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2.4 Kernel Maintainer Marcelo Tosatti Interviewed
Jeremy Andrews writes "KernelTrap has an interview with Marcelo Tosatti. Marcelo became the maintainer of the 2.4 stable kernel when he was 18 years old, releasing his first kernel, 2.4.16, on November 26'th of 2001. Two years later, he recently released 2.4.23 and plans to soon put the 2.4 stable kernel tree into maintenance mode, only addressing bugs and security issues. Living in Brazil, Marcelo currently works for Cyclades Corporation. In this interview he looks at how he became the 2.4 maintainer, the challenges involved, and brings us up to date with the current status of the 2.4 kernel."
It wasn't illegal at the time, and as far as I know Marcelo was a registered worker with full benefits.
Since then the labor code has changed, and the minimal age was raised. Marcelo wouldn't be allowed to do today what he's done in the past.
Before Marcelo was "the guy that mantains the 2.4 kernel", he was known as "the guy that works since he was 13". He had such a reputation as a 14 years-old hacker that a running joke among his friends is answering "14" whenever anyone asks his age. It is rummored that even Marcelo answered 14 when he was way past 14 - either to benefit from the "whoas" or to confuse people. Coming from Marcelo, it was probably the later rather than the former.
I run a very big (2 HT CPUs, 4GB RAM, 620 GB RAID5, 2x 1GBit links) file-server and all 2.4 kernels (.19-.22) weren't able to run the thing stably for more than 1 week, under heavy I/O load not more that 2 days.
Changing to the -aa tree helped and that thing is now up, stable and fast for past 4 months.
The problem lies in still unmerged code for highmem and slabcache reclaim (check /proc/slabinfo or use slabtop), which is in the -aa tree for ages.
I reported that to Marcello, but he seemed very uninterested in tracking down (many, many thanks to Andrea and Rik, who helped) and applying those particular fixes in the -aa tree.
It's not too early - Marcelo understands that 2.6 is where all of the new development should be taking place. 2.4 needs to become what 2.2 and 2.0 have become - the ultra-stable, thoroughly tested kernel that you use on boxes that simply cannot go down.
I think 2.2 was also closed down pretty fast when 2.4 was released. Then it was reopened, IIRC, for a while because early 2.4 was so horrible. Check the linux-kernel archives for more info.
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Here in Brazil you can work are as a "pupil" or "apprentice" until you are 16, the law project is calles "Pupil's Law". You can work up to 20 hours per weak if I recall so the kid can dedicate the rest of the time to school.
There are the CK (Con Kolivas) and MM (Andrew Morton's) patches for 2.4 that provide what you want.
Whats keeping you at 2.4? Both Con and Andrew said, move to 2.6 it provides what you want.