6 ms·

Re: Ian Murdock

108 points by noeticpenguin 11y ago

dorfsmay 11y ago
Cannot Read on mobile, the text is wider than the screen an I cannot scroll horizontally nor zoom. I tried both Chrome and Firefox.
- efrafa 11y ago
  I had to use safari reader
- SandB0x 11y ago
  The post: Almost 20 years ago my father answered the phone as we ate a late family dinner. He was mightily confused because the man on the other end of the call was asking him questions he had no idea how t answer. After a few moments of confusion, my father told the man, he was pretty sure he wanted his son, Kevin, not him. On the other end waited Ian Murdock. He’d taken the time to call me up to do my Debian maintainer identity interview. It was, and is, a big deal, from a security standpoint, to verify the identity of new Debian maintainers. But the task is tedious, calling up new maintainers and talking to them for half an hour. Imagine my surprise, when, the man doing my interview was the Ian from debian. One of the co-founders of the entire project had taken the time to call me. I was Impressed. Years later, I got to meet Ian in person at an ExactTarget conference, and I thanked him for calling a nerdy high school kid to verify his identity. He not only confirmed my identity for security purposes, but he affirmed that I mattered, and could help. At the time, I don’t think he remembered the call, and I don’t think I was sufficiently able to convey what his call meant to me. Last Monday, Ian Murdock was found dead in his home. The details are few, the speculation rampant. Police may or may not be involved. The proximate cause might have been Suicide. Was his Twitter account hacked? Regardless of the details, I’m reminded that all too often our culture judges people by their actions in the worst moments of their life. Those who have killed are forever murderers branded by their actions at the worst moments of their life. We don’t seem to have a cultural construct for good people who made mistakes. Not where suicide or the police are concerned. I’ve already started to see Ian eulogized not for his contributions to the world, but as a “crazy” and someone who gave up. I don’t know how Ian died, it’s likely you don’t either. It doesn’t matter; Ian was more, is more, than the unknown actions at the end of his life. He was also the kind of man who’d not only call and verify my identity, but reaffirm an insecure high school nerd’s ability to meaningfully contribute to the world at large. To Ian, Thank you for all that you were and did.
  - knughit 11y ago
    What kind of person is considered too immoral to be a debian maintainer?
    - geofft 11y ago
      I don't see a mention of "immoral", but there are certain people you don't want to give upload rights to: people who will introduce backdoors, people who will be irresponsible with their private key and leave it lying around in public places, etc. The ability to include code in a release of widely-used software involves a large amount of trust, and for a distributed, volunteer project, you don't get the checks that either a long personal relationship or a formal employment background check would give you. This puts you at risk of, as Juniper so eloquently put it recently, "unauthorized code".
- Nux 11y ago
  Works wonderfully on Opera mini.
- EarthIsHome 11y ago
  In Firefox mobile, there's usually an open book icon in the URL bar (at the right) that puts you in a sort of "reader mode", stripping away CSS and giving you text only. It's usually there for articles.
  - dorfsmay 11y ago
    Wow! Thanks! I've been using FF on mobile forever and had never noticed that. I think I'll be using it more often from now on.
  - a3n 11y ago
    I had the same trouble with this article on the desktop. This happens a lot, designers assume everyone's running full screen, or are not on mobile, or just don't consider it. In desktop firefox I've installed addon Disable Style Button, which turns off CSS with one click. It's a shortcut for View/Page Style/No Style if you want to try it out without installing the addon. The little book icon isn't always there, and anyway I generally like the result of turning off CSS anyway, it looks very nineties and I can just see the faintest outline of a middle finger.
    - dorfsmay 11y ago
      > This happens a lot, designers assume everyone's running full screen, or are not on mobile, or just don't consider it What kills me is that a basic 90's HTML 3 page can be zoomed and scrolled on mobile browser. If you don't care too much about fancy design (eg for personal sites), then just use HTML and really basic, or no, CSS. If you do care about sophisticated design, then you should ensure it works on the most common browsers and devices.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- wtbob 11y ago
  Even just a half-screen-width window on my laptop shows the same thing. I think it's darkly hilarious: it's uncomfortable to read text which is a full screen width, so sites waste 50% of the browser window in order to give readers reasonably-wide text — but they waste that 50% of the window even when it is already reasonably-sized.
