7 ms·

Alan Cox leaves Linux and Intel

251 points by aurelianito 14y ago

necrodome 14y ago
I liked it how his profile image[1] is a QR code for his site[2] and also resembles him.[3] [1] https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-DGzr5UFEIXM/AAAAAAAAAAI/AAAAAAAADGY/sfJNTdY6ph8/s250-c-k/photo.jpg https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-DGzr5UFEIXM/AAAAAAAAAAI/A... [2] http://goo.gl/BhXmc http://goo.gl/BhXmc [3] http://goo.gl/w5HNx http://goo.gl/w5HNx
- 4ad 14y ago
  It's Russ Cox's work. Background: http://research.swtch.com/field http://research.swtch.com/field Implementation: http://research.swtch.com/qart http://research.swtch.com/qart. It's all written in Go, btw. Running code, so you can try it on yourself: http://research.swtch.com/qr/draw http://research.swtch.com/qr/draw
- halvsjur 14y ago
  QArt explained by Russ Cox: http://research.swtch.com/qart http://research.swtch.com/qart QArt coder: http://research.swtch.com/qr/draw http://research.swtch.com/qr/draw
mcmatterson 14y ago
Back in the (2.1.x) day it seemed like I was running ac kernels more often than not. Nowadays though, I've been away from the kernel world for so long that I don't even know how big of a deal this is. Anyone care to chime in?
- cjbprime 14y ago
  Not a very big deal, though I'm sad he has a family crisis. The only entry in MAINTAINERS left for Alan is drivers/tty/serial. He's been doing some kernel bugzilla triage too, that'll be missed.
  - kryptiskt 14y ago
    There's more, this must be a disappointment to every Poulsbo user out there, he was getting that driver in shape last year.
- unwind 14y ago
  I don't follow the kernel nearly as closely as I used to, either. That said, here's Alan's most recent commits on the mainline (3.7) tree: http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git;a=search;s=Alan+Cox;st=author http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git.... That said, I too of course hope that whatever situation he is in the middle of goes well.
kylemaxwell 14y ago
Very sorry to hear this and I genuinely hope that the canonical neckbeard's family situation improves.
- notacoward 14y ago
  Canonical? Might want to rephrase that. ;)
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - AimHere 14y ago
    He was using 'canonical' in the canonical sense!
  - seclorum 14y ago
    What about Alan Cox isn't canonical neckbeard?
    - ori_b 14y ago
      His employer.
      - ohm 14y ago
        I believe the joke is about him complaining about Fedora, then switching to Ubuntu and now announcing that he's leaving Linux world a day later because of Canonical. See his last few posts https://plus.google.com/111104121194250082892/posts https://plus.google.com/111104121194250082892/posts
    - georgemcbay 14y ago
      I suspect that was a joke about him working at Intel as opposed to Canonical (the Ubuntu people).
4ad 14y ago
"for a bit" lacking in the title makes all the difference.
- lambda 14y ago
  > I may be back at some point in the future - who knows. This makes it sound less certain that this is only "for a bit."
  - pstuart 14y ago
    or a binary digit
tubbo 14y ago
It's so great to see the Linux kernel hackers jabbing at each other. Makes me think of how people in my area (Philly) are constantly teasing each other out of friendship. :)
ditoa 14y ago
Thank you for all your time and hard work Alan. I hope we see you back some time in the future. Enjoy your extra family time :)
- ISL 14y ago
  Thank you, AC!
erre 14y ago
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5103271 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5103271 :) edit: I didn't mean to post this for karma or hard feelings; see my reply to daeken at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5109903 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5109903 :)
- daeken 14y ago
  While it sucks that you posted this and it didn't end up frontpaged (we all love karma), there's no good reason to link it here. When a dupe happens, threads are linked not to 'give credit' or something like that, but to show people conversations that they missed around the topic; in this case, there are none.
  - erre 14y ago
    To be honest, I don't mind the karma much (as you can see, I don't have much, don't comment or post much, and mostly lurk around here). I only was curious that it didn't get any attention when I posted it yesterday, and I was wondering why (Time of posting? People don't care about Alan Cox? Was there some obvious joke or prank that I was missing?). I'd seen old-thread links posted before, so I thought this was a standard thing to do. But your point (of linking only to relevant discussion) makes perfect sense. Thanks :)
- hobbyist 14y ago
  Pretty amazing how hn upvotes work :) Guess there is lot in the name(title)
  - staticshock 14y ago
    Time of day matters a lot, too: http://hnpickup.appspot.com/ http://hnpickup.appspot.com/
- aurelianito 14y ago
  Hi! I am the submitter of the link. I did not knew that the event has been submitted before. If I would have been aware of it I would have up-voted you instead of submitting another link. I will up-vote your link now.
pflats 14y ago
In case anyone gets confused between the two like I sometimes do, Alan Cox (Linux Kernel hacker) is not Russ Cox (Go language & Plan 9 from User Space hacker).
nathanstitt 14y ago
A huge thank you to Alan for all his work over the years. Like quite a few others who ran linux back in the old 2.2/2.4 days, the -ac kernels where the place to be. I'm reminded of the Derek Silvers article (http://sivers.org/ff http://sivers.org/ff) on the importance of the second guy to a movement. While I know that Alan wasn't the actual second developer to participate in Linux, he sure seemed that way to me and quite a few others. His work was as the "gatherer of patches" in the pre-bitkeeper days was unparalleled. I don't think Linux could have prospered without his assistance.
antirez 14y ago
No one inspired me to learn to code more than AC, have a good time with your family and thanks for everything.
known 14y ago
Brilliant guy.
sandeepshetty 14y ago
Why do people direct comments at AC assuming he will read them here? Isn't that a little self-centered? Wouldn't it be more appropriate to leave such comments at the original post?
Roybatty 14y ago
Reverse psychology? We know he's had his falling out with Linus in the past. I tend to believe him, but with that hells angel biker beard, I don't know. There could be some sketchy and shady elements involved here. Probably not though, sketchy people watch black-n-white TVs, and I'm sure Alan either has no TVs or a color TV ;)
mahmud 14y ago
Alan left Linux for a few years before, to do his MBA, and he came back :-) http://kerneltrap.org/node/759 http://kerneltrap.org/node/759
linpythio 14y ago
Thanks for your great work for linux and open source software,Alan Cox.
mtdewcmu 14y ago
I think Linus's asshole-ness is probably key to Linux's success. He ought to be considered the world's leading expert on running an open source project, after all. I remember running your patched kernels circa 2000. Thanks for your hard work.

