
A Requiem for Ian Murdock - hepha1979
http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2015/12/30/ian-murdock.html
======
hpaavola
Just one day ago I had no idea who Ian Murdock was. He's name was not known to
me even though I used to develop commercial software that shipped his creation
inside. Had used his creation as my operating system for years.

So thank you Ian Murdock for helping me professionally, economically and just
making my life better. And here's to all those great minds that do wonderful
things to help us all out, even though most do not know you at all.

~~~
keithpeter
Oddly enough, I was reading Ian Murdock's blog post about Linux history just
before the holiday kicked in. I knew roughly who he was and what his
contribution to Linux had been but I had not realised how much he had done
_since_ Debian.

------
walterbell
> ArsTechnica investigation:
> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10817913](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10817913)

A point of analysis for the inquiry: can Twitter make a full dump of tweets
available to journalists and investigators? Historical data is available to
organizations who pay for Twitter's full data feed subscription. Many people
who write/tweet from a mobile phone will use auto-correct. There were unusual
spelling errors in the recent batch of tweets. Were these spelling errors
consistent with his past spelling errors? Did his past tweets have spelling
errors, or did they include words which are typical of auto-correct (i.e.
correctly spelled but wrong within tweet context)? Did the tweets originate
from a mobile phone? Any clues from gait analysis of the phone's
accelerometer?

If observers are going to use a few tweets as a proxy indicator of evidence
for mental state, those tweets should be evaluated within the context of all
prior pubic tweets, including a history (or not) of tweeting under the
influence. Furthermore, did Ian reach out to other members of his large
technology community on channels other than Twitter? Those communications
could also be proxy indicators of his perceptions, wishes and intentions. He
must have reached out in person and 1:1 for support.

The highest priority is to understand what Ian would want at this point, using
all available recent/historical data from all available online and offline
channels. This does not mean that all data must be public, only that Ian's
trusted confidantes be the ones to review both private and public data, at an
appropriate time. But all public data should be consolidated by capable
journalists.

A carefully structured public/private analysis can inform our individual and
collective response to future incidents. Such tragedies have happened enough
times [1] that we need proactive and preventive cultural and data-driven
guidance within the technology community, the same way that opsec has become
critical to journalists.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Programmers_who_commi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Programmers_who_committed_suicide)

~~~
samstave
Well I think you may have defined what is a potentially awesome and scary
product: mental state tracking over the life of a Twitter poster....

Make a bot that will analyses tweets over time and connect it with something
like Talix.com's nlp medical coding ability...

~~~
walterbell
Palantir may have this in their analysis toolbox. Will they offer an on-demand
SaaS/cloud version? Imagine the feedback loops when applied to HN or other
social poster history! Or in real-time analysis of draft comments.

------
jackbravo
And it is remarkably true that the Debian project is like a unicorn. Very few
projects are truly a community effort, and at the same time truly democratic.
Linux has a BDFL (Benevolent Dictator for Life) as Drupal, Wordpress and many
other projects.

------
jonathaneunice
I didn't always agree with Ian, but he was one of those people for whom that
would be a clue to revisit and reevaluate my own point of view. No nonsense,
and the the wheels were always turning. Five levels deep and six steps ahead.
Deep respect. RIP.

------
keithpeter
[https://bits.debian.org/2015/12/mourning-ian-
murdock.html](https://bits.debian.org/2015/12/mourning-ian-murdock.html)

Debian page for Mr Murdock. Note the modified logo.

------
puppetmaster3
Here are his last tweets before being deleted:
[http://archive.is/4a138](http://archive.is/4a138)

~~~
puppetmaster3
Notice in his last distressed tweets above Ian specifically says:

"if anyone would post this to hacker news, I would appreciate it"

He was dead shortly after.

------
transfire
This reminds of a case a few months back, give or take, but I can't quite
remember. Similar circumstance of altercations with police and then sudden
suicide. Does anyone else recall?

~~~
macintux
Sandra Bland?

~~~
id
That was my first thought, too.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Sandra_Bland](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Sandra_Bland)

------
mmsmatt
My first distro was Corel Desktop Linux, based on Debian circa 2001. That
started me on a path of exploration I've never left.

Now I wait for the rest of the story...

------
lifeisstillgood
I have spent too long building software that is bent or rippled because I feel
the need to deliver it for today.

It's a selfish decision, and is not a valid memoriam, but I intend to take a
leaf out of Ian's book, and build software and communities for the long haul -
how will this look in 12 months or 12 years, when today's pressures have
vanished in the wind.

It's not much for someone who built so much, but it's all I have.

------
guinez
My Condolences. I just lear about Ian. Debian has been an essential tool for
my research.

------
aphrax
I never knew the origin of the ne Debian. RIP Ian and condolences to the
family

------
patrickaljord
Kind of disappointed that HN isn't putting a black top banner to show respect
to Ian like they did with Steve Jobs and others. I've been using Debian for
more than 15 years and it runs half of the web today, the International Space
Station, Tesla motor vehicles and more. Ian's impact on the world and our
community is simply incalculable. It also looks like he wanted to use his
suicide to grab people's attention on the issues of police brutality, serving
humanity even through his death. Thank you Ian.

~~~
netrus
Please, let's don't do this. Is it an Internet thing? "why hasn't Obama said
anything yet?", "why did the Muslims not distance themselves?", "why is there
a national holiday for x but not y".

Symbols are cheap, but not very important. Let's not make the absence of
symbols into a huge thing. State your grieve, I'll grieve with you, but let's
not get angry at other people who don't show their grieve the way you expected
it.

~~~
kevindeasis
Symbols are a powerful thing and are very important. ie: symbols are a big
part of collective identity. Collective identity helps a mission.

~~~
evanpw
The "collective identity" component of this comes from the group of HN readers
collectively deciding to upvote this to the top story for an extended period
of time. I'm not sure what would be added to that by a single admin making a
decision by fiat.

~~~
kevindeasis
It would add respect, status, etc.

------
transfire
Why do we keep losing all these good men at such young ages?

* Ian Murdock ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Murdock](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Murdock))

* Michael Hastings ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Hastings_%28journalist...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Hastings_%28journalist%29))

* Aaron Swartz ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz))

~~~
hluska
A few days before Christmas, I was emailing a friend and wrote about how it
seems like the odds of a liquidity event are about equal to the odds of having
at least one founder try to commit suicide. That is likely an exaggeration,
but like you, I feel like we are losing too many of our people.

I'm not qualified to speak to why. I have suffered and many of my issues were
due to a bad combination of burnout and 'I'm killing it' culture. Simply,
admitting weakness in our field feels career ending and so the tendency is to
push through burnout and depression. But, I wonder if the fear of admitting
weakness is endemic of our culture of if it just a symptom of the disease.

In light of my past, I have started emailing my friends, telling them that I
care about them, and letting them know that if shit looks bad, they can tell
me. They don't need to kill it, or be ultra successful. They just need to be.

I've also wondered if something like that could become sort of a volunteer
organization. Kind of a founders helping founders organization??

~~~
Balgair
'founders helping founders'. Not to make fun of a terrible disease that is
depression, but a better name must be made. It's is just SO techy sounding and
first-world-problem-ish. I like the idea, but then again, not a soul on earth
is making you be a 'founder' other than the one in the mirror.

Maybe go book a fly fishing trip in Montana?

~~~
hluska
I tossed 'founders helping founders' out to describe an idea. Don't worry, I
haven't bought the domain yet...:)

