

RIP Andre Hedrick: The engineer who kept the PC open - rwrwrw
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/07/26/andre_hedrick/

======
SwellJoe
I interacted with Andre on and off for years when running my first company.
The company built hardware for web caching, which is a disk-limited task, so
we were constantly on the edge of low-cost disk technology (we also built big
SCSI boxes, but the low-end ATA boxes were much more popular), so we tickled
lots of bugs in the ATA drivers, and shipped out lots of boxes running on his
pre-release ATA drivers. It was always, always, always, a pleasure to work
with him. Not because he was nice (though he was always more than civil to me,
perhaps because my issue reports were concise and complete and reproduce-
able), though he was nicer than some of the other folks we were working with
(Han Reiser was perhaps the most cantankerous, aside from Linus). But, the
important thing was that he was impressively competent. I'd send him a kernel
oops and he'd fix it by the next day, sometimes after a couple of back-and-
forth communications or having him login to a box where he could replicate it,
usually along with an amusing explanation of why the hardware implementation
was broken. I think it would be difficult to overstate how important he was
during those important growth years for Linux; without reliable and fast hard
disk drivers, a system is crippled, and he single-handedly built a significant
portion of the ATA drivers during that period.

I never met him in person or knew him on a real personal level, but I
considered him a great ally of the things I care most about (software freedom
and reliable software, in particular). I hate to see him go, and I'm sorry his
family has to go through this. I know that he inspired many developers to
stand up for software freedom as well as technically sound implementations,
not because he preached about it but because he lived it, every day.

------
poweratom
All I can think about is his four young children. The man took his own life,
and that's that. But his kid didn't do anything to have deserved a childhood
knowing their father committed suicide. Some of the kids may even blame
themselves for a big chunk of their lives for what happened.

I wish he could have found a way and the courage to live on -- for the sake of
his children.

A man having committed suicide is sad. But four children growing up without
their father is a real tragedy.

~~~
tluyben2
I know this sounds harsh, but from my own experience with friends and family
(2 family members, 6 friends gone) committing suicide this was MANY years in
the making; far before he had kids. That makes it a real shame; like many
(most!) people, he shouldn't have had kids in the first place. I feel very
sorry for them and his wife, this shouldn't have happened. And most likely
could've been prevented. Especially with the kids in mind, this is a tough
one.

Edit: changed wording out of respect

~~~
andyjohnson0
When someone dies in circumstances like this the people near to them are going
to be very traumatised. Out of respect for them, you should keep your opinions
to yourself. Using words like "unforgivable", "coward", and "duty" in the
context of someone you appear not to have known is inappropriate and
offensive.

~~~
tluyben2
That's your opinion. I don't think other people who are contemplating the same
thing are helped by me (or anyone else) keeping things to myself.

Edit: changed my wording. I'm Dutch, we don't beat around the bush, but you
have a point, I can say it differently. I will use those words for the people
I did know. I do think that people should talk more; it is just strange how
this happens if you actually HAVE people who care about you around you.

~~~
exolab
I don't think other people in similar situations are helped by you period.

------
tux1968
He always seemed a contentious and argumentative sort on LKML. So it was good
to see that the author had a much different experience with him. Sad that
Andre wasn't able to find a way to carry on. Thoughts and condolences to his
family.

------
chattr
I knew him personally for last few years as his colleague. It was very
saddening to know about his demise and shocking to know he took his life. He
was always very jovial and cracking jokes all around. My heart goes out to his
four children, who were aged between 5 to 14. While I knew he had some
personal issues, but never thought these could lead him to suicide. I wish I
knew more and did more. RIP Andre!

------
brilyient
Wow. Thank you Mr. Hedrick for fighting the good fight and "keeping the PC
open." We're still in the nascence of the computing era and I think many years
from now, this man's efforts and the efforts of others like him will be viewed
as being even more important than they are now.

RIP.

------
unimpressive
Sometimes theres room for compromise.

But then, sometimes there isn't.

R.I.P

------
rwrwrw
I hope he did not kill himself because of the the big layoffs at Cisco...

~~~
Udo
I think a guy like that would not have any trouble finding another job. It's
more likely he was suffering from severe depression, a complex and sometimes
tragically undiagnosed illness. Sad to see him go. I see he died on the same
day as my mom two weeks ago :-(

------
mp3geek
You will be missed Andre :(

------
rehack
I think I need to alert one thing - particularly on a page like this. If in
your settings you have 'showDead' set to on, then you will see a incoherent
comment at the bottom of this page from losethos.

Some of you folks might remember a discussion involving Losethos sometime back
on HN. I can't find the discussion but here is the article which was
discussed: <http://qaa.ath.cx/LoseThos.html> . In that article, one kind
person had taken some effort to understand the reasons behind such incoherent
comments.

I am not sure that people who marked the comment as dead, are aware of that
discussion. Perhaps we need a policy at HN to handle such situations better.

PS: I got the above link by doing this search 'site:news.ycombinator.com
losethos' on google. You can also see some more comments on the same here
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4189669>. But can't find that original
discussion

