an email and he'd get back. I can only imagine how many other people were doing the same!
smolsky 8y ago
Not trying to be a sarcastic jerk... any death is tragic and sad. Yet the Linux maintainers' average age is probably going up every year... so the community will have figure out a way to bring new blood in /and/ pass the reins. The sub-systems will fall into obsolescence otherwise...
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- FractalParadigm 8y ago
  I wouldn't be surprised to see a lot of software and sub-systems re-written, rather than maintained. systemd largely comes to mind; everyone seemed to be perfectly okay with init until systemd came along and vastly simplified the boot process. Now it's standard across virtually every mainstream distro. It's a similar story with Wayland vs. Xorg. How many network managers do we have now, too? As new technologies arise, it's almost always easier to write something new, from scratch, than to muck about in legacy code (that you probably didn't even write in the first place). md is great and works exceptionally well, but it's only a matter of time before a newer, better, more well-supported software RAID is born and md goes the way of init and Xorg
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - Uberphallus 8y ago
    > systemd > simplified I like systemd, but it never simplified anything, especially with the huge amount of dependencies. At most, it made things relatively uniform across Linux distros, but in the end of the day each distro has to maintain their own .service files anyway. Lightweight and embedded Linux distros won't use systemd by default in the foreseeable future because it's anything but simple.
    - avar 8y ago
      > it never simplified anything, especially with the huge amount of dependencies[...] That's an odd way of looking at things. Ultimately it's software accomplishing task X. How are things simpler if instead of depending on other projects they'd have implemented those things on their own? Then you'd be carrying duplicate work. > [...]but in the end of the day each distro has to maintain their own .service files anyway. Sure, but e.g. on Debian /etc/systemd/system/sshd.service is 22 lines. The still-carried shellscript version is 162 lines, and that's before counting any of the per-distro shellscript libraries systemd removed the need for. That's a big reduction in complexity even if systemd didn't have any advantages over shellscript init, which it does.
rataata_jr 8y ago
RIP.
ivoras 8y ago
Condolences to Mr. Li's family. Because it's a huge project with so many eyes on it, Linux's transition to the next generation of developers will probably be The textbook case on the viability of large human endeavours in general.
- orsenthil 8y ago
  Condolences to Mr. Li's Family. Mr. Li has had a good impact in this world, and his work will live on for a long time. > Because it's a huge project with so many eyes on it, Linux's transition to the next generation of developers will probably be The textbook case on the viability of large human endeavours in general. True. I agree with this statement.
finnjohnsen2 8y ago
Rest in peace.
- revskill 8y ago
  GraphQL in peace.
tzjmetron 8y ago
RIP, and deepest commiserations to Mr. Li's family.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
equalunique 8y ago
Sad to hear the news. md was the first "RAID" I ever got experience using, back in 2011.
AtlasBarfed 8y ago
Software RAID for the masses was not an insignificant advance to society. I was always amazed at how easy and consistent it was.
terrywang 8y ago
Here is another good article written by Shaohua's close friend Coly Li (who is the main bcache maintainer), a lot more details on the contributions (elegant code, performance patches, etc.) he has made to the Linux kernel, as well as how he helped many new contributors to step up and become core contributors for difference subsystems. Amazing. R.I.P. https://media.weibo.cn/article?id=2309404323330038621366 https://media.weibo.cn/article?id=2309404323330038621366

320 points by cmurf 8y ago

staunch 8y ago

Giving open source software to the world is a great contribution to humanity. Thank you Shaohua Li.

datumy 8y ago

I guess coding can kill pain, sometimes. Thank you Shaohua Li.

sowbug 8y ago

The post where he offered to step up as md maintainer: https://lkml.org/lkml/2016/1/4/455 https://lkml.org/lkml/2016/1/4/455 and discussion about the change: http://www.linux-magazine.com/Issues/2016/186/Kernel-News http://www.linux-magazine.com/Issues/2016/186/Kernel-News A very brief bio: https://raid.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/User:Shaohua_Li https://raid.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/User:Shaohua_Li Patches to Linux kernel while at Facebook: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/log/?qt=author&q=shli%40fb.com https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/lin...

l1k 8y ago
Only 232 patches were submitted under the Facebook e-mail address (since 2015). He worked at Fusion I/O and Intel before that, encompassing a total of 576 commits: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/log/?qt=author&q=Shaohua+Li https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/lin... Additionally there were 47 commits with his involvement in the pre-git era (starting Sep 2003): https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tglx/history.git/log/?qt=grep&q=Shaohua+Li https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tglx/history... Sad to see a prolific longtime contributor pass away.

jensv 8y ago

md is multiple devices. It's a RAID implementation in Linux kernel available since kernel release 2.0. It allows you to create RAID level 0, 10, 4, 5 and 6. It has various optimizations like utilizing SSE and MMX instructions. It's a standard software RAID in Linux.