chris_wot 11y ago
If anyone following the Ian Murdock situation is feeling suicidal, PLEASE talk to someone. Doesn't have to be medical staff, but do something and talk to someone you trust so you don't do something worse you might regret later, or worse, your loved ones regret more.
- jMyles 11y ago
  It's becoming a difficult situation in the US, where "talking to someone" means being forcibly handled by the brutal mental health system and forfeiting several crucial rights perhaps forever, including the right to own a firearm. It's not clear whom in the US to recommend people contact in such a situation. No less than four people who are close to me have sought help through official channels in the US, and in all four cases, were treated disastrously. All of them (including one who was 15 at the time) have told me they'd never, ever do that again. (Actually, I just thought of another - someone whom someone around them "called for help." Same scenario. So that's five.)
  - mei0Iesh 11y ago
    You make it sound like "If you're a criminal, please talk to someone. Call 1-800-CRIMINAL and tell us your crimes. It's time you got help, by being locked up."
  - tptacek 11y ago
    It is extraordinarily unhelpful to suggest that people who are endangered by mental health problems should avoid the mental health system. There is a lot not to like about emergency mental health care. The experience is indeed akin to that of criminal justice, and can at times verge on dehumanizing. Our handling of these issues must improve. But the alternative to being locked in a room with police officers watching the door is something far worse than that. People with suicidal depression, severe anxiety disorders, or post-traumatic stress disorders can endure episodes where they almost completely lose judgement, or experience dissociation and derealization. You can't simply gut these things out: you need to be in a safe space, ideally attended to by professionals who can intervene medically during the worst of it. If you are feeling suicidal, or that you're not in control of your own actions and concerned about harming yourself or others, you should call 9-1-1 or go to a hospital ER. It won't be pleasant, but it will be safer than the alternatives.
kzrdude 11y ago
I hope we get more clarity in the long run. I don't think his legacy is at risk in any way, Debian is a great monument in itself, and thousands of us in the foss world and those relying on it know this. I never knew him, but I'm still very saddened by this loss. I don't know what happened, and I ask myself why it could have went so wrong. Is the despair and feeling of injustice that much larger when you are an idealist?
- a3n 11y ago
  > Is the despair and feeling of injustice that much larger when you are an idealist? The feeling is what the feeling is when you're deep in the shit. Idealist, mentor, nice guy, none of that matters. He was a man in crisis and didn't come out the other end. Maybe we'll know why some day.
shawnee_ 11y ago
I’m reminded that all too often our culture judges people by their actions in the worst moments of their life ... We don’t seem to have a cultural construct for good people who made mistakes. As the author stated, we don't know what happened. But it does seem that people, like Ian (and Aaron Swartz), who dedicated their lives to improving systems for the greater good tend to have a defiant sensitivity to abuses of power. The world needs people like that alive and kicking for as long as possible. Sometimes it takes an unfathomable amount of persistence to get things moving in the right direction, but it can and does happen if you don't give up.
- acjohnson55 11y ago
  I was about to quote that same line from the piece. Beautifully put.
orbitingpluto 11y ago
I believe that people tend to be more forgiving when it comes to comedians and actors, simply because they have an emotional attachment, "to the time they spent with them". Simply put, they have a different context in which to remember him. Robin Williams is the quintessential example of this. I remember Mork through so much of his entire catalogue of work. I am currently writing this on Debian Jesse. That's "my time" and that is part of Ian Murdock's legacy.
sneezeplease 11y ago
Dude was murdered by police with his death getting astroturfed.
nchelluri 11y ago
> We don’t seem to have a cultural construct for good people who made mistakes. Well said man, I think that remembering him because he > was also the kind of man who’d not only call and verify my identity, but reaffirm an insecure high school nerd’s ability to meaningfully contribute to the world at large. Is an excellent form of memorial. This is my favorite post about the guy, who was not on my radar before this week. (Though, I have used Debian and regularly use Ubuntu.)

