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Alan Cox Leaves Red Hat

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the bet-wherever-he's-going-he'll-have-electricity-and-heat dept.

ruphus13 writes "Alan Cox — one of the lead Linux kernel developers at Red Hat — is leaving the company after 10 years and is heading to Intel, where he can focus on more low-level development tasks. Some are speculating whether this is indicative of a shift to a more 'application-centric' vision at Red Hat. From the article: 'Red Hat is integrating more application related, user- and enterprise-centric tools into its well-established "low-level," "core" development and support tools. It'd be more worrisome if Red Hat neglected to strike out in this direction. Cox was with Red Hat for ten years, and regardless of any suspected change of course within the company, that's a fair amount of time.'"

18 of 163 comments (clear)

  1. The best of luck! by popoutman · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I wish Alan the best in his new position. Redhat have lost a great developer, and Intel have gained a fantastic resource. It's also great to see that the leaving was very amicable as well. This should be a win-win for Linux as a whole.

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    1. Re:The best of luck! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Did You Know? After maintaining a vow of silence for almost 10 years, Red Hat Linux founder Marc Ewing now freely admits that he named Red Hat Linux after Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst's trademark red New York Yankees baseball cap.
      Durst and Ewing met in Ewing's hometown of Raleigh, North Carolina (Durst was raised in Gastonia, NC), where they became fast friends, sharing the same passion for low-level system programming.
      Durst collaborated with Ewing on the first preview beta of Red Hat Linux before the demands of his rocketing stardom forced him to abandon his hobby and tour with his band.
      Durst's position on the development team was filled by Damien Neil, and not many know of his contribution to the popular Linux distribution; however, a google search through the source code on Redhat.com (http://www.google.com/search?q=wfd+site:redhat.com) reveals many snippets of code authored by 'wfd', Durst's initials (William Frederick Durst).
      Durst asked Ewing to keep his 'geeky' roots a secret as it would not lend itself to Durst's bad boy image, but as Ewing points out, it was "only a matter of time" before the origins of his NASDAQ-100 company's name were uncovered.

    2. Re:The best of luck! by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 5, Funny

      Well, that makes sense. Red Hat got rid of Durst and hired Alan Cox because they figured it was better to have a hardcore Cox than a Limp Bizkit!

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    3. Re:The best of luck! by truthsearch · · Score: 4, Funny

      I'm so ashamed of myself for laughing at that.

      --
      Developers: We can use your help.
    4. Re:The best of luck! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Not to pick on you in particular but could we please stop referring to human beings as "resources" and so on? I keep seeing this and other similar words being used in HR postings

      You keep seeing the word "resources" in postings from Human Resources? Man, that really is quite odd.

    5. Re:The best of luck! by mustafap · · Score: 4, Funny

      >At least words like "Developer" imply a human being

      No it doesn't. It implies sodium hydroxide

      --
      Open Source Drum Kit, LPLC deve board - mjhdesigns.com
  2. There is speculation... by Chris_Jefferson · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Where does there always have to be speculation, from completely uninformed people? From my little knowledge of Alan Cox, from mailing lists, he always seems like the kind of guy who likes the lower-level details, and I imagine that few companies will be more interested in tweaking and improving the low levels than Intel. If they saw his obvious talent, and offered him a better job at better pay, then why not move? Alan Cox leaving Redhat doesn't have to say anything bad about them, maybe it says something good about Intel, and the things they are getting more involved in?

    --
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    1. Re:There is speculation... by Spoke · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Yep, that's exactly what I was thinking.

      For as long as I've been following (and been ever so slightly involved in) Linux development, oh, say from the mid-late 90s, Alan Cox has nearly always been there hacking primarily on device drivers.

      Intel has steadily picked up more Linux kernel hackers over the past 5 years or so who seem to focus on device drivers (e1000 NIC drivers) but also employ others who have very broad-based and deep knowledge of the kernel. Alan Cox seems to be a good fit with his long history of kernel development and focus on low-level drivers.