251 points by aurelianito 14y ago

I liked it how his profile image[1] is a QR code for his site[2] and also resembles him.[3] [1] https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-DGzr5UFEIXM/AAAAAAAAAAI/AAAAAAAADGY/sfJNTdY6ph8/s250-c-k/photo.jpg https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-DGzr5UFEIXM/AAAAAAAAAAI/A... [2] http://goo.gl/BhXmc http://goo.gl/BhXmc [3] http://goo.gl/w5HNx http://goo.gl/w5HNx

4ad 14y ago
It's Russ Cox's work. Background: http://research.swtch.com/field http://research.swtch.com/field Implementation: http://research.swtch.com/qart http://research.swtch.com/qart. It's all written in Go, btw. Running code, so you can try it on yourself: http://research.swtch.com/qr/draw http://research.swtch.com/qr/draw
halvsjur 14y ago
QArt explained by Russ Cox: http://research.swtch.com/qart http://research.swtch.com/qart QArt coder: http://research.swtch.com/qr/draw http://research.swtch.com/qr/draw

mcmatterson 14y ago

Back in the (2.1.x) day it seemed like I was running ac kernels more often than not. Nowadays though, I've been away from the kernel world for so long that I don't even know how big of a deal this is. Anyone care to chime in?

cjbprime 14y ago
Not a very big deal, though I'm sad he has a family crisis. The only entry in MAINTAINERS left for Alan is drivers/tty/serial. He's been doing some kernel bugzilla triage too, that'll be missed.
- kryptiskt 14y ago
  There's more, this must be a disappointment to every Poulsbo user out there, he was getting that driver in shape last year.
unwind 14y ago
I don't follow the kernel nearly as closely as I used to, either. That said, here's Alan's most recent commits on the mainline (3.7) tree: http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git;a=search;s=Alan+Cox;st=author http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git.... That said, I too of course hope that whatever situation he is in the middle of goes well.

kylemaxwell 14y ago

Very sorry to hear this and I genuinely hope that the canonical neckbeard's family situation improves.

notacoward 14y ago
Canonical? Might want to rephrase that. ;)
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- AimHere 14y ago
  He was using 'canonical' in the canonical sense!
- seclorum 14y ago
  What about Alan Cox isn't canonical neckbeard?
  - ori_b 14y ago
    His employer.
    - ohm 14y ago
      I believe the joke is about him complaining about Fedora, then switching to Ubuntu and now announcing that he's leaving Linux world a day later because of Canonical. See his last few posts https://plus.google.com/111104121194250082892/posts https://plus.google.com/111104121194250082892/posts
  - georgemcbay 14y ago
    I suspect that was a joke about him working at Intel as opposed to Canonical (the Ubuntu people).

