4 ms·

What happened to Eric Douglas?

102 points by joshmanders 11y ago

esnard 11y ago
https://github.com/ericdouglas https://github.com/ericdouglas He used to commit every single day until November 26th, so its absence is worrying. I hope he's fine.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
  - rtaranto 11y ago
    His last post is from November 21th...
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
  - esnard 11y ago
    I guess that Reddit only rounds that number down, so that posts in end November still display a "2 months ago" last activity.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
nilved 11y ago
Perhaps they enjoy their privacy. This has happened before (_why, Mark Pilgrim) and is tantamount to a witch hunt.
- Tenhundfeld 11y ago
  How is this a witch hunt? That term implies some type of persecution, i.e., you're trying to expose and punish someone. That's not really what's happening here. People just seem concerned by the unexplained, sudden disappearance. They're not saying he's done something wrong. If he popped up and said, "Hey folks, all good here, just busy," I think this would be done, no problem. If you're simply trying to say it's an invasion of privacy, sure, that's an argument to make. I'm not trying to be a "grammar nazi", but that phrase has a specific meaning that doesn't apply here, IMO. I'm trying to figure out if you're simply misusing an idiom (again, IMO) or if you're truly seeing this as some type of vilification of Eric.
  - nilved 11y ago
    Just misusing the term.
chrissnell 11y ago
Every time I read one of these stories on social media where a bunch of people are looking for someone, I think of this: http://thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=dancing_man http://thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=dancing_man What if Mr. Douglas doesn't want to be found? Collectively, we get all up in arms about the iPhone backdoor debacle because of its obvious violations of one's personal private space, but we'll simultaneously engage in internet mob tactics to find this guy. > I contacted the Human Resources at Pagar.me, the company i have worked with him, i'll try to get his house phonenumber. Wow.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- nwah1 11y ago
  It's an excellent point to bring up, although I would say there's a distinct difference between tracking someone down to find out if they're ok and tracking them down for the types of things mentioned in the article. Asking "are you ok?" doesn't put pressure on them, unless as Maddox said, they're in witness protection etc. But remote possibilities like that ought not be a primary consideration. You'd never be able to say anything to anyone without fearing the worst possible outcome.
donohoe 11y ago
He stopped posting Twitter on or around the same date too: https://twitter.com/ericdouglas_ https://twitter.com/ericdouglas_
ajarmst 11y ago
Pretty creepy. Being concerned for a family member or close (IRL) friend is one thing. Marshalling an Internet horde because someone stopped checking in on Github is entirely another. If you only know someone by their @ handle, then you don't know them well enough to start investigating their lives. I get that some people don't have an IRL to contrast their virtual presence with, but that's a pathology, not an invitation to stalking. Once more from the top: If someone doesn't share his or her contact information with you, then it's very likely they DON'T WANT YOU CONTACTING THEM, much less organizing a them-themed flashmob. Jesus.
- SFjulie1 11y ago
  In free software project, some users push to far the idea that software belongs to them, their creator included. Just to be clear, if the guy is dead, well he does not care anymore. If he is alive he has most likely opted out of the web since web access is almost not a blocking factor. Hence, it is a choice or it is death, and in both case if a project cannot survive any of this outcome it is dead itself. That is what I fear will happen to a lot of free software/open source projects in the future since very few core commiters tends to produce the majority of commits for long times.
vanderZwan 11y ago
I have wondered the same about Steven Sprang, who was behind the Brushes app for iOs, and apparently just vanished from the internet one day: http://www.brushesapp.com/ http://www.brushesapp.com/ https://github.com/sprang https://github.com/sprang https://twitter.com/sprang https://twitter.com/sprang
- esnard 11y ago
  Well, according to WHOIS brushesapp.com have been updated on 2015-08-01, so I guess he's fine.
bargl 11y ago
To address the other comments I'm seeing... I don't get it just because he might not want to be found doesn't mean that is what is actually happening. > I contacted the Human Resources at Pagar.me, the company i have worked with him, i'll try to get his house phonenumber. He worked with him so I'm guessing he knows him in real life. Which also means he's probably a better judge of whether or not Eric would want to be found then someone who just decided this was a good soapbox to stand on. Personally if something happened to me and I had a BUNCH of people come looking for me I'd be touched. If I wanted to disappear I'd also make that pretty clear with a, "Hey going off the grid" message. Now that's not to say you don't have the right to just up and leave, you should be able to, but people who care have the right to reach out and try to get in touch with you. Sure it can be an invasion of privacy but it all depends on Eric. How does he feel about this? No one here can tell it depends on how HE would react. Every other answer (including mine) is projecting on how you'd feel if you had hundreds of people trying to find you. I personally prefer to live in a world where people come looking for me when I disappear rather then in a world where people say, oh man haven't seen him in a while, he must have built a bunker in the woods and disapeared. EVEN if I wanted to disappear and you came to find me I'd be kinda thankful. It also completely depends on intent, how well you know someone (which at least one person in that thread worked with him), and the fact that you aren't trying to harm them in any way. That is ALL predicated on the fact that this is not witch hunting. TenHundfeld summed it up better than I can. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11135414 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11135414
- VonGuard 11y ago
  A friend of mine in a communal living situation once got sick and stayed in his room for days. We did not see him at all, and his door was closed. The den mother of the place, a SUPER paranoid woman, kept telling us to leave him be, let him have his space, that he was fine. Day 3, we busted down the door and found him unconscious, dehydrated, nearly dead, all from the freaking flu he just wouldn't take care of. Took him to the hospital and pumped him full of fluid and he was fine. I'm very glad we were nosey and did not just "let him be."
EvanPlaice 11y ago
That was right around the time the OSSU-UI and OSSU-API teams left the project en masse. Tracking profile progress via GitHub issues wasn't feasible so we were working on a site where users could login with their GH account, choose a curriculum track, and manage their progress. Between the 2 teams there were about a dozen very active contributors. Things were marching quickly toward a MVP. One contributor even purchased a domain name for the site. Eric came kind of late to the party to the actual development. We had already elected team leads and used a consensus model for decision making. Eric either didn't understand or didn't approve of the direction some things were going. He probably meant well but he was leaning very heavily on the 'my way or the highway' approach to coercing the devs. At one point I stood up for the decisions the teams had already come to a consensus on and was threatened with being kicked from the project as a result. I left soon after when he started screwing around with write access permissions to the project repositories. One of the other core contributors reached out to me directly a few weeks later. From what I heard, Eric decided to ditch the existing development effort in favor of building a static generated HTML site. As a result, all of the active devs left. That's pretty much the exact point in time when his contributions stopped. Aside: I don't know if this has anything to do with it but he was trying to get me or one of the other devs in the US to create a non-profit organization (ie 501c) for the project.

