6 ms·

Wolfgang Denk, creator of the U-Boot bootloader, has died

274 points by gdgghhhhh 4y ago

joezydeco 4y ago
Almost every embedded Linux system, especially on ARM platforms, uses u-boot to start up. And that includes Android. It's everywhere and it's all invisible to you. But it's a crucial piece of code.
jbirer 4y ago
He's the person who threw the first stone in making ARM firmware and hardware more accessible, RIP.
minraws 4y ago
Many thanks for standing strong for and with Open Source, Rest in Peace, dear sir. :)
qbasic_forever 4y ago
Wow RIP, u-boot is fantastic and it's a real loss to have its creator gone.
IYasha 4y ago
He's a true OpenSource propagator, and a professional. In growing world of embedded systems, the importance of U-Boot is hard to overestimate. What a loss!
- minraws 4y ago
  Very true, I have seen many people who won't go nearly as far in their professional life for supporting OSS, including myself. And U-boot is just incredible to say the least.
rolph 4y ago
i vote the man deserves a black banner.
lol768 4y ago
There are some tributes on LWN: https://lwn.net/Articles/912052/ https://lwn.net/Articles/912052/ Would also vote for the black banner treatment, U-Boot is pervasive. It runs on satellites in space, it runs on the phones in our pockets: https://lists.denx.de/pipermail/u-boot/2006-December/018577.html https://lists.denx.de/pipermail/u-boot/2006-December/018577....
- Deeg9rie9usi 4y ago
  He was also a great supporter of Xenomai: https://lore.kernel.org/xenomai/eca5db9d-5e39-672a-e190-1c8ee6dcd813@siemens.com/T/#u https://lore.kernel.org/xenomai/eca5db9d-5e39-672a-e190-1c8e... https://lore.kernel.org/xenomai/87v8oa60bx.fsf@xenomai.org/T/#u https://lore.kernel.org/xenomai/87v8oa60bx.fsf@xenomai.org/T...
  - _0ffh 4y ago
    Wow, I didn't even know about this. It's a cool project!
- soneil 4y ago
  We use u-boot at work, in completely uninteresting places. You don't think about it, it just is. Curl is probably a good equivalence - its pervasiveness is more impressive than its extremes.
xony 4y ago
RIP ,no match to it ,its used everywhere
_0ffh 4y ago
Agree with others, black banner appropriate.
lizardactivist 4y ago
What happens to U-Boot now? Will it continue to live on, or will it be replaced by something else from another vendor?
- bragr 4y ago
  I doubt anything changes. It's open source under the GPL2 and is used by everyone under the sun so there is plenty of motivation to maintain it.
  - josemanuel 4y ago
    I believe the project is headed by Tom Rini.
- seba_dos1 4y ago
  I don't think U-Boot is anywhere near having a bus factor of one.
  - ForOldHack 4y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_factor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_factor
Toutouxc 4y ago
Often someone's obituary gets posted on HN who was well known in some parts of the IT community, but not well known enough to have a Wikipedia page or a bio somewhere. One thing that I usually want to know (and that's usually hard to find), and it's not out of morbid curiosity, is how old the person was and whether their death was sudden and tragic or more or less natural and expected. I know the loss hurts in either case, but it's somehow much more comforting knowing that e.g. an 82 year-old kernel dev demi-god grandpa died in his sleep, having lived a long, fruitful life, than that some game dev prodigy in her late twenties got hit by a drunk driver. RIP Wolfgang, I read a bit about your work and it sounds like you did enough good for several lives.
- Macha 4y ago
  He was employed 25 years ago, at least long enough to be senior to the author of this post, so that puts a lower bound of 50 (which at least matches with how he looks in his profile on his company's about section). Still unfortunate if he's just 50, however.
  - ahartmetz 4y ago
    He looked like 55 +/-5 in 2013 https://www.linux.com/news/u-boot-creator-wolfgang-denk-great-achievements-embedded-linux/ https://www.linux.com/news/u-boot-creator-wolfgang-denk-grea... I have used U-Boot in many projects and my current one uses it, too.
gonzo 4y ago
Sad day. I used ppcboot at musenki 20 years ago (2001-2002) on a set of MPC 824x boards. Wolfgang was always helpful. Support was removed in 2014 https://lists.denx.de/pipermail/u-boot/2014-December/198820.html https://lists.denx.de/pipermail/u-boot/2014-December/198820....
egberts1 4y ago
U-boot, how I got my career start with embedded Xilinx FPGA ARM processor. Thank you, Wolfgang, for all your inputs in the mastery of memory management.
rogermeier 4y ago
I still remember the first time when I collaborated with Wolfgang. He was such a kind and open minded person with a such a great value system. Together with the amazing Denx crew we upstreamed all our custom CPU modules to the U-Boot source code. We also collaborated on the 2038 support within glibc, Linux Kernel and of course U-Boot. I still remember when I did a demo of GitLab and Travis CI to Wolfgang and of course we also exchanged on personal topics such as nice restaurants in Usedom. Once I explained Wolfgang about the pain of license compliance and shared the idea to use SPDX-License-Identifier. He agreed on solving this at the source code level like engineers would do and he made https://source.denx.de/u-boot/u-boot/-/commit/eca3aeb352c964bdb28b8e191d6326370245e03f https://source.denx.de/u-boot/u-boot/-/commit/eca3aeb352c964... in 2013. Nowadays, this ended up within Linux Kernel and many other widely used open source projects. He was a real pioneer and I'm so sad he passed away. I will always remember and wish all the best to family and friends!