4ad 14y ago

"for a bit" lacking in the title makes all the difference.

lambda 14y ago
> I may be back at some point in the future - who knows. This makes it sound less certain that this is only "for a bit."
- pstuart 14y ago
  or a binary digit

tubbo 14y ago

It's so great to see the Linux kernel hackers jabbing at each other. Makes me think of how people in my area (Philly) are constantly teasing each other out of friendship. :)

ditoa 14y ago

Thank you for all your time and hard work Alan. I hope we see you back some time in the future. Enjoy your extra family time :)

ISL 14y ago
Thank you, AC!

erre 14y ago

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5103271 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5103271 :) edit: I didn't mean to post this for karma or hard feelings; see my reply to daeken at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5109903 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5109903 :)

daeken 14y ago
While it sucks that you posted this and it didn't end up frontpaged (we all love karma), there's no good reason to link it here. When a dupe happens, threads are linked not to 'give credit' or something like that, but to show people conversations that they missed around the topic; in this case, there are none.
- erre 14y ago
  To be honest, I don't mind the karma much (as you can see, I don't have much, don't comment or post much, and mostly lurk around here). I only was curious that it didn't get any attention when I posted it yesterday, and I was wondering why (Time of posting? People don't care about Alan Cox? Was there some obvious joke or prank that I was missing?). I'd seen old-thread links posted before, so I thought this was a standard thing to do. But your point (of linking only to relevant discussion) makes perfect sense. Thanks :)
hobbyist 14y ago
Pretty amazing how hn upvotes work :) Guess there is lot in the name(title)
- staticshock 14y ago
  Time of day matters a lot, too: http://hnpickup.appspot.com/ http://hnpickup.appspot.com/
aurelianito 14y ago
Hi! I am the submitter of the link. I did not knew that the event has been submitted before. If I would have been aware of it I would have up-voted you instead of submitting another link. I will up-vote your link now.

pflats 14y ago

In case anyone gets confused between the two like I sometimes do, Alan Cox (Linux Kernel hacker) is not Russ Cox (Go language & Plan 9 from User Space hacker).

nathanstitt 14y ago

A huge thank you to Alan for all his work over the years. Like quite a few others who ran linux back in the old 2.2/2.4 days, the -ac kernels where the place to be. I'm reminded of the Derek Silvers article (http://sivers.org/ff http://sivers.org/ff) on the importance of the second guy to a movement. While I know that Alan wasn't the actual second developer to participate in Linux, he sure seemed that way to me and quite a few others. His work was as the "gatherer of patches" in the pre-bitkeeper days was unparalleled. I don't think Linux could have prospered without his assistance.

antirez 14y ago

No one inspired me to learn to code more than AC, have a good time with your family and thanks for everything.

known 14y ago

Brilliant guy.

sandeepshetty 14y ago

Why do people direct comments at AC assuming he will read them here? Isn't that a little self-centered? Wouldn't it be more appropriate to leave such comments at the original post?

Roybatty 14y ago

Reverse psychology? We know he's had his falling out with Linus in the past. I tend to believe him, but with that hells angel biker beard, I don't know. There could be some sketchy and shady elements involved here. Probably not though, sketchy people watch black-n-white TVs, and I'm sure Alan either has no TVs or a color TV ;)

mahmud 14y ago

Alan left Linux for a few years before, to do his MBA, and he came back :-) http://kerneltrap.org/node/759 http://kerneltrap.org/node/759

linpythio 14y ago

Thanks for your great work for linux and open source software,Alan Cox.

mtdewcmu 14y ago

I think Linus's asshole-ness is probably key to Linux's success. He ought to be considered the world's leading expert on running an open source project, after all. I remember running your patched kernels circa 2000. Thanks for your hard work.