102 points by joshmanders 11y ago

https://github.com/ericdouglas https://github.com/ericdouglas He used to commit every single day until November 26th, so its absence is worrying. I hope he's fine.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
- rtaranto 11y ago
  His last post is from November 21th...
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- esnard 11y ago
  I guess that Reddit only rounds that number down, so that posts in end November still display a "2 months ago" last activity.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]

nilved 11y ago

Perhaps they enjoy their privacy. This has happened before (_why, Mark Pilgrim) and is tantamount to a witch hunt.

Tenhundfeld 11y ago
How is this a witch hunt? That term implies some type of persecution, i.e., you're trying to expose and punish someone. That's not really what's happening here. People just seem concerned by the unexplained, sudden disappearance. They're not saying he's done something wrong. If he popped up and said, "Hey folks, all good here, just busy," I think this would be done, no problem. If you're simply trying to say it's an invasion of privacy, sure, that's an argument to make. I'm not trying to be a "grammar nazi", but that phrase has a specific meaning that doesn't apply here, IMO. I'm trying to figure out if you're simply misusing an idiom (again, IMO) or if you're truly seeing this as some type of vilification of Eric.
- nilved 11y ago
  Just misusing the term.

chrissnell 11y ago

Every time I read one of these stories on social media where a bunch of people are looking for someone, I think of this: http://thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=dancing_man http://thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=dancing_man What if Mr. Douglas doesn't want to be found? Collectively, we get all up in arms about the iPhone backdoor debacle because of its obvious violations of one's personal private space, but we'll simultaneously engage in internet mob tactics to find this guy. > I contacted the Human Resources at Pagar.me, the company i have worked with him, i'll try to get his house phonenumber. Wow.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
nwah1 11y ago
It's an excellent point to bring up, although I would say there's a distinct difference between tracking someone down to find out if they're ok and tracking them down for the types of things mentioned in the article. Asking "are you ok?" doesn't put pressure on them, unless as Maddox said, they're in witness protection etc. But remote possibilities like that ought not be a primary consideration. You'd never be able to say anything to anyone without fearing the worst possible outcome.

donohoe 11y ago

He stopped posting Twitter on or around the same date too: https://twitter.com/ericdouglas_ https://twitter.com/ericdouglas_

ajarmst 11y ago

Pretty creepy. Being concerned for a family member or close (IRL) friend is one thing. Marshalling an Internet horde because someone stopped checking in on Github is entirely another. If you only know someone by their @ handle, then you don't know them well enough to start investigating their lives. I get that some people don't have an IRL to contrast their virtual presence with, but that's a pathology, not an invitation to stalking. Once more from the top: If someone doesn't share his or her contact information with you, then it's very likely they DON'T WANT YOU CONTACTING THEM, much less organizing a them-themed flashmob. Jesus.

