http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2015/12/30/ian-murdock.html
A Requiem for Ian Murdock
Wednesday 30 December 2015 by Bradley M. Kuhn
[ This post was crossposted on Conservancy's website. ]
I first met Ian Murdock gathered around a table at some bar, somewhere, after
some conference in the late 1990s. Progeny Linux Systems' founding was soon to
be announced, and Ian had invited a group from the Debian BoF along to hear
about “something interesting”; the post-BoF meetup was actually a briefing on
his plans for Progeny.
Many of the details (such as which conference and where on the planet it was),
I've forgotten, but I've never forgotten Ian gathering us around, bending my
ear to hear in the loud bar, and getting one of my first insider scoops on
something big that was about to happen in Free Software. Ian was truly famous
in my world; I felt like I'd won the jackpot of meeting a rock star.
More recently, I gave a keynote at DebConf this year and talked about how long
I've used Debian and how much it has meant to me. I've since then talked with
many people about how the Debian community is rapidly becoming a unicorn among
Free Software projects — one of the last true community-driven, non-commercial
projects.
A culture like that needs a huge group to rise to fruition, and there are no
specific actions that can ensure creation of a multi-generational project like
Debian. But, there are lots of ways to make the wrong decisions early. As near
as I can tell, Ian artfully avoided the project-ending mistakes; he made the
early decisions right.
Ian cared about Free Software and wanted to make something useful for the
community. He teamed up with (for a time in Debian's earliest history) the FSF
to help Debian in its non-profit connections and roots. And, when the time
came, he did what all great leaders do: he stepped aside and let a democratic
structure form. He paved the way for the creation of Debian's strong
Constitutional and democratic governance. Debian has had many great leaders in
its long history, but Ian was (effectively) the first DPL, and he chose not to
be a BDFL.
The Free Software community remains relatively young. Thus, loss of our
community members jar us in the manner that uniquely unsettles the young. In
other words, anyone we lose now, as we've lost Ian this week, has died too
young. It's a cliché to say, but I say anyway that we should remind ourselves
to engage with those around us every day, and to welcome new people gladly.
When Ian invited me around that table, I was truly nobody: he'd never met me
before — indeed no one in the Free Software community knew who I was then. Yet,
the mere fact that I stayed late at a conference to attend the Debian BoF was
enough for him — enough for him to even invite me to hear the secret plans of
his new company. Ian's trust — his welcoming nature — remains for me
unforgettable. I hope to watch that nature flourish in our community for the
remainder of all our lives.
--
Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
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