      So good for Alan for changing things up a bit, and good for Intel for hiring another full-time Linux developer! Hopefully this leaves room for Red Hat to pick up another developer in his place.

  3. Alan Cox? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Who's he?

    1. Re:Alan Cox? by jsolan · · Score: 4, Funny

      He used to be a hilarious DJ on WXDX in Pittsburgh that I listened to in college.
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Cox_(radio_presenter)

      oh wait...

  4. Higher salary? by G3ckoG33k · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If he gets a higher salary, why not? People have been motivated for less.

    1. Re:Higher salary? by JCSoRocks · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Seriously. I've known plenty of people that have stepped out of high paid positions to go work someplace where they'll have more fun. If you're making 6 figures but you spend 10 hours a day hating everything, what's the point? There's no reason not to just make less doing something you actually enjoy.

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  5. As an Intel Employee..... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny
    From the article:

    If the Intel position allows Cox to do more of the type of development that interests him, or simply offers a different view from the cafeteria windows...

    As an Intel employee, I have to say that if you're choosing to work at Intel for the view or the cafeteria, you have made an incredibly poor life choice.

    1. Re:As an Intel Employee..... by McPierce · · Score: 4, Insightful

      And as a Red Hat employee, I can say that Alan's leaving isn't a signal that anything's amiss at Red Hat. Quite the contrary, actually. Alan's not going to leave behind Linux: he's going to continue that with someone else signing his pay check. And by working for Intel he's going to get to work on future hardware sooner.

      For my job I deal with some upcoming hardware that requires someone like Alan getting to it before I even touch it, since a working kernel would make my job easier.

      --
      Darryl L. Pierce "What do you care what people think, Mr. Feynman?"
  6. Red Hat is the wrong place to develop drivers... by mcrbids · · Score: 5, Insightful

    When you look at it, Red Hat is the wrong place to develop drivers. They should be developed by the vendors of the drivers, not the O/S packager.

    It has been necessary so far to develop drivers at Red Hat simply to bootstrap the O/S. But now, Linux is becoming more popular every year, most enterprises have plans to deploy Linux in annually increasing scopes, and the "upward spiral" that Bill Gates (ghost-)wrote about 10 years ago in "The Road Ahead" is happening for the GNU/Linux system.

    Red Hat doesn't develop devices. Device vendors develop devices, and it's their expertise in how their own devices function that makes them best qualified to write device drivers for the whatever O/S.

    This move is really more a reflection of the continuing maturity of the Linux Operating System!

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  7. Alan Cox is a Good Influence by Sponge+Bath · · Score: 5, Interesting

    What I have observed about Alan Cox in the lkml:
    1. Does not buy into hero worship of kernel developers no matter how senior.
    2. Does not get nasty when outsiders address him in the mailing list.
    3. Is a champion of 'perfect is the enemy of the good' principle.
    4. Does not froth at the mouth when someone mentions business reasons for needing a particular addition or change.

    There are many on that list with big names that stumble on one or more of the above.

    1. Re:Alan Cox is a Good Influence by Limburgher · · Score: 4, Informative

      +1. He's also really helpful and insightful on the Fedora lists, too, and not just on kernel stuff. Alan, if you're reading this, please keep hanging around there. :)

      --

      You are not the customer.

  8. Is it? And the right place is ... ? by fnj · · Score: 4, Insightful

    When you look at it, Red Hat is the wrong place to develop drivers. They should be developed by the vendors of the drivers, not the O/S packager. ... This move is really more a reflection of the continuing maturity of the Linux Operating System!

    God help us if linux gets as, ahem, MATURE as Windows. Microsoft's crappy OS code is only exceeded by the unbelievably crappy driver code turned out by OEMs.

    Tracking down (bug-ridden) drivers for everything is the single factor that makes Windows' out of box experience a living Hell (And accepting them only on floppies is the single factor that will eventually kill off XP).

    The contrast with linux is eye opening to former benighted Windows users. Not only are all your drivers right there, but all the apps you need are a (free) click away.

    Anyway, it's not OS packegers who develop linux drivers; its kernel developers - who are exactly the people with the skills to do the best job.