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Gentoo Founder Quits Microsoft
ChocLinux writes "ZDNet is reporting that Daniel Robbins, the founder of Gentoo Linux, has left his job at Microsoft after only eight months. From the article: 'The reason I decided to leave had to do with my specific experiences working in Microsoft's Linux Lab,' says Robbins. 'I wasn't able to work at my full level of technical ability and I found this frustrating'"
FTA:
... to pursue his passion for software development with an independent software vendor where he will be focused on building in .NET on Windows ...
.net apps on Windows why would he leave M$FT? I mean that is probably the place to be if that really was his passion. I can't believe how much BS these people come up with.
If he wanted to build
sarchasm
All their web servers run on Sun boxes (or used to at least).
"Which is as it should be. Because if left to our own devices, programmers would always use the most whiz-bang, untested, unstable stuff out there. It's the technophile nature."
Of course, that's what the home, lab, or combination of the two is for. One of the niftiest things about open source projects is that they give the bleeding-edge "untested" stuff a testing ground and developer community, and often result in useful software. There generally aren't set-in-stone deadlines or things that absolutely "cannot go down", so people are free to use what they like.
It also takes up their free time, sadly. Oh, well.
He wasn't a mid-level guy. He is the founder of the Gentoo Linux project, he didn't just "contribute" to it. At that level you don't have to "behave" because your are far more talented than a true mid-level employee. This guy can write his own ticket.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
They probably made him use redhat enterprise and forced him to use the rpm-provided versions of software.
While I use Gentoo, I don't know too much about it. But from what I've seen, Daniel must be a very sharp programmer. Very strong people typically have a rather difficult time landing decent jobs. There just aren't than many interesting and fulfilling jobs out there.
People who are interviewing are typically looking for people to work for them. If you are a very strong/experienced person, that is going to be a hard role to fill. You are their peer, if not more. Nobody wants to hire someone who is going to challenge them.
I recently had an on-site interview at Microsoft. Seattle is really nice and Microsoft is, after all, Microsoft. Had they offered me the job (which they didn't), I would have taken it. But I would not have been happy there and would have probably left after 8 months or so. Here are my impressions from the experience...
Contrary to popular opinion, Microsoft does hire lots of *nix people. But you aren't going to be doing cutting edge work. They don't even use C++. No, I don't mean they use C#. They use C and lots of reference-counted pointers. No STL at all. Windows is really pretty ugly inside. If you are programmer with very high standards, you aren't going to like it.
I don't know why I didn't get the job. But I definitely wasn't a good fit. I think Daniel was of such a caliber that they just had to hire him. In the end, he wasn't a good fit either.
Yes... Well it's no different from the major oil companies hiring the young engineer that invented the more efficient engine, or the better gas alternative... then locking away the formula and paying him to keep his mouth shut. My guess, since Microsoft has probably gotten him to sign a contract not to work on the competition even after he left, we won't see any improvements to Linux by him for some time. Oh well... LL >
Don't quote me on this...
5 job changes and layoffs later you'll find not working to your ability is the way it's done in that country. American job titles are not egalitarian like Hong Kong or Japan. The software engineering level is pretty much the same no matter where you go or what you do. Only if you network your way into management does the work get creative or challenging.
Hard to believe with all the information available from generation after generation of celebrity Linux programmer doing the same thing, they still have this attitude of quitting day job after day job thinking the next one is going to be better but never really getting anywhere.
Which makes me think, maybe after spending so much of his own money on Gentoo he took the Microsoft offer for a G.O.O.D. job. After he made enough money and paid back his creditors, he just dumped them and went back home to a place he knows will provide him with just enough salary to feed his family and pay the mortgage. Exit MS, exit OSS, hello worry-free life.
(GOOD job = Get-Out-Of-Debt job)
So I dont expect him to appear on the radar anymore. Ciao Dan, and thanks for all the ebuilds.
-- Home is where you eat your heart out.
Portage is proof of this. Have you seen how bad the code is? - You cannot tell where the backend stops and where the frontend begins.
;)
Try to import portage and see how far you get? -- the emerge frontend does *everything*, portage is just a couple IO functions easier achieved with cat.
If Robbins feels he wasnt used to his full potential in Microsoft, then, hmm, nice to know the "real world" is much easier than all us students expect
This really happened...
... computers. When they inquired as to how they were going to get anything done without a computer to do it on the manager excused himself. Ten minutes later he came back with a stack of printed blank 'story-boards' and two sharpened #2 pencils.
It was 1997 or 1998. I was working for a multimedia company making training software for submariners. Two recently retired Navy Submarine Chiefs were hired to do some story-board writing. Typically, this entailed an Access 2.0 database with a vb front-end so they could enter their work.
The day they were hired the hiring manager, an ex submarine CO, hadn't procured an office to place them in...Nor desks, nor chairs, nor {{drum roll}}
They lasted at the company about three months - just long enough to get jobs at an aerospace corporation where the employees were taken seriously.
I spent a lot of time on the forums and on the irc channels back then and I never heard anyone call him a traitor or other shit like that. It made us sad, not angry -- those of us who are adults understand that you need a job that pays and sometimes that means not working on OSS all day long.
I think that an awful lot of people would be very surprised how many of the hackers that write open source software have a day job in which they write closed source software. If someone wants to attack those hackers as "selling out" or a "traitor", it'd be kind of silly. Lots of hackers (I suspect the majority of hackers) write open source software because they want to make something *good* for themselves and their fellow hackers. They want to enjoy a world time pressures, bad administrative-level ideas, language and platform requirements are all just a bad dream, and they can create truly nifty stuff. It's not because they consider themselves soldiers in some crusade -- sure, it's a fun idea to play with, but it's not really why people spend their time working on something neat. Open Source just allows hanging out and showing off with other hackers, and making it easier for other hacker-types to give a hand.
Maybe a good analogy for hackery would be the guy who is a commercial graphic designer by day and an artist by night. All day he has to churn out relatively boring things for people who often come up with absurd requirements. He has to work under time pressure and doesn't have the freedom he'd like to experiment with his ideas. However, at night, he can try out his ideas, do really interesting stuff, and so forth. Just because he has to churn out bread-and-butter stuff doesn't mean that he can't legitimately explore at night.
Put simply, the hacker is the artist of the computer world.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.