默默维护 30 年，glibc 创始人兼维护者辞职

GNU C library (glibc) 项目原作者兼维护者 Roland McGrath 宣布辞职和退出该项目，原因与家庭或其它问题无关，而是因为 30 年了该放手了。

1980 年代，Roland 当时还是一名十多岁的青少年，他在为自由软件基金会工作期间开发了 GNU C 函数库。

他在邮件列表上表示，他过去几个月故意保持沉默，不回应任何邮件，看看这个项目还需不需要他这位维护者，结果证明 glibc 项目没有他仍然能继续前进，因此他决定辞职和不再直接参与 glibc。

今年夏天将迎来 glibc 诞生三十周年的纪念。Roland 对所有帮助和参与 glibc 项目的人表示感谢，称有许多人对项目做出的贡献比他更大。（文/Solidot）

下面是 Roland McGrath 在7月7日公开发布在 lwn.net 的辞职信：

Hello, friends!

You might have noticed that I haven’t been present on the list or perhaps answered your direct email in several months. I’m sorry I’ve been away so long without a word, but I’m not coming back any time soon. There’s no big news with me. I’ve just found that I’ve drifted away and today I’m acknowledging what’s already happened.

This summer marks 30 years since I began writing the GNU C Library. (That’s two thirds of my lifespan so far.) It’s long enough.

So, I’m hereby declaring myself maintainer emeritus and withdrawing from direct involvement in the project. These past several months, if not the last few years, have proven that you don’t need me any more.

You’ll make good decisions, as you’ve already made good decisions. You’ll actually get around to implementing some of the things I’ve been suggesting or meaning to do (or saying I would do) for years, as you’ve already made progress on some of those ideas in recent months. If I stayed around to give advice, you’d ignore my advice to be more paranoid and more cautious, plow ahead anyway, ship it, and then have to redress the problem when the practical issues manifested, as you’ve already done and had to do. :-) All in all, I have no doubt at all that the job you’re doing now and will do in the future maintaining glibc is better than I ever did that job myself and at least as good as my presence in the project might ever make it.

Over these 30 years, a few others have contributed individually more than I did and the rest of you have contributed collectively far more than I ever could have. I’m eternally grateful to everyone who has been or is now involved in nurturing, improving, shaping, and supporting this creation. I won’t name any names since that would always give many more short shrift. But I’m especially grateful to the small handful of folks who contributed in the early days when so much was so different than it is today; to the diehard few who’ve hung on through all the changes and tribulations over the many years; and to those, old and new, who have come together in recent years to breathe new life into the project and steer us towards becoming the vital community that the project and its users have always deserved. I’m proud of what we’ve been able to build and deliver to our users. But I’m more proud to have collaborated with all of you.

I’ve unsubscribed from libc-alpha. (I still wish I’d renamed the mailing list before it grew past five members and me maintaining the
list by hand!) I’ll be dropping off of more free software mailing lists for things I haven’t done anything about in months or years, and
otherwise disentangling myself from administrative responsibilities that I haven’t really been fulfulling for a long time now.

If there’s something I promised you in the past I’d do or something you had an expectation of me replying to, I’m sorry about that. I won’t be following up on any of those things. Anything in the project I’m still supposedly the maintainer or primary point of contact for, I’ve already abandoned in practice and I’m now officially leaving to whoever has been taking up my slack. I’m glad to be of as much help as I think I can be in any transitions of responsibility that need to happen. Of course you’ll always be able contact me personally on subjects related to the project when I can be uniquely useful. Experience has shown that I’ve most likely already forgotten the details, so I wouldn’t have high expectations about how much help I’ll actually be. But I’m still here.

Lastly, I’m not planning on travelling to Prague for this year’s Cauldron. I regret I won’t see you all there. Maybe you’ll look me up next time you are passing through the Bay Area.

So long, Thanks, and Happy Hacking,
Roland

Roland McGrath 非常低调，网上都没找到他照片。他目前是在 Google 的 NACL 团队。

参考：Solidot、Lwn.net、LinkedIn