Where did he come from, and what are his plans for 2.4? Marcelo Tosatti opens up to Robert McMillan about the joy, the fear, the challenges, and the rewards of being the Linux kernel maintainer. He also talks about his favorite hack. Stepping into Alan Cox’s shoes is no mean feat, even for the most accomplished of hackers, but that is just what a little-known, 18-year-old Brazilian hacker named Marcelo Tosatti did this fall when Linus Torvalds handed over maintenance of the Linux 2.4 kernel tree to Tosatti instead of Cox. According to all parties involved, Cox wanted more time to pursue other projects, and after having maintained the 2.0 and 2.2 trees, it was time for someone else to do the job. Since taking over the job, Tosatti has managed three kernel releases, starting with 2.4.16; has answered, according to one account, close to 700 press queries; and has given the tersest Slashdot interview in history. IBM developerWorks caught up with Tosatti to ask him about his first four months on the job.
A Q&A with Marcelo Tosatti, Maintainer of the 2.4 Linux Kernel
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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Does anyone know what the limits are on what Tosatti can do in the name of maintaining? (not general knowledge stuff, but quotes from Linus/Alan, etc.)
An 18-year-old kid is maintaining the Linux kernel tree?
I heard that IBM would love to somehow take over the Linux kernel maintenance role so they could make sure that the things their clients have been asking for (decent SMP, for example) would get priority and they could move Linux into the enterprise faster on bigger iron (and I don’t mean on a mainframe under an emulation environment).
When IBM said that they are looking forward to replacing ALL of their AIX roles with Linux someday, I thought they must have been smoking crack or something (isn’t feature parity with AIX a long, long way off?), but, that’s just my ‘outsider’ opinion – I’m not a Linux ‘person’ so I don’t know their world too well…
…they did say “someday”.
Why can’t a 18 year old work on the Linux OS? In my mind this is great, most inventions and great ideas are conceived by people in their youth. Although there are exceptions to that (quite a few) most inventors will tell you that it was during the developmental stages that they conceived most of the ideas for great inventions or creations.
Being the Linux kernel maintainer seems to be a job that requires good people skills and plain old mental stamina. As long as he is competent as a programmer and manager, and I will trust Linus and Alan on their choice here, then as far as I am concerned the younger the better. I wish I had the energy and concentration now that I did when I was 18!
Ignore the age. He’s been producing a good kernel and you’d be a fool to consider anything else.