108 points by noeticpenguin 11y ago

Cannot Read on mobile, the text is wider than the screen an I cannot scroll horizontally nor zoom. I tried both Chrome and Firefox.

efrafa 11y ago
I had to use safari reader
SandB0x 11y ago
The post: Almost 20 years ago my father answered the phone as we ate a late family dinner. He was mightily confused because the man on the other end of the call was asking him questions he had no idea how t answer. After a few moments of confusion, my father told the man, he was pretty sure he wanted his son, Kevin, not him. On the other end waited Ian Murdock. He’d taken the time to call me up to do my Debian maintainer identity interview. It was, and is, a big deal, from a security standpoint, to verify the identity of new Debian maintainers. But the task is tedious, calling up new maintainers and talking to them for half an hour. Imagine my surprise, when, the man doing my interview was the Ian from debian. One of the co-founders of the entire project had taken the time to call me. I was Impressed. Years later, I got to meet Ian in person at an ExactTarget conference, and I thanked him for calling a nerdy high school kid to verify his identity. He not only confirmed my identity for security purposes, but he affirmed that I mattered, and could help. At the time, I don’t think he remembered the call, and I don’t think I was sufficiently able to convey what his call meant to me. Last Monday, Ian Murdock was found dead in his home. The details are few, the speculation rampant. Police may or may not be involved. The proximate cause might have been Suicide. Was his Twitter account hacked? Regardless of the details, I’m reminded that all too often our culture judges people by their actions in the worst moments of their life. Those who have killed are forever murderers branded by their actions at the worst moments of their life. We don’t seem to have a cultural construct for good people who made mistakes. Not where suicide or the police are concerned. I’ve already started to see Ian eulogized not for his contributions to the world, but as a “crazy” and someone who gave up. I don’t know how Ian died, it’s likely you don’t either. It doesn’t matter; Ian was more, is more, than the unknown actions at the end of his life. He was also the kind of man who’d not only call and verify my identity, but reaffirm an insecure high school nerd’s ability to meaningfully contribute to the world at large. To Ian, Thank you for all that you were and did.
- knughit 11y ago
  What kind of person is considered too immoral to be a debian maintainer?
  - geofft 11y ago
    I don't see a mention of "immoral", but there are certain people you don't want to give upload rights to: people who will introduce backdoors, people who will be irresponsible with their private key and leave it lying around in public places, etc. The ability to include code in a release of widely-used software involves a large amount of trust, and for a distributed, volunteer project, you don't get the checks that either a long personal relationship or a formal employment background check would give you. This puts you at risk of, as Juniper so eloquently put it recently, "unauthorized code".
Nux 11y ago
Works wonderfully on Opera mini.
EarthIsHome 11y ago
In Firefox mobile, there's usually an open book icon in the URL bar (at the right) that puts you in a sort of "reader mode", stripping away CSS and giving you text only. It's usually there for articles.
- dorfsmay 11y ago
  Wow! Thanks! I've been using FF on mobile forever and had never noticed that. I think I'll be using it more often from now on.
- a3n 11y ago
  I had the same trouble with this article on the desktop. This happens a lot, designers assume everyone's running full screen, or are not on mobile, or just don't consider it. In desktop firefox I've installed addon Disable Style Button, which turns off CSS with one click. It's a shortcut for View/Page Style/No Style if you want to try it out without installing the addon. The little book icon isn't always there, and anyway I generally like the result of turning off CSS anyway, it looks very nineties and I can just see the faintest outline of a middle finger.
  - dorfsmay 11y ago
    > This happens a lot, designers assume everyone's running full screen, or are not on mobile, or just don't consider it What kills me is that a basic 90's HTML 3 page can be zoomed and scrolled on mobile browser. If you don't care too much about fancy design (eg for personal sites), then just use HTML and really basic, or no, CSS. If you do care about sophisticated design, then you should ensure it works on the most common browsers and devices.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
wtbob 11y ago
Even just a half-screen-width window on my laptop shows the same thing. I think it's darkly hilarious: it's uncomfortable to read text which is a full screen width, so sites waste 50% of the browser window in order to give readers reasonably-wide text — but they waste that 50% of the window even when it is already reasonably-sized.

