Alan Cox [interview [0]] posted a tiny patch to the lkml [1] removing himself as maintainer of a couple of older/defunct drivers, adding, "Update other stuff because I will be away for a year". I scrambled for a Welsh translator to see what I'd been missing in his diary [2], but found no hints there. Fortunately a few minutes later he followed up with an explanation:
"At the end of September I'm off back to University on a years sabbatical from Red Hat to study for an MBA. I've made the decision that I'm basically going to vanish for the year so I can concentrate on the course, and on the pet side project of learning Welsh."
The 2.2 kernel that Alan maintained for several years now "needs a new maintainer, someone who can spend their entire life refusing patches, being ignored by the mainstream (because 2.2 is boring) and by vendors (who don't ship 2.2 any more)." In parting, he optimistically says:
"A few years ago I'd have worried about doing this, the great thing is that with the kernel community we have today I know I'm not a critical cog in the machine. In fact I'm surrounded by people far better than I am and we even have Andrew Morton to keep Linus in check 8)"
Good luck on your MBA, Alan. I'm sure we all look forward to seeing you back in a year.
From: Alan Cox [2] [email blocked] To: Linus Torvalds [email blocked], Linux Kernel Mailing List Subject: PATCH: Maintainer/Credit update Date: 20 Aug 2003 12:46:41 +0100 - Roadrunner address is defunct - 3c501/Z85230 are no longer maintained - Update other stuff because I will be away for a year
From: Marc-Christian Petersen [2] [email blocked] Subject: Re: PATCH: Maintainer/Credit update Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2003 13:59:21 +0200 On Wednesday 20 August 2003 13:46, Alan Cox wrote: Hi Alan, > - Update other stuff because I will be away for a year away?? Why? :-( ciao, Marc
From: Alan Cox [2] [email blocked] Subject: Next Month/Changes to where to send stuff Date: 20 Aug 2003 13:05:10 +0100 At the end of September I'm off back to University on a years sabbatical from Red Hat to study for an MBA. I've made the decision that I'm basically going to vanish for the year so I can concentrate on the course, and on the pet side project of learning Welsh. I've passed all my userspace projects on to other people already, and I'll be vanishing from kernel space too (except to a few priviledged processes ;)). Lots of people send me stuff as a gateway to getting it into 2.4 and 2.6. Lots of people send me security related stuff. Can you in future please send stuff to Security: [email blocked] 2.4: Marcelo/the list/someone he nominates to do that job 2.6: Andrew Morton or for small stuff Rusty Russell's trivial patch manager. The 2.2 tree needs a new maintainer, someone who can spend their entire life refusing patches, being ignored by the mainstream (because 2.2 is boring) and by vendors (who don't ship 2.2 any more). I'm not sure what to do about the -ac patch. Most of the remaining stuff is "pending Marcelo" for 2.4 mainstream, but not the O(1) scheduler and some of the odder cool stuff (like the morse bits). As 2.6 becomes relevant 2.4-ac basically becomes a fixed collection of add-ons that aren't mainstream anyway. And of course there are other people keeping patch sets in the same way nowdays. A few years ago I'd have worried about doing this, the great thing is that with the kernel community we have today I know I'm not a critical cog in the machine. In fact I'm surrounded by people far better than I am and we even have Andrew Morton to keep Linus in check 8) Dal ati! Alan
Related Links:
- Archive of above thread [3]
- KernelTrap interview with Alan Cox [3]
- Alan's Diary [4] (in Welsh)
- Slashdot discussion [5]