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Linux Guru Alan Cox Takes A Year Off
An anonymous reader writes "Linux guru Alan Cox is taking a year off from RedHat and kernel development to get his MBA. For years, Alan Cox has maintained the extremely stable 2.2 Linux kernel, and more or less been Linux creator Linus Torvalds' right hand man. Now it sounds like the 2.2 kernel is up for grabs to someone who is 'good at refusing patches and being ignored'..."
He just got scared off by SCO!!
and I've been lobbying for the position for quite some time now, but so far no replies.
hmmm....
Before, the story read that he was taking a year off to get his MBNA. Sheesh, I get at least two offers a month from those bohos for instant credit. :)
What does a Linux kernel coding god need with an MBA?
Liars!
The Truth is that Alan Cox has resigned from Linux development since he's not able to pay us the required development license (69,900$) we were asking to him. He preferred giving up instead of being sued to death as he deserves.
Cheers,
-- Darl MacBride
Summer job at SCO, reviewing code?
the 2.2 kernel is basicly unchanging, but that does not mean that bugs don't get found from time to time. So he is incharge of the folks who fix those, as well as updates to drivers etc.
Good Luck with your MBA Alan! I went back to finish my BA at 28 and it was not easy to do in some ways, but it was really worth it.
Erlang Developer and podcaster
What is the process involved in getting someone to take over 2.2 kernel and who has the final say in who is selected? I have always been curious about the more politcal side of GNU/Linux and your answers would be much appreciated.
Cheers!
What team is he playing for?
I nominate Darl McBride. He has an intimate knowledge of the Linux kernel, intellectual property issues, and has a relationship with the Linux developer community.
Patches can land on the current stable branch too (2.4.x) but normally only to fix bugs or add things that are very low risk.
As you surmised most new development happens in the latest version 2.5.x which is currently in the process of becoming the next stable branch: 2.6.x
Sorry if I'm spelling it out too much :)
Struggling to find a day everyone can make? WhenShallWe.com
I'm glad it's a MBA and not a MCSE 8)
The timing on this is incredible. The most stable kernal we've got that isn't under the SCO shadow is now effectively frozen, thereby preventing any potential code polution. Cox may have just provided the instant way out if SCO wins. I wonder if this is accidental or sheer genious?
Good luck Alan with the MBA, maybe you'll get paid what you're worth (finally).
It doesn't matter what you wrap your emotions around, Reality is a brick wall specifically designed to scramble eggs
Comment removed based on user account deletion
i highly doubt that.. it takes AT LEAST 3, if lucky, years to get an MBA..
I think they mean getting ignored by Linus when he submits patches to him. Linus is world famous for ignoring patches multiple times and never replying to emails.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
I imagine he'd also be excellent at "refusing patches and being ignored"...
"You're taking a year off, do you want to be a loser or something?" Is Alan like, insecure about his job prospects, or just likes learning? I would err towards the latter.
I hate sigs.
I have an MBA but have been interested in linux kernel development. Alan, could we just swap jobs for a year?
Only if you use a Windows 9x version. Linux has superior SMP support.
What happens when one of his professors asks for an electronic copy in Word format?
Slashdot is like Playboy: I read it for the articles
Apart from being 'funny', honestly why would Alan Cox need any degree or certification? He can go to any Linux development company and put his resume on the table:
All of Alan Cox's credentials as a kernel hacker can get him is a job as a coder (software developer, senior developer, development lead, etc). In some places it may be enough to get him a job as a software architect depending on the kind of company he tries to get work at.
However if Alan wants to break into upper management or start his own company then all his l337 kernel hacking skills aren't worth a hill of beans compared to the knowledge he could get from an MBA and the doors it opens.
Funnily enough, I was just thinking about going back to school for an MBA in a year or two but wondered if it would be a bad idea for a person so interested in technical pursuits. But if Alan Cox can do it I don't see why I can't.
Thanks for the inspiration Alan.
Alan: I'm back! Can I have my kernel now?
New Maintainer: Noooooooo! Mine!
Alan: but...
Possibly the willingness to give it back should be a quilification, unless Alan wants it back as his own personal branch.
"Linux guru Alan Cox is taking a year off from RedHat and kernel development to get his MBA."
Obviously, RedHat figures they'll own SCO soon and need someone with an MBA to manage it for them. Alan Cox to the rescue!
No, not at all a dumb question. North American MBAs take two years on average.
Europe, on the other hand, offers a bucketload of one-year Master's programmes; it's not limited to just MBA programmes. (I did an MSc in London that was like this.) Generally 'taught' Masters are shorter than the 'research' Masters, the latter of which are considered the priming ground for PhD programmes (in both the UK and the US). Unlike the US, though, nonMBA Masters are considered pretty good in their own right.
Good luck to Cox, though. I'm looking into an MBA myself and it does not look nice. Pointy heads, here I come...
========================================
Death will come, and will have your eyes
-- Pavese
From his part time hobby?
I need to take a year off from playing playstation, it's hard work, I need to focus on my edumcation.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Sorry, bad joke. Ahem...
Dear Alan,
Thanks for the good work. We owe you one.
Sincerely,
Geeks of the World
Ceci n'est pas une signature
He'll use Word. MBA's are about money not philosophy. One of the skills learned is not pissing off those above you.
Masters of Business Administration -- Masters degree in the science of running a business -- used mainly for boss types
'Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?'
...what uni is he going to? Moreover..how many geeks would apply there just to be near him? :o)
You know, search engines still work in whatever backwards ass country you're posting from. Unless you're from China, of course.
Maybe he want to be a PHB and give lectures to employees.
I've always been impressed with how much Alan Cox does for the Linux kernel.
He's technically very sharp and handles an incredible amount of incoming patches, very professionally.
