warthog9 | All good things... (Reply)

For the better part of a decade, I've been working on kernel.org. About half that time, I was a completely uncompensated volunteer, as that's how kernel.org was run until 2008. The remainder of that time I did the same work as a Fellow under the auspices of the Linux Foundation. When I say work, I mean much more than just holding a 9-5 job; I mean pouring blood, sweat, and tears into the inner workings keeping kernel.org running.

Thanks to the Linux Foundation, and the individuals and companies that support them, I've been able to work on kernel.org full time for the past 4 years. However, I have been doing some soul searching lately and I've realized the time has come to move on.

I'm sad to be leaving kernel.org - I've met a lot of people and made friends within the many communities I've dealt with over the years. (For the record, all of you are all still invited over for bad movies and dinner anytime!)

kernel.org has always been more than just work for me. It’s been a passion and it will always hold a special place for me. It was never so much "work", as work has the wrong connotations. It’s been the very essence of the phrase “labor of love” - something I did because I loved doing it. The users and community are amazing; I will always remember when I asked for folks to gc their git trees and the kernel developers independently turned it into a contest to see whose tree shrank the most.

That being said, I'm going to take the rest of August off and relax, catch up on some open source stuff I haven't been able to get to (PXE Knife, maybe working on the stateful rsync stuff I've been pondering for years), and start considering what comes next. I will be down for a couple of days at LinuxCon, and then I'm off to the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) up in Seattle late on the 30th (which also happens to be my birthday).

Beyond that, it's time to see what the future holds.

- John 'Warthog9' Hawley