throwaway2048 8y ago
it does many things besides RAID, its more or less a generic "do things with abstracted block layers" tool these days.
- thoxahr 8y ago
  The similarly named "dm" (device mapper) is a generic abstract block layer tool. md is still specifically a software raid implementation.
babuskov 8y ago
> It allows you to create RAID level 0, 10, 4, 5 and 6. I'm pretty sure it supports RAID level 1 as well: https://raid.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/RAID_setup#RAID-1 https://raid.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/RAID_setup#RAID-1 Or am I misunderstanding something?
- dspillett 8y ago
  It does. Also the less standard RAID10-over-three-devices (similar to the scheme called RAID1E by some hardware RAID controllers, though with more layout options than they usually supply).
  - rincebrain 8y ago
    At first I thought you were describing a 3-way mirror, then I looked into it, and that's a cleverly kinky idea.
nailer 8y ago
I thought it was 'meta devices'? Hrm the docs don't actually say: https://raid.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/A_guide_to_mdadm https://raid.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/A_guide_to_mdadm
- tyingq 8y ago
  Here's a 2002 reference to mdadm being referred to as "multiple devices admin". https://web.archive.org/web/20180211041128/www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2002/12/05/RAID.html https://web.archive.org/web/20180211041128/www.linuxdevcente...

joecool1029 8y ago

Although I never had a chance to interact with Shaohua Li, I'm glad there was someone else that could step in to maintain for awhile. It always sucks losing someone in the community and cancer sucks... Most of the years I was a heavy user of md it seemed like Neil Brown was the only person working on it, so for every weird use case or if documentation was lacking I'd shoot him an email and he'd get back. I can only imagine how many other people were doing the same!

smolsky 8y ago

Not trying to be a sarcastic jerk... any death is tragic and sad. Yet the Linux maintainers' average age is probably going up every year... so the community will have figure out a way to bring new blood in /and/ pass the reins. The sub-systems will fall into obsolescence otherwise...

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
FractalParadigm 8y ago
I wouldn't be surprised to see a lot of software and sub-systems re-written, rather than maintained. systemd largely comes to mind; everyone seemed to be perfectly okay with init until systemd came along and vastly simplified the boot process. Now it's standard across virtually every mainstream distro. It's a similar story with Wayland vs. Xorg. How many network managers do we have now, too? As new technologies arise, it's almost always easier to write something new, from scratch, than to muck about in legacy code (that you probably didn't even write in the first place). md is great and works exceptionally well, but it's only a matter of time before a newer, better, more well-supported software RAID is born and md goes the way of init and Xorg
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- Uberphallus 8y ago
  > systemd > simplified I like systemd, but it never simplified anything, especially with the huge amount of dependencies. At most, it made things relatively uniform across Linux distros, but in the end of the day each distro has to maintain their own .service files anyway. Lightweight and embedded Linux distros won't use systemd by default in the foreseeable future because it's anything but simple.
  - avar 8y ago
    > it never simplified anything, especially with the huge amount of dependencies[...] That's an odd way of looking at things. Ultimately it's software accomplishing task X. How are things simpler if instead of depending on other projects they'd have implemented those things on their own? Then you'd be carrying duplicate work. > [...]but in the end of the day each distro has to maintain their own .service files anyway. Sure, but e.g. on Debian /etc/systemd/system/sshd.service is 22 lines. The still-carried shellscript version is 162 lines, and that's before counting any of the per-distro shellscript libraries systemd removed the need for. That's a big reduction in complexity even if systemd didn't have any advantages over shellscript init, which it does.

rataata_jr 8y ago

RIP.

ivoras 8y ago

Condolences to Mr. Li's family. Because it's a huge project with so many eyes on it, Linux's transition to the next generation of developers will probably be The textbook case on the viability of large human endeavours in general.

orsenthil 8y ago
Condolences to Mr. Li's Family. Mr. Li has had a good impact in this world, and his work will live on for a long time. > Because it's a huge project with so many eyes on it, Linux's transition to the next generation of developers will probably be The textbook case on the viability of large human endeavours in general. True. I agree with this statement.

finnjohnsen2 8y ago

Rest in peace.

revskill 8y ago
GraphQL in peace.

tzjmetron 8y ago

RIP, and deepest commiserations to Mr. Li's family.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

equalunique 8y ago

Sad to hear the news. md was the first "RAID" I ever got experience using, back in 2011.

AtlasBarfed 8y ago

Software RAID for the masses was not an insignificant advance to society. I was always amazed at how easy and consistent it was.

terrywang 8y ago

Here is another good article written by Shaohua's close friend Coly Li (who is the main bcache maintainer), a lot more details on the contributions (elegant code, performance patches, etc.) he has made to the Linux kernel, as well as how he helped many new contributors to step up and become core contributors for difference subsystems. Amazing. R.I.P. https://media.weibo.cn/article?id=2309404323330038621366 https://media.weibo.cn/article?id=2309404323330038621366