Well, here is some sad news... After the better part of two decades at Red Hat, [1]Hans de Goede shared today he will be leaving the company next month. Hans de Goede during his time at Red Hat has been responsible for countless hardware improvements especially for Linux laptops, serves as the x86 platform subsystem lead maintainer for the Linux kernel, and has done immense work over the past 17 years for bettering Linux hardware support especially on consumer devices.

Hans de Goede has done a lot to better Linux hardware support on laptops. From a lot of web camera work to addressing kinks in various tablets on Linux to flicker-free booting for the Linux desktop to graphics driver contributions and more. Hans de Goede's contributions to upstream hardware support in the Linux kernel cannot be overstated. His work has always benefited the upstream Linux kernel and trickling in turn to other distributions beyond just Fedora and Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

Hans wrote on his [2]personal blog :

"After 17 years I feel that it is time to change things up a bit and for a new challenge. I'm leaving Red Hat and my last day at Red Hat will be October 31st."

As for what's next, Hans de Goede didn't elaborate beyond saying:

"I've a pretty good idea of what will come next, but this is not set in stone yet. I definitely will continue to work on open-source and on Linux hw-enablement."

Which is great news to see Hans sticking around the Linux hardware space rather than joining the latest AI startup or other avenues leading to his departure from upstream Linux hardware support.



[1] https://www.phoronix.com/search/Hans+de+Goede

[2] https://hansdegoede.dreamwidth.org/30910.html