SFjulie1 11y ago
In free software project, some users push to far the idea that software belongs to them, their creator included. Just to be clear, if the guy is dead, well he does not care anymore. If he is alive he has most likely opted out of the web since web access is almost not a blocking factor. Hence, it is a choice or it is death, and in both case if a project cannot survive any of this outcome it is dead itself. That is what I fear will happen to a lot of free software/open source projects in the future since very few core commiters tends to produce the majority of commits for long times.

vanderZwan 11y ago

I have wondered the same about Steven Sprang, who was behind the Brushes app for iOs, and apparently just vanished from the internet one day: http://www.brushesapp.com/ http://www.brushesapp.com/ https://github.com/sprang https://github.com/sprang https://twitter.com/sprang https://twitter.com/sprang

esnard 11y ago
Well, according to WHOIS brushesapp.com have been updated on 2015-08-01, so I guess he's fine.

bargl 11y ago

To address the other comments I'm seeing... I don't get it just because he might not want to be found doesn't mean that is what is actually happening. > I contacted the Human Resources at Pagar.me, the company i have worked with him, i'll try to get his house phonenumber. He worked with him so I'm guessing he knows him in real life. Which also means he's probably a better judge of whether or not Eric would want to be found then someone who just decided this was a good soapbox to stand on. Personally if something happened to me and I had a BUNCH of people come looking for me I'd be touched. If I wanted to disappear I'd also make that pretty clear with a, "Hey going off the grid" message. Now that's not to say you don't have the right to just up and leave, you should be able to, but people who care have the right to reach out and try to get in touch with you. Sure it can be an invasion of privacy but it all depends on Eric. How does he feel about this? No one here can tell it depends on how HE would react. Every other answer (including mine) is projecting on how you'd feel if you had hundreds of people trying to find you. I personally prefer to live in a world where people come looking for me when I disappear rather then in a world where people say, oh man haven't seen him in a while, he must have built a bunker in the woods and disapeared. EVEN if I wanted to disappear and you came to find me I'd be kinda thankful. It also completely depends on intent, how well you know someone (which at least one person in that thread worked with him), and the fact that you aren't trying to harm them in any way. That is ALL predicated on the fact that this is not witch hunting. TenHundfeld summed it up better than I can. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11135414 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11135414

VonGuard 11y ago
A friend of mine in a communal living situation once got sick and stayed in his room for days. We did not see him at all, and his door was closed. The den mother of the place, a SUPER paranoid woman, kept telling us to leave him be, let him have his space, that he was fine. Day 3, we busted down the door and found him unconscious, dehydrated, nearly dead, all from the freaking flu he just wouldn't take care of. Took him to the hospital and pumped him full of fluid and he was fine. I'm very glad we were nosey and did not just "let him be."

EvanPlaice 11y ago

That was right around the time the OSSU-UI and OSSU-API teams left the project en masse. Tracking profile progress via GitHub issues wasn't feasible so we were working on a site where users could login with their GH account, choose a curriculum track, and manage their progress. Between the 2 teams there were about a dozen very active contributors. Things were marching quickly toward a MVP. One contributor even purchased a domain name for the site. Eric came kind of late to the party to the actual development. We had already elected team leads and used a consensus model for decision making. Eric either didn't understand or didn't approve of the direction some things were going. He probably meant well but he was leaning very heavily on the 'my way or the highway' approach to coercing the devs. At one point I stood up for the decisions the teams had already come to a consensus on and was threatened with being kicked from the project as a result. I left soon after when he started screwing around with write access permissions to the project repositories. One of the other core contributors reached out to me directly a few weeks later. From what I heard, Eric decided to ditch the existing development effort in favor of building a static generated HTML site. As a result, all of the active devs left. That's pretty much the exact point in time when his contributions stopped. Aside: I don't know if this has anything to do with it but he was trying to get me or one of the other devs in the US to create a non-profit organization (ie 501c) for the project.