chris_wot 11y ago

If anyone following the Ian Murdock situation is feeling suicidal, PLEASE talk to someone. Doesn't have to be medical staff, but do something and talk to someone you trust so you don't do something worse you might regret later, or worse, your loved ones regret more.

jMyles 11y ago
It's becoming a difficult situation in the US, where "talking to someone" means being forcibly handled by the brutal mental health system and forfeiting several crucial rights perhaps forever, including the right to own a firearm. It's not clear whom in the US to recommend people contact in such a situation. No less than four people who are close to me have sought help through official channels in the US, and in all four cases, were treated disastrously. All of them (including one who was 15 at the time) have told me they'd never, ever do that again. (Actually, I just thought of another - someone whom someone around them "called for help." Same scenario. So that's five.)
- mei0Iesh 11y ago
  You make it sound like "If you're a criminal, please talk to someone. Call 1-800-CRIMINAL and tell us your crimes. It's time you got help, by being locked up."
- tptacek 11y ago
  It is extraordinarily unhelpful to suggest that people who are endangered by mental health problems should avoid the mental health system. There is a lot not to like about emergency mental health care. The experience is indeed akin to that of criminal justice, and can at times verge on dehumanizing. Our handling of these issues must improve. But the alternative to being locked in a room with police officers watching the door is something far worse than that. People with suicidal depression, severe anxiety disorders, or post-traumatic stress disorders can endure episodes where they almost completely lose judgement, or experience dissociation and derealization. You can't simply gut these things out: you need to be in a safe space, ideally attended to by professionals who can intervene medically during the worst of it. If you are feeling suicidal, or that you're not in control of your own actions and concerned about harming yourself or others, you should call 9-1-1 or go to a hospital ER. It won't be pleasant, but it will be safer than the alternatives.

kzrdude 11y ago

I hope we get more clarity in the long run. I don't think his legacy is at risk in any way, Debian is a great monument in itself, and thousands of us in the foss world and those relying on it know this. I never knew him, but I'm still very saddened by this loss. I don't know what happened, and I ask myself why it could have went so wrong. Is the despair and feeling of injustice that much larger when you are an idealist?

a3n 11y ago
> Is the despair and feeling of injustice that much larger when you are an idealist? The feeling is what the feeling is when you're deep in the shit. Idealist, mentor, nice guy, none of that matters. He was a man in crisis and didn't come out the other end. Maybe we'll know why some day.

shawnee_ 11y ago

I’m reminded that all too often our culture judges people by their actions in the worst moments of their life ... We don’t seem to have a cultural construct for good people who made mistakes. As the author stated, we don't know what happened. But it does seem that people, like Ian (and Aaron Swartz), who dedicated their lives to improving systems for the greater good tend to have a defiant sensitivity to abuses of power. The world needs people like that alive and kicking for as long as possible. Sometimes it takes an unfathomable amount of persistence to get things moving in the right direction, but it can and does happen if you don't give up.

acjohnson55 11y ago
I was about to quote that same line from the piece. Beautifully put.

orbitingpluto 11y ago

I believe that people tend to be more forgiving when it comes to comedians and actors, simply because they have an emotional attachment, "to the time they spent with them". Simply put, they have a different context in which to remember him. Robin Williams is the quintessential example of this. I remember Mork through so much of his entire catalogue of work. I am currently writing this on Debian Jesse. That's "my time" and that is part of Ian Murdock's legacy.

sneezeplease 11y ago

Dude was murdered by police with his death getting astroturfed.

nchelluri 11y ago

> We don’t seem to have a cultural construct for good people who made mistakes. Well said man, I think that remembering him because he > was also the kind of man who’d not only call and verify my identity, but reaffirm an insecure high school nerd’s ability to meaningfully contribute to the world at large. Is an excellent form of memorial. This is my favorite post about the guy, who was not on my radar before this week. (Though, I have used Debian and regularly use Ubuntu.)