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Alan Cox Bids Farewell to Red Hat, Moves to Intel

Alan Cox, long-time kernel developer at Red Hat, announced last week that he would be leaving Red Hat in January for Intel, where he can concentrate more on areas of low-level development.

As you'd imagine from such a statement, this doesn't end Cox's involvement with the Linux kernel or open source development.

Over at CNet, Matt Asay suggests that this move is not just Cox deciding to spice up his resume and focus on the areas of development he enjoys, but perhaps is indicative of a shift in focus at Red Hat. I suspect he's on to something -- 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. I agree with Asay, as well, that while Red Hat is unlikely to ever abandon the kernel development focus, rolling out an application-geared approach to business could at least temporarily cause a less intense focus on the type of development that Cox enjoys.

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. 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, it seems it a wise move. His departure from Red Hat was completely amicable, and while Red Hat may have lost a great developer, it has simultaneously gained a knowledgeable, authoritative supporter in the wider industry.

• open source
• linux
• Red Hat
• development
• Intel
• kernel
• Alan Cox

by an anonymous user on Dec. 30, 2008

I believe Alan works from home (Swansea, Wales) so it's unlikely that his cafeteria window view is going to change immediately because of this move : )

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