For his talents, he ought to be paid handsomely, but for a number of years he's simply been a trusted chief lieutenant in charge of operations for the Linux kernel. Linus gets his mug on the magazines, while Alan Cox is pretty much known only in the geek community.
I hope Alan's MBA brings him the money he deserves. However, Linux kernel development will hiccough a bit more without him releasing all these 2.6.x-ac? kernels.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
If SCO somehow manages to pull off a win in court (Which is highly unlikely, especially considering that they've based their latest case on a misreading of copyright law), all the developers would have to do is remove the "infringing" code from the 2.4 kernel and replace it with new code. People who absolutely need a working Linux system the day after the case might switch to 2.2, but this won't really affect most users.
That is, if SCO ever plans on showing the code to the public.
Well good luck to Alan.
No doubt he will breeze throught the MBA, but learning welsh is another matter, its a really really hard language to learn.
For example in most languages you have to learn how the verbs change in the sentance, but in welsh the nouns change too! For example the welsh word for Wales is Cymru, but when you say Welcome to Wales, "Croeso i Gymru", the C changes to a G. My patents both tried to learn and found it very hard. But then Alan may be like a lot of Welsh people who learnt welsh at school and has forgotten it since in which case picking it up again might not be too bad.
Tom.
Again I must tell you that you are AMERICA CENTRIC
It amuses me that the very first hit on google from the query "What is an MBA" just happens to be a web site in New Zealand
Here it is: The New Zealand MBA Association
Clearly, MBA is not an America-centric term. I suspect your definition of America Centric is "anything I haven't heard of" though.
What country do you live in anyway? You can get an MBA in America, Canada, China, Japan, Australia, Singapore, Korea, India, Mexico, Spain, France, Britain, Norway, Germany, Russia, South Africa, Chile, Argentina, Israel, Brazil, Panama, and I'm not even searching google to find out more.. If you're over the age of 16, have gone to school, in a country with enough tech to have libraries and internet access, and unless you live in a hut or an adobe somewhere in a bombed out country, you should be able to find out what an MBA is pretty easily..
But Word actually is the most useful document exchange format today...
No, Word is the worst possible exchange format. It is proprietary to one corporation, it is a vector for script-based viruses, the tools that read it (other than Microsoft's products) cannot do so reliabily and predictably, and much of the world's population cannot and should not be expected to afford the MS Office software.
Given, also, the recent revival of awareness about hidden information exchanged in Word documents, Word is not only a terrible format in principle, but it is a threat to privacy and security in a most fundamental way.
So, Anonymous Astroturfer, you should go back to your cube and rethink your strategy for spreading lies into the public consciousness.
For basic exhange of information, the best formats are plain text (for text, obviously) or PDF (for type-set documents). Other formats are just asking for trouble.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
Now this sounds pretty well-rehearsed.
That's because it is true.
When will people start realizing that there are free tools to handle Word format...
Where are they? Are they 100% compatible with Microsoft's undocumented, proprietary, and volatile document format? It is impossible for these tools to live up to their promises when there is a 100% likelihood their reverse-engineering efforts came up short.
Word is the format of choice even in the free-software-world
Only when Microsoft releases a 100% complete and comprehensible document explaining every aspect of the Word formats (yes there are more than one). Given that it is not in their financial interest to do so, I can guarantee that Word will basically never become the format of choice outside of the Microsoft micro-universe.
The most likely outcome is that one of the emerging XML formats, such as that for OpenOffice.org, will become the de-facto standard for editable document exchange. By then, I hope that Microsoft will be little more than a niche figment of their former selves (not unlike SCO, soon).
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
I'm curious as to which B-school Alan will be attending. Will it be in the Raleigh/Durham area?
Eh! Last time I looked Alan lived in Swansea, in Wales, you know the United Kingdom? Despite appearances to the contratry, we have not yet picked the country up and moved it across the Atlantic to become another State...
Al.The Daily ACK - Eclectic posts by yet another hacker
I understand there is a small group of people (4-10) who are the highest level developers of Linux kernel. They are maintainers of the particular version trees, large areas of the kernel, etc.
This group is very small. What will happen when significant percentage of them loses interest in further kernel development? What will happen if Linus himself moves on?
And how does Linux situation compare to other OSS projects - Apache, BSD?
Unless you can think of another file format that copes with tables, images, headers, footers, embedded documents, version control and all the other things that most of us use on a regular basis.
Perhaps the Docbook editor being added to OpenOffice.org will provide some relief. HTML isn't totally out of question, either (except that Word screws up HTML, too). And, once OpenOffice.org picks up more steam, its own plain-text XML file format should be widely understood, too.
Non-trivial documents should be done in LaTeX or Docbook, anyway, because they are much more robust and capable than Word. Word is really only appropriate for memos or reports, at most. Textbooks and standards documents done in Word are pretty sad.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
LaTeX and friends do not even come close.
When crafting a large textbook, for example, LaTeX really does blow the pants off of Word. It allows a very clear structure to be employed through includes and a structured tagging scheme. It allows EPS graphics from charting applications to be imported. There is long-standing support for indexing and bibliographies. LaTeX can also be managed by version control software, such as CVS, and can be controlled by Makefiles for well-defined and repeatable configuration management. LaTeX's open nature also guarantees that work poured into the textbook won't get lost as the proprietary Word file formats mutate or when Microsoft drops off the face of the planet.
MS Word is just a bad bet for large documents.
Daily memos are better as plain text. Data-entry forms are done better in HTML. For everything else...well, there is StarOffice or OpenOffice.org or AbiWord, etc. Quite honestly, there is little reason, anymore, to give Microsoft any money for Word any longer.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
Is that related to Lisp?
an ill wind that blows no good