Alan Cox Exits Intel, Linux Development

judgecorp writes "Linux kernel developer Alan Cox has left Intel and Linux development after slamming the Fedora 18 distribution. He made the announcement on Google+ and promised that he had not fallen out with Linus Torvalds, and would finish up all outstanding work." Also at Live Mint, which calls Cox's resignation notice a "welcome change from the sterility, plain dishonesty of CEO departure statements." Cox says in that statement that he's leaving "for a bit," and "I may be back at some point in the future - who knows."

explaining the concept of distros to your grandma

[jankoh]

You know, grandma, Linux distro's are restaurants, where you can eat, but they also share their recipes in cookbooks(if you want): everybody has a bit different choice of the recipes they like, not all of them can be used with all kind of stoves ("Debian" can use most kinds of "stoves": i586, arm, ...) and but all in all, the food served and the contents of those books is quite similar - as there are only so many recipes in the world. In some of those restaurants you have to cook the food (or better said make it warm) yourself - e.g. at Gentoo's :-) But he community there is lovely, and their help you. The cooks that put together those recipes may not be the best in the world (not all of them are chefs in a restaurant with 5 Michelin stars), but unlike those chefs, they believe in sharing the recipes.(and this really seems to be the best way, as in such a way the cheap, quite good quality food can get to the masses - see e.g. the current rise of the fastfood chain called Android.) And many of these cooks, give you even the meal for free, or cheaply. The joy/price ratio is high, though maybe not for everybody. (there are e.g. "snobs" who still prefer those "Michelin" restaurants. In last years, the one offering apple-only diet, is quite popular, providing visually very nicely served, but quite expensive meals or there is still that, almost monopoly(with huged Windows), where they serve those very little pieces of food ("micro"), softly boiled :-)

Can we blame Unity for this?

[Zaiff Urgulbunger]

So, mere hours after slating F18 and switching to Ubuntu, he's decided to quit Linux development? I mean, it *could* just be a coincidence... but... hmmmmmm, I wonder....

Re:Maybe it's really family reasons..

[afidel]

Seasonal affective disorder is a serious problem at northern latitudes. Personally I've been much more productive and happy since I had my employer buy some full spectrum bulbs for the lights over my cube. It's probably the best investment they ever made since it was like $20 and they're already 3 years old, 3 winters of increased productivity has to worth over $100k.

Re:Family Reasons

[OneSmartFellow]

In his case, it definitely doesn't mean that. Having corresponded with him in the very early days of Linux, I found him to be supremely competent, surprisingly helpful (given his workload), and genuinely pleasant. None of those attributes align with your interpretation of the phrase.

I can't think of anyone who has given more to the Linux community than Mr. Cox - not even Linus, actually - and his departure will be felt immediately, and profoundly.

Wishing him and his familly all the best

[pieleric]

On the website of a business that Alan seems to run separately from his job at Intel, he had aldready mentionned familly illness. (http://www.ultima-models.co.uk/news.html). I guess this is the "familly reasons".

Alan Cox has already contributed enourmously to Linux but hopefully things will get better for him and his familly, and he'll be able to contribute even further :-)

Lately he has been trying to cover a bit the mess than Intel had done with the Poulsbo hardware (GMA500). As an owner of such a hardware, I'm very grateful for this. So I now wish him and his familly all the best in the hard time.

Re:Maybe it's really family reasons..

[0xdeaddead]

Clearly you never met my family, nor my Ex..

Same guy for 22 years. Not "take ball go home"

[raymorris]

He was at the top of the Linux structure for TWENTY TWO YEARS and now he's taking a break. That does exactly look like a bunch of people who "Every time... they disagree take their ball and go home". I'm looking around at this company where most of what they do is proprietary. I don't see ANYONE who has been here, doing the same thing, for twenty-two years like Alan Cox was.

but it make OSS feel like it's in a constant state of half-assed/never-finished/abandoned, as opposed to commercial software--where a central leadership maintains control (and controls people's salaries and the IP).

There is a difference between proprietary and OSS there. OSS tends to not have less useful features like eye candy because people author the features they use. Proprietary software, on the other hand, is marketing driven, so it tends to have a pretty GUI for many features that don't actually work.

Re:Great, more OSS fracturing

[drinkypoo]

Oh please, like constant fracturing and duplication of effort is always a benefit.

Oh please, like there isn't massive duplication of effort in the closed source world. In fact, there is substantially more, because there is so much less code sharing.

Re:Maybe it's really family reasons..

[Anonymous Coward]

At my job (in Europe) they nag at me that I should take my goddamn 2 week minimum consecutive day vacation already - they will have problems if I don't use it until the end of the year.

Re:Happens

[Luyseyal]

Thanks. I was also thinking of the time he quit TTY development [slashdot.org]... thankless job that it is.

-l

Re:Maybe it's really family reasons..

[marsu_k]

Sometimes I wish I lived in Europe where a 2 week vacation is not considered a bad thing.

Two weeks? Four weeks in the summer, one around February and another at Autumn (and, depending on your job, you can either take the latter two then or combine them with your summer vacation). And the time between xmas and new year is pretty much dead business-wise, so at least at our company everyone "works at home" then (basically answering emails if needed, nothing else). I can't imagine having only two weeks, let alone less.

Re:Maybe it's really family reasons..

[CRC'99]

And this is why Alan Cox is a legend. I've dealt with him a few times and EVERY time I have he has been a pure joy to talk to.

He has a great way of telling things how they are and even takes the time to help relative newbies into improving their skills and contributions.

So, three cheers to Alan and I hope we see him back in the future.