Editor's Note: Holiday Greetings and Good Wishes, and The Big Story That Got Missed

Dec 24, 2008, 20:04 (13 Talkback[s])
(Other stories by Carla Schroder)

by Carla Schroder
Managing Editor

The big story that got missed, except of course by your ace Linux Today staff which is populated by old coots with nothing better to do than scour the planet for interesting news nuggets, was Alan Cox leaving Red Hat and signing on with Intel. Perhaps it's due to the hordes of younguns and noobs that think Linux is Ubuntu, and the news media having notoriously short attention spans, but Mr. Cox deserves a great deal of recognition and respect, rather than a big ho-hum. Fortunately, another old coot and one of my favorite columnists, Glyn Moody, also caught this story and wrote a nice tribute to Alan.

"Cox began hacking on version 0.11 of the kernel, and was soon involved in one of the most important projects of the nascent operating system: getting the networking sorted out... After this crucial contribution, Cox effectively became Number 2 in the Linux kernel devlopment team."

Alan is one of the pillars of the Linux kernel, and his going to work at Intel should be a big shot in the arm for them, as Alan is worth a long ton of ordinary developers. He said in his announcement to LXer:

"I've been at Red Hat for ten years as contractor and employee and now have an opportunity to get even closer to the low level stuff that interests me most. Barring last minute glitches I shall be relocating to Intel (logically at least, physically I'm not going anywhere) and still be working on Linux and free software stuff."

Wikipedia says

"He was once commonly regarded as being the "second in command" after Linus Torvalds himself, before reducing his involvement with Linux to study for an MBA.[1] His informative and friendly comments have guided many programmers on the Linux kernel mailing list...Alan Cox is an ardent supporter of programming freedom, and an outspoken opponent of software patents, the DMCA and the CBDTPA. He resigned from a subgroup of Usenix in protest, and said he would not visit the United States for fear of being imprisoned after the arrest of Dmitry Sklyarov for DMCA violations."

along with a lot of other interesting information and references. Best wishes and happiness, Alan!

Holiday Greetings and Good Wishes!

We old Linux Today coots wish everyone a wonderful holiday and the best ever New Year. We have a worldwide audience, so here is a sampling of Christmas and New Year's greetings in various languages. I copied them from random Web sites, so corrections are welcome!

The Linux Today news feed will continue, though probably a bit more slowly, so drop on by and see what's new over the holiday.

Merry Christmas
Breton - Nedeleg laouen na bloav ezh mat
Cornish -Nadelik looan na looan blethen noweth
Corsican - Bon Natale e Bon capu d' annu
Czech - Prejeme Vam Vesele Vanoce a stastny Novy Rok
Danish - Glaedelig Jul
Esperanto - Gajan Kristnaskon
Finnish - Hauskaa Joulua
German - Frohe Weihnachten
Greenlandic - Juullimi Ukiortaassamilu Pilluarit
Irish - Nollaig Shona Dhuit
Japanese - Shinnen omedeto. Kurisumasu Omedeto
Kurdish - Seva piroz sahibe u sersala te piroz be
Latin - Natale hilare et Annum Nuovo
Malaysian - Selamat Hari Natal
Papua New Guinea - Bikpela hamamas blong dispela Krismas na Nupela yia i go long yu
Romani (gypsy) - Bachtalo krecunu Thaj Bachtalo Nevo Bers
Samoan - La Maunia Le Kilisimasi Ma Le Tausaga Fou
Spanish - Feliz Navidad y prospero Año Nuevo
Tagalog - Maligayang Pasko. Masaganang Bagong Taon
Thai - Suksan Wan Christmas lae Sawadee Pee Mai
Tongan - Kilisimasi Fiefia, Ta'u fo'ou monu ia
Welsh - Nadolig Llawen / Nadolic Llawen. Blwyddn Newdd Dda

Happy New Year
Croatian: Sretna Nova Godina
Dutch: Gelukkig Nieuw Jaar
French: Bonne Annee
German: Prosit Neu jahr
Greek: Kenourios Chronos
Italian: Felice Anno Nuovo
Norwegian: Godt Nyttar
Portuguese: Feliz Ano Novo
Spanish: Feliz Año Nuevo

Old Cooter
Bah humbug!
Get off my lawn.