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Scientific Linux's Troy Dawson Leaves FermiLabs For Red Hat

Posted by timothy on from the long-way-around dept.

First time accepted submitter EponymousCustard writes "On a day of big resignations, we also hear that Troy Dawson of the Scientific Linux project is joining Red Hat, and will no longer be working on Scientific Linux. It will be a big loss. thanks to Troy for all the great work!"

24 of 49 comments (clear)

  1. Good Luck Troy! by TooMuchToDo · · Score: 3

    As an ex-Fermilab employee myself who was lucky enough to work with Troy (and able to just email him when I needed a feature stuck into SSH in SL), congratulations! Best of luck!

  2. It's FermiLab. Not 'labs' by nan0 · · Score: 1

    how about spelling things correctly in the title at least ? it's Fermilab. not plural. while there is a lot of stuff there - it is one lab. fnal.gov

  3. Apparently it's not just death... by thepike · · Score: 1

    Things always come in threes, right?

  4. WTF? by scheme · · Score: 2

    Fermilab is not shutting down. The tevatron is but Fermi is actively participating in the CMS detector at the LHC and has a few projects looking at neutrino physics and other things in the intensity frontier.

    --
    "When you sit with a nice girl for two hours, it seems like two minutes. When you sit on a hot stove for two minutes, it
    1. Re:WTF? by behindthewall · · Score: 1

      Illinois, on the other hand, is shutting down. Get out while you can!

  5. Right when SL increases in popularity... by loftyhauser · · Score: 4, Interesting

    So, just as SL is increasing in popularity due to the (perceived) problems with CentOS, Red Hat pulls the main SL developer away. Coincidence? Perhaps...

    1. Re:Right when SL increases in popularity... by love2hateMS · · Score: 2

      Troy isn't the main SL developer, he is one of two main developers. SL's original developer is still there, and it's pretty likely Fermilab will find a potential replacement for Troy from their pool of Linux talent.

    2. Re:Right when SL increases in popularity... by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

      While CentOS is nice, you get what you get, and they're not about to share all the secret sauce they have figured out which you'd need to fork your own CentOS-like build process.

      I suspect if Ascendos takes off, it could easily replace CentOS and/or cause many more CentOS build-process forks.

      Ah... CentOS as it is is useful to Redhat. Redhat makes RHEL hard to figure out how to build, and the CentOS team has so few resources that it took them a year to get a release out.

      But, Oracle has more resources and got theirs out way ahead of CentOS. That doesn't help RHEL. Ascendos looks like it has the right principles, and without strict binary compatibility won't be as attractive to some subset of CentOS users. I just wonder at what point Ascendos starts to become /as/ interesting as RHEL.

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    3. Re:Right when SL increases in popularity... by sorak · · Score: 1

      Troy isn't the main SL developer, he is one of two main developers. SL's original developer is still there, and it's pretty likely Fermilab will find a potential replacement for Troy from their pool of Linux talent.

      Right. Garfunkle's still there. They just lost Simon.

      (Or is it the other way around?)

  6. Sad day for SL, happy day for Red Hat. by LatitudesAttitudes · · Score: 1

    As a SL desktop user, I hope this doesn't negatively affect SL. But, I hope Troy and Red Hat do well together.

    1. Re:Sad day for SL, happy day for Red Hat. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      As a SL desktop user, I hope this doesn't negatively affect SL. But, I hope Troy and Red Hat do well together.

      Well, Fermilab still has a large number of SL machines, and will continue to have, and support, a large number of SL machines. We will continue to need some kind of supported linux for scientific applications. Whilst in principle the lab and user community could migrate to something else instead of producing SL6, SL7 and so on, it seems unlikely that an alternative would involve less work.

    2. Re:Sad day for SL, happy day for Red Hat. by mug+funky · · Score: 1

      as someone who used an SL box to control a film scanner, what's the difference between SL and any other distro?

    3. Re:Sad day for SL, happy day for Red Hat. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Any other distro? I get to pick?

      Well, the difference between Arch and SL is that SL sucks. (e.g. System V overcomplexity all up in your init scripts, patches things too much, obsolete package versions, package manager that isn't the one I like.) All the sort of suckage that makes a typical enterprise OS unsuitable for my home PC.

