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Back in the (2.1.x) day it seemed like I was running ac kernels more often than not. Nowadays though, I've been away from the kernel world for so long that I don't even know how big of a deal this is. Anyone care to chime in?
Not a very big deal, though I'm sad he has a family crisis. The only entry in MAINTAINERS left for Alan is drivers/tty/serial. He's been doing some kernel bugzilla triage too, that'll be missed.
There's more, this must be a disappointment to every Poulsbo user out there, he was getting that driver in shape last year.
Very sorry to hear this and I genuinely hope that the canonical neckbeard's family situation improves.
Canonical? Might want to rephrase that. ;)
(comment deleted)
He was using 'canonical' in the canonical sense!
What about Alan Cox isn't canonical neckbeard?
I suspect that was a joke about him working at Intel as opposed to Canonical (the Ubuntu people).
"for a bit" lacking in the title makes all the difference.
> I may be back at some point in the future - who knows.

This makes it sound less certain that this is only "for a bit."

It's so great to see the Linux kernel hackers jabbing at each other. Makes me think of how people in my area (Philly) are constantly teasing each other out of friendship. :)
Thank you for all your time and hard work Alan. I hope we see you back some time in the future. Enjoy your extra family time :)
Thank you, AC!
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5103271 :)

edit: I didn't mean to post this for karma or hard feelings; see my reply to daeken at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5109903 :)

While it sucks that you posted this and it didn't end up frontpaged (we all love karma), there's no good reason to link it here. When a dupe happens, threads are linked not to 'give credit' or something like that, but to show people conversations that they missed around the topic; in this case, there are none.
To be honest, I don't mind the karma much (as you can see, I don't have much, don't comment or post much, and mostly lurk around here).

I only was curious that it didn't get any attention when I posted it yesterday, and I was wondering why (Time of posting? People don't care about Alan Cox? Was there some obvious joke or prank that I was missing?).

I'd seen old-thread links posted before, so I thought this was a standard thing to do. But your point (of linking only to relevant discussion) makes perfect sense. Thanks :)

Hi! I am the submitter of the link.

I did not knew that the event has been submitted before. If I would have been aware of it I would have up-voted you instead of submitting another link.

I will up-vote your link now.

In case anyone gets confused between the two like I sometimes do, Alan Cox (Linux Kernel hacker) is not Russ Cox (Go language & Plan 9 from User Space hacker).
I liked it how his profile image[1] is a QR code for his site[2] and also resembles him.[3]

[1] https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-DGzr5UFEIXM/AAAAAAAAAAI/A...

[2] http://goo.gl/BhXmc

[3] http://goo.gl/w5HNx

A huge thank you to Alan for all his work over the years. Like quite a few others who ran linux back in the old 2.2/2.4 days, the -ac kernels where the place to be.

I'm reminded of the Derek Silvers article (http://sivers.org/ff) on the importance of the second guy to a movement.

While I know that Alan wasn't the actual second developer to participate in Linux, he sure seemed that way to me and quite a few others. His work was as the "gatherer of patches" in the pre-bitkeeper days was unparalleled. I don't think Linux could have prospered without his assistance.

No one inspired me to learn to code more than AC, have a good time with your family and thanks for everything.
Why do people direct comments at AC assuming he will read them here? Isn't that a little self-centered? Wouldn't it be more appropriate to leave such comments at the original post?
Reverse psychology?

We know he's had his falling out with Linus in the past. I tend to believe him, but with that hells angel biker beard, I don't know. There could be some sketchy and shady elements involved here. Probably not though, sketchy people watch black-n-white TVs, and I'm sure Alan either has no TVs or a color TV ;)

Thanks for your great work for linux and open source software,Alan Cox.
I think Linus's asshole-ness is probably key to Linux's success. He ought to be considered the world's leading expert on running an open source project, after all.

I remember running your patched kernels circa 2000. Thanks for your hard work.