274 points by gdgghhhhh 4y ago

Almost every embedded Linux system, especially on ARM platforms, uses u-boot to start up. And that includes Android. It's everywhere and it's all invisible to you. But it's a crucial piece of code.

jbirer 4y ago

He's the person who threw the first stone in making ARM firmware and hardware more accessible, RIP.

minraws 4y ago

Many thanks for standing strong for and with Open Source, Rest in Peace, dear sir. :)

qbasic_forever 4y ago

Wow RIP, u-boot is fantastic and it's a real loss to have its creator gone.

IYasha 4y ago

He's a true OpenSource propagator, and a professional. In growing world of embedded systems, the importance of U-Boot is hard to overestimate. What a loss!

minraws 4y ago
Very true, I have seen many people who won't go nearly as far in their professional life for supporting OSS, including myself. And U-boot is just incredible to say the least.

rolph 4y ago

i vote the man deserves a black banner.

lol768 4y ago

There are some tributes on LWN: https://lwn.net/Articles/912052/ https://lwn.net/Articles/912052/ Would also vote for the black banner treatment, U-Boot is pervasive. It runs on satellites in space, it runs on the phones in our pockets: https://lists.denx.de/pipermail/u-boot/2006-December/018577.html https://lists.denx.de/pipermail/u-boot/2006-December/018577....

Deeg9rie9usi 4y ago
He was also a great supporter of Xenomai: https://lore.kernel.org/xenomai/eca5db9d-5e39-672a-e190-1c8ee6dcd813@siemens.com/T/#u https://lore.kernel.org/xenomai/eca5db9d-5e39-672a-e190-1c8e... https://lore.kernel.org/xenomai/87v8oa60bx.fsf@xenomai.org/T/#u https://lore.kernel.org/xenomai/87v8oa60bx.fsf@xenomai.org/T...
- _0ffh 4y ago
  Wow, I didn't even know about this. It's a cool project!
soneil 4y ago
We use u-boot at work, in completely uninteresting places. You don't think about it, it just is. Curl is probably a good equivalence - its pervasiveness is more impressive than its extremes.

xony 4y ago

RIP ,no match to it ,its used everywhere

_0ffh 4y ago

Agree with others, black banner appropriate.

lizardactivist 4y ago

What happens to U-Boot now? Will it continue to live on, or will it be replaced by something else from another vendor?

bragr 4y ago
I doubt anything changes. It's open source under the GPL2 and is used by everyone under the sun so there is plenty of motivation to maintain it.
- josemanuel 4y ago
  I believe the project is headed by Tom Rini.
seba_dos1 4y ago
I don't think U-Boot is anywhere near having a bus factor of one.
- ForOldHack 4y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_factor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_factor

Toutouxc 4y ago

Often someone's obituary gets posted on HN who was well known in some parts of the IT community, but not well known enough to have a Wikipedia page or a bio somewhere. One thing that I usually want to know (and that's usually hard to find), and it's not out of morbid curiosity, is how old the person was and whether their death was sudden and tragic or more or less natural and expected. I know the loss hurts in either case, but it's somehow much more comforting knowing that e.g. an 82 year-old kernel dev demi-god grandpa died in his sleep, having lived a long, fruitful life, than that some game dev prodigy in her late twenties got hit by a drunk driver. RIP Wolfgang, I read a bit about your work and it sounds like you did enough good for several lives.

Macha 4y ago
He was employed 25 years ago, at least long enough to be senior to the author of this post, so that puts a lower bound of 50 (which at least matches with how he looks in his profile on his company's about section). Still unfortunate if he's just 50, however.
- ahartmetz 4y ago
  He looked like 55 +/-5 in 2013 https://www.linux.com/news/u-boot-creator-wolfgang-denk-great-achievements-embedded-linux/ https://www.linux.com/news/u-boot-creator-wolfgang-denk-grea... I have used U-Boot in many projects and my current one uses it, too.

gonzo 4y ago

Sad day. I used ppcboot at musenki 20 years ago (2001-2002) on a set of MPC 824x boards. Wolfgang was always helpful. Support was removed in 2014 https://lists.denx.de/pipermail/u-boot/2014-December/198820.html https://lists.denx.de/pipermail/u-boot/2014-December/198820....

egberts1 4y ago

U-boot, how I got my career start with embedded Xilinx FPGA ARM processor. Thank you, Wolfgang, for all your inputs in the mastery of memory management.

rogermeier 4y ago

I still remember the first time when I collaborated with Wolfgang. He was such a kind and open minded person with a such a great value system. Together with the amazing Denx crew we upstreamed all our custom CPU modules to the U-Boot source code. We also collaborated on the 2038 support within glibc, Linux Kernel and of course U-Boot. I still remember when I did a demo of GitLab and Travis CI to Wolfgang and of course we also exchanged on personal topics such as nice restaurants in Usedom. Once I explained Wolfgang about the pain of license compliance and shared the idea to use SPDX-License-Identifier. He agreed on solving this at the source code level like engineers would do and he made https://source.denx.de/u-boot/u-boot/-/commit/eca3aeb352c964bdb28b8e191d6326370245e03f https://source.denx.de/u-boot/u-boot/-/commit/eca3aeb352c964... in 2013. Nowadays, this ended up within Linux Kernel and many other widely used open source projects. He was a real pioneer and I'm so sad he passed away. I will always remember and wish all the best to family and friends!