Farewell to Old Gentoo Friends

A few developers were retired from the Gentoo project in the last couple of weeks. I’d like to acknowledge those people here for a moment.

First up: Sascha (cybersystem). Sascha was 14 when he first joined Gentoo. He was immediately put in charge of our mailing lists and went on to set up our jabber system and maintained a few packages. At the time he and Jon were the youngest developers on our roster. And, I make no secret — they were both exceedingly trustworthy and dependable. Sascha and I became friends during his tenure here, though his interests had begun to diverge out of gentoo a couple of years ago. I’m sad to see him go, but I believe him to be full of potential, and I know he’ll meet with only success in all his ventures.

Next up: Brandon Low (lostlogic). Lolo and the third person below (wait for it!) joined Gentoo at around the same time in mid 2002. They both attended the same school (IIT — that’s the one in Illinois, not in India), in the same year. They were friends, and during the years they became my friends as well. Lolo did many many many things during his time year, but he might be best remembered as the kernel maintainer for a while (gentoo-sources and for those whose memory goes back enough: lolo-sources!). I think lolo felt increasingly out of place in the growing ecosystem in Gentooland (not unlike a lot of us), and he started focusing on his interests outside of Gentoo, but within the linux community (he’s still active on LKML, I believe). Again, my best wishes to him, and hope for nothing but success for him.

Finally: Nicholas Jones (carpaski). Carpaski took over portage maintenance from Daniel Robbins back in 2002. Before then, he had been sending patches to Daniel relentlessly for various fixes and enhancements. Finally, Daniel handed carpaski the reins to portage and let him be. Carpaski did very very well with it. He even expanded the team to include Jason Stubbs and Marius Mauch. to whom he delegated portage related tasks. Together, the three of them figured out plans for portage maintenance as well as next-generation development. Due to time and real-life constraints (like working for a living), carpaski eventually became a silent member of the portage team. He was elected to the Board of Trustees last year. He was on the initial board as well, when Daniel created it. Nick finally retired from Gentoo once his tenure on the Board ended. Nick, wherever you are, I hope you’re well and I wish only the best for you as well.

These three were good friends to me, they were my confidants, and they are very talented people. I’ll be watching their progress in the next months and years, and I will always be here for them.

Good luck, gentlemen.