Alan Cox
Do you think Linux would be now so popular if it did not have such good network support?
And if it did not possess so necessary stability?
The fact that Linux is such as we know it today is a very great achievement of “the second man in command after Linus Torvalds” – Alan Cox.
Now many people know Alan as an outstanding IT leader.
But in reality, he is still more a programmer than an orator.
He was born on July 22, in 1968 in Solihull, UK. His first computer was ZX spectrum 128.
The boy became interested in computers and how we see, it has grown from the children’s fun into his job and became a passion throughout his life.
He entered the University of Wales, Swansea.
At that time there were 3 computers there, and it was possible to work there for about 15-20 minutes a day, but it was already very good.
We should thank those teachers who devoted their spare time to him and tutored him after work.
Learning at the University, he won ZX81 – the first mass computer in the UK.
By the end of his learning, he taught himself a lot of teachers and showed excellent results at the exam.
At the same time he worked in game world, helping to make ports for games by Scott Adams for computers of UK.
There he created his first computer game.
Then he entered the University of Wales, Aberystwyth.
While studying at the university he saw Linux for the first time. Why did he choose Linux?
The fact is that in that time he says he was terribly fond of text games.
And Linux was the best way to develop his text game AberMUD.
The name of the game comes from the name of the university.
A team of students developed the game and in the end they created the first similar popular game.
The game still has admirers, during all this time it changed about 20 versions, but you can still find gamers there.
It was during the studying at the University, when working on campus he was the first in the history to install Linux on a running computer network.
After installing a lot of flaws and shortcomings in system work were revealed.
Inquisitive mind and skillful hands of Alan began correcting the situation and eventually he became a member of Linux community and become one of the main developers of the system.
Linux was not created for work with networks in its first versions.
Until 1993, it had no built-in TCP / IP stack. The team was created to remedy this situation.
In fact, TCP / IP stack was the first major subsystem, which was developed almost entirely without the participation of Linus (Linus has never been strong in the nets).
Since 2000, he has worked at Red Hat as a consultant, and his work has helped Red Hat to stay on top “of the propagation wave of Linux” for many years.
For a few years (1998-2002 years) the icon of Red Hat was a miniature profile of Alan’s head. Prior to this he has worked in Cable Online and 3Com Corporation.
Alan supported Linux 2.2 branch and his own – 2.4, which was usually marked with letters “ac”, for example “2.4.9-ac”.
As you might guess, “ac” are the initials of our hero and also his nickname.
The branch 2.4 differed by its very high stability and it contained bug fixes.
During this time he even went better than Linus Torvalds in the Linux community.
His role as a man that supports the core of Linux, has proved very useful for the community Linux, as he was able to compensate obvious problems of Linus’s personality “Linus is a good developer, but a terrible engineer,” Cox said in the interview, “I am confident that he agrees with it”.
Alan’s enormous contribution has enabled Linux to be transferred to home computers.
For that purpose he often worked without sleep for several days.
His productivity is amazing: he was a man who is worth a dozen developers.
He supported the development of the kernel until 2002. Then he resigned.
He also participated in the development of GNOME and X.Org.
Now Alan is more known as an activist of the movement for free software.
He had long opposed the use of patents DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) and CBDTPA (Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act).
These patents prohibit not only copying and distribution of materials protected by copyright, but also the production and distribution of technologies for bypassing the protection system against illegal copying.
In 2001, there was a big scandal around DMCA.
Then a Russian programmer Dmitry Sklyarov was arrested by the FBI directly at DefCon conference on charges of hacking into the system protecting electronic documents by Adobe.
The fact that Sklyarov developed the algorithm of the program Advanced eBook Processor, which made it possible to bypass the protection of e-books in PDF format.
At DefCon, he presented a report on the exposure of electronic books, and in particular, and in PDF format.
He gave examples using Advanced eBook Processor.
And after the conference he was arrested.
Despite the fact that in the end he was released on bail, and then completely justified, Sklyarov has been in U.S. prison for several months, and it caused a very large impact.
It was after the arrest of Sklyarov, when Cox refused to visit a major conference of Usenix, where he was a member of the organizing committee.
He also called all the programmers who were not U.S. citizens to boycott the events, held in the United States, and organizers – to organize conferences in other countries.
“Who’s next, speaking at the conference, to get into U.S. prison for nothing for several years?” – asks Cox in the interview.
Cox has received several awards for his achievements.
For example, he received LinuxWorld Awards for overall achievements in 2001 and the Free Software Award for his contribution to the development of the Linux kernel in 2003.
He is also a consultant to the British organization Open Rights Group, which fights for the abolition of DRM (Digital Rights Management).