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I worked with Ian Murdock at Purdue in the days of the very first release. He was a sysadmin and devloper while I was a web designer for the libraries. The guy

I worked with Ian Murdock at Purdue in the days of the very first release. He was a sysadmin and devloper while I was a web designer for the libraries. The guy truly believed in the GNU/Linux 'way' and 'free as in speech' software. His initial drive was from the difficulty of packaging and package management and that is probably his biggest contribution. Network-of-Workstations (NOW... think peer-to-peer infratsructure) was his passion that he really never quite got going. Bruce Perens, the guy he handed control over to, is the authoritarian leader being refered to. I like the guy. He's definitely in the old guard, aka Linus Torvalds, style of management. In big complex projects with volunteers that syle works. Anyways, the old days of Linux and Debian were a blast. I never quite go tinto like all these other people, but I miss those old days. There's way too much money people involved today. So it goes. Ian's manifesto explains it all, anyways. https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/project-history/manifesto.en.html https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/project-history/manifesto...

BruceEel 3y ago
Thank you for sharing this, it all rings so true. Love Debian and still use it.
Maken 3y ago
The hell happened with Murdock after Debian? His trajectory since he stepped down until his death seems quite erratic.
- layer8 3y ago
  How so? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Murdock#Life_and_career https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Murdock#Life_and_career
  - aleph_minus_one 3y ago
    See the next section: > https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ian_Murdock&oldid=1170695012#Death https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ian_Murdock&oldid...
    - layer8 3y ago
      I’m aware of the circumstances of his death. That doesn’t say anything about his trajectory since leaving Debian.
- FuriouslyAdrift 3y ago
  He started his own company in Indiana called Progeny (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progeny_Linux_Systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progeny_Linux_Systems). My old roomate ended up working there. That's were they tried to get network-of-workstations (NOW) going but it never really took off. That company sort of just ran out of steam (many linux companies did at that time) After that, I heard he was CTO of Sun. At that point his marriage had fallen apart and his drinking had become a problem (I got all this second hand through mutual friends). Everyone was shocked by the suicide and the events leading up. Seemed like he spiraled at the end.
lionkor 3y ago
Its rare that we read a piece of content on the internet from 1994! Thanks for sharing this, