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Update on Alan Cox's Sabbatical
seymansey writes "ITWales, a company which resides on the Swansea University Campus has posted an interview with Alan Cox regarding his progress of his MBA. It also mentions his opinions on some legal matters that he shows interest in, as well as his plans for the future, and of course for Linux itself."
But what I don't understand is: if geeks are so smart, why can't they realize that appearance counts in the business world?
You don't understand : if you take a smelly unkept geek, strategically shave him and place him into a suit, you won't end up someone with a good appearance, you'll just end up with a clean geek in a suit.
Geekiness is not about looks, it's an attitude. I personally know a lot of clean 3-piece suited geeks, as well as female geeks, one of which is a stay-at-home mom who previously had a brilliant career in the perfume industry, and I guarantee you if you don't know them and you put them behind an IRC client, you'll imagine them as Alan Coxes or Richard Stallmans.
There's a je-ne-sais-quoi that makes a geek a geek regardless of his/her outside appearances.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Alan Cox did a lot of work on the "Alpha Linux" stuff for redhat. He always seemed to have the answers when those of us that used Alpha based machines ran into problems. His "online diary" can be found at http://www.linux.org.uk/diary/ and when he was deeply involved in the kernel, I used to read it constantly because the stuff he was working on was the stuff that interested me. This interview just confirms one thing for me. I owe him a great big Thank You, his help to Linux over the years has been invaluable. Should I ever meet Alan, he's going to get a beer on me.
AngryPeopleRule
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth " - I said it, so sue me.
>> Honestly, who gives a crap?
Actually I found this story quite fascinating. Not because I am interested in any of their personal stories or habits(which I am not), but it shows how versatile he is. He was (and is) an exceptionally talented and focused programmer. And now he is successfully doing something which is usually at the other end of the spectrum. Usually geeks have absolute despise for management. And he seems to be an exception in these cases.
Supporting minority languages on our favourite Open Source OS is about accessibilty to all. Essential in multi-cultural Europe. At least 500,000 people would be interested in welsh so still a very good audience.
Sorry, but I've never respected that attitude. It's idealistic, wasteful, and is more often rationalization than action.
Firstly, what should and shouldn't be is irrelevant in the real world. Idealistic attitudes will get you nowhere but the gutter, and if you don't like it, tough. This is a society - "social" being the same root. Your ideal situation doesn't matter, the actual happenings in the social (interpersonal) world do. I don't think looks should matter either (to an extent), but I'm not going to shoot myself in the foot and declare "if it's not the way I think it should be, I'll boycott it" with respect to society (buying CDs and software is a mainly a personal matter, so it's a different story). You're free to hold your belief, you're free to hold yourself back by clinging onto it, and we're free to not care. Sorry, but your theory will have only one immediate outcome: you will make less money, get worse jobs, and all the trickle down effects of monetary issues will follow. Cheers.
Societal change is a bigger issue than one man/woman looking like a slob; if you want it not to matter, try having intelligent discussions about it with people, and if you're put in the position to hire/fire, do your best.
Secondly, looks have to matter, but to a different extent than current. An unkempt person is a clear sign of an unkempt lifestyle; if you don't take the time to do your laundry, why would I think you'd take the time to do your job well? Throwing on whatever clothes are available suggests you'll do the minimal amount of work necessary for any task - not exactly the person I'd want working for me. Being tall you can't control - that shouldn't matter. If you are willing to invest the energy and time to stay/get in good shape to improve your health (and appearance), it suggests that you're also likely to go beyond the call of duty to present a nice finished product at your job. Your appearance is the simplest reflection of your mind; it's the easiest thing to see when meeting someone, and can tell a lot (though for the most part only negatives). Most people can dress nicely, but very few are willing to look like a slob. Take your pick, but don't blame society when you really just need a haircut.
In my experience (including my own history), the whole 'society shouldn't care so I'll just do my own thing' stance is usually just rationalization. It's an easy way to make your own laziness or hatred of fashion into a righteous crusade. That may not be the case for you, but it is for many (most commonly seen in the goth/punk communities today). It's no surprise that there are far fewer punks/goths/etc over the age of 25 than under. People mature, and when they do, they realize that they're only hurting themselves by shunning societal norms.
