Alan Cox (computer programmer)

Alan Cox, born on 22 July 1968, is a British computer programmer who became a key figure in the development of Linux, an association with the kernel that dates back to 1991. While working on the Swansea University campus after taking his BSc in Computer Science there, he installed a very early version of Linux on a machine of the university computer society; the installation exposed many bugs in the networking code, which he fixed before rewriting much of the networking subsystem. He maintained the 2.2 branch of the kernel and his own widely used versions of the 2.4 branch, marked with an ac in the version number, and was once commonly regarded as second in command after Linus Torvalds. Before Linux he developed home computer video games such as the text adventure Blizzard Pass, and he was the main developer of AberMUD. He worked at Red Hat from 1999 to 2009, at Intel from 2011, and took early retirement at the end of 2019.