      Or is that not what you meant?

      (And if anyone infers I don't understand the converse unsuitability of Arch for a typical enterprise deployment, thanks for projecting, we now know how stupid you are.)

    4. Re:Sad day for SL, happy day for Red Hat. by timbo234 · · Score: 1

      SL is based on, and closely tracks, Redhat's Enterprise Linux product, which has been designed to offer stability and very long support periods (at least 7 years after release I think). That's what makes it suitable for servers, whereas most other* Linux distro's have shorter release and support cycles (12-18 months) and tend to use more recent versions of software, which makes them arguably more unstable.

      * Note there are other 'enterprise ready' long-support cycle distros such as Debian Stable, or Suse Linux Enterprise.

      --
      Pre-canned Evolution Links for all those Slashdot holy wars.
  7. Troy was to be by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I don't know if this had anything to do with it, but Troy was contributing time to Ascendos, a totally open project in light of problems with CentOS' closed development (open in the development project, so anyone at any time could fork the whole development and all the tools involved).
    http://lists.ascendos.org/pipermail/ascendos-dev/2011-July/000000.html

    Apparently he won't be able to continue contributing to Ascendos (or Scientific Linux, but that was a paid gig):
    http://lists.ascendos.org/pipermail/ascendos-dev/2011-August/000151.html

    While CentOS is nice, you get what you get, and they're not able to shart all the secret sauce they have figured out which you'd need to fork your own CentOS-like build process.

    I suspect if Ascendos takes off, it could easily replace CentOS and/or cause many more CentOS build-process forks.

  8. Re:His Resignation by youn · · Score: 1

    would that be the big bang theory? ;)

    --
    Never antropomorphize computers, they do not like that :p
  9. Congratulations Troy! by stox · · Score: 2

    I remember when Troy stated work at Fermilab. It doesn't seem like that long ago.

    It is gratifying to see how successful SL has become over the years. I know Connie and Troy have poured their guts into it.

    Best of wishes in the adventure ahead. I hope you don't end up taking Connie with you.

    Coincidence that he is leaving the same day as Commander Taco and Steve Jobs? I think not!

    --
    "To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
    1. Re:Congratulations Troy! by Gothmolly · · Score: 1

      Commander Taco left Slashdot? So GNAA won ?

      --
      I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
  10. Re:There can be only one by suso · · Score: 2

    Not if you jump in and help. Think I'm joking?

  11. PUIAS Linux Peeps... by jcannonb · · Score: 1

    If you are down that SL Linux has hit this roadblock, check out PUIAS... http://puias.math.ias.edu/ I found it not too long ago, has Princeton University backing, and is extremely mature... I switched the moment I found it. SL and CentOS are not the only RH clones in the world.

  12. Here's his message to the mailing list by EponymousCustard · · Score: 3, Informative

    http://listserv.fnal.gov/scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind1108&L=scientific-linux-users&T=0&P=30820

    Hi,
    I have loved all the years that I have been a developer and architect for Scientific Linux, but it is time for me to move on. I have accepted a job offer from Red Hat to work on their new openshift project. ( https://www.redhat.com/openshift/ )
    My last day working for Fermilab, and on the Scientific Linux project will be September 2, 2011.

    Thank you to everyone who has encouraged, thanked, and helped me over the past 8 years that I have worked on Scientific Linux. I have said it before, and I'll say it now, The Scientific Linux community is one of the best communities there is.

    Troy

  13. Best of Luck from the "New Guy"! by humphrm · · Score: 1

    Troy is a great guy and will be missed. I've only been here ~3 months and I've already asked him innumerable questions about SLF.

    Best of luck from MHD, Troy!

    --
    -- "In order to have power, I must be taken seriously." -Mojo Jojo
  14. Re:Fermilab. by humphrm · · Score: 1

    If you worked at Fermilab, they wouldn't be.

    --
    -- "In order to have power, I must be taken seriously." -Mojo Jojo
  15. Fermi Linux by ddiinnxx · · Score: 1

    Off topic: Still feel little off remembering the day my logo was not selected for Fermi Linux ... http://computing.fnal.gov/unix-users/Fermi_Linux_Logo_Contest_Winners.html