(I'm not pointing the finger at you, psxndc, so don't take it personally.)
G
I mean, the article seems to suggest that he'll jump back into kernel development and not take a management job after his MBA.
More than mere navel gazing.
If you don't take the time to do your laundry, why would I think you'd take the time to do your job well?
If you have a bunch of free time to do laundry, you must not stay late or go to work early.
Throwing on whatever clothes are available suggests you'll do the minimal amount of work necessary for any task - not exactly the person I'd want working for me.
Spending all that time and money on cloths means you'll be more worried about damaging your clothes than in getting the job done. If I wanted a model, I'd have advertised for one.
That said, there is some room to compromize. Showing up for a meeting sporting long hair pulled back and braided (on a man) can be a show of confidence and authority. Grooming shows that there is care, non-comformity shows that the person is certain that their contribution will speak for itself (better be able to back that up, or it won't work). At other times, merely decent-ish grooming can be OK. It can project that there is a lot of work being done and no time for niceties.
The real key is knowing the difference.
Personally, I never wear a suit. The only image I project in a suit is that I'm not comfortable. In business casual, I tend to project a much more credible image.
For day to day work, I tend to be more casual. The impressions have been made and now I'm there to WORK, since I'm not an actor, I don't need a costume.
AC or RMS's appearance is likely appropriate to what they are doing. RMS is not running a company and meeting with investors, he is encouraging programmers and sysadmins to support free software. AC was leading a kernel dev team, and is now going to school. Presumably, should he decide to use his MBA later, his appearance will change to suit the occasion.
I suppose I'm not exactly agreeing or disagreeing with you, just putting things in context.
why can't they realize that appearance counts in the business world?
They sometime do, but when at work their main concern is not the look of who's selling/presenting/pushing the product, their concern is the quality and price/performance ratio. The color of your tie has absolutely no relevance except as an aid for lack of self esteem or a distraction from the flaws of the product ; that is not to say you can't wear a tie or a nice suit, but at the end they're totally irrilevant cause many geeks try very hard not to judge people by look (but contemporary society pushes them into this kind of judging) or products by look (they'll do that regardless of external irrilevant influences).
"Excutive Review" : geeks don't like baloney.
Maybe you need to read the true definition of a "hacker", instead of the NYT definition?
Second, Linux Torvalds is by far not the largest OSS contributor in the world. First off, there are 100s of Kernel developers.
Linus' biggest contribution, IMHO, is coordinating the whole kernel thing. They should give him a f'in Nobel just for that. Don't believe me? Try coordinating a small group of programmers in a company. See how difficult it is. Now, imagine doing the same with
- 100s of developers, each of whom has a sizable ego, and is a prima donna in his/her own mind (no offense meant)
- 100s of developers, who are spread out all over the world, each working at his/her own schedule
- 100s of developers, who aren't paid, which means you can't even hold the "you're fired" axe over their heads
just to name a few.Believe me, managing hackers is quite hard. Someone once rightfully said, it is like herding cats. And Linus is the best damn cat-herder in the world today.
a very simple question.
what will be the state of open source today without linux?
------ Curiosity killed the cat. {satisfaction brought it back | it didn't die ignorant | lack of it is killing mankind
I saw in software developer magazine that the MBA is growing as a choice of graduate degree for developers.
Unfortunately the only problem with this so far appears to be the current crop. I have thus far met 9 developers who went and got themselves MBA's. Unfortunately every single one of them was not only pretty pathetic at coding, they were even more useless around a boardroom table.
This has led to a quite widely held perception in our corporation that developers who try to "break" into management are the useless types who should be shunned at all costs.
This is very sad, as I have conversely seen a lot of developers who are natural leaders (note - not managers) who were perfectly capable of running projects but were never given the opportunity because they didn't have the "credentials".
executives that appreciate engineering
I know all worker bee geeks constantly complain about the lack of management that has a clue about technology, so I'm generally in favor of more technical knowledge making its way into management ranks.
But.
Alan Cox has been such a phenomenally fantastic technical geek in the trenches that his loss will be felt if he does something else for a living.
In the larger scheme of things, he'd have to be an exceptionally damn good manager to make up for his loss as direct worker.
"Provided by the management for your protection."