In Memoriam: Ian Murdock

#1

Post by spb » Wed, Dec 30, 2015, 6:43 PM UTC

In Memoriam: Ian Murdock
blog.docker.com

Re: In Memoriam: Ian Murdock

#2

Post by minimaxir » Wed, Dec 30, 2015, 6:58 PM UTC

Previous thread about Ian Murdock: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10803924

This news is, tragically, new information. :(

Re: In Memoriam: Ian Murdock

#3

Post by spb » Wed, Dec 30, 2015, 7:02 PM UTC

Also, for those who weren't previously acquainted: Ian was the "ian" in Debian, the Linux distro he created which is the basis for Ubuntu. He started work at Docker in November, which is why they are publishing this.

Re: In Memoriam: Ian Murdock

#4

Post by 2close4comfort » Wed, Dec 30, 2015, 7:04 PM UTC

This is truly a loss.

Re: In Memoriam: Ian Murdock

#5

Post by Quasimoto3000 » Wed, Dec 30, 2015, 7:04 PM UTC

Is this at all related to his statement on suicide and police brutality? What was the cause of death?

Source: http://techaeris.com/2015/12/28/debian-founder-ian-murdocks-...

Re: In Memoriam: Ian Murdock

#6

Post by kragen » Wed, Dec 30, 2015, 7:06 PM UTC

Quasimoto3000 wrote: post #5

Is this at all related to his statement on suicide and police brutality? What was the cause of death? Source: http://techaeris.com/2015/12/28/debian-founder-ian-murdocks-...

It's a good bet that, when a young person in a highly-developed country dies and the announcements about them do not give a cause of death, they killed themselves. Given that he was white and had announced an intention to kill himself the night before, it's almost an open-and-shut case.

Re: In Memoriam: Ian Murdock

#7

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Dec 30, 2015, 7:06 PM UTC

minimaxir wrote: post #2

Previous thread about Ian Murdock: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10803924 This news is, tragically, new information. :(

[deleted]

Re: In Memoriam: Ian Murdock

#8

Post by cs702 » Wed, Dec 30, 2015, 7:06 PM UTC

Very sad.

We all owe him a debt of gratitude for the creation of Debian, the most widely used GNU/Linux distribution today.[1]

Does anyone here actually know what happened?

--

[1] Ubuntu is based on Debian: https://www.debian.org/misc/children-distros

Re: In Memoriam: Ian Murdock

#9

Post by mschuster91 » Wed, Dec 30, 2015, 7:07 PM UTC

Eh, @dang, can we get a black bar in Ian's honor, please?

Re: In Memoriam: Ian Murdock

#10

Post by eddieroger » Wed, Dec 30, 2015, 7:07 PM UTC

This is terrible. I met Ian when we worked at the same company for a bit, and he was a great man by my interactions with him. Just heartbreaking to read.

He went on a tirade the other night on Twitter after what he reported was a run-in with the police. The tweets got more incoherent as the evening went on, but it read like he was backing down from suicide. Since the linked release doesn't say that and it looks like he closed his Twitter, I guess we don't really know what went down. He also doesn't seem to have published the promised blog post. What a shame. I wish he'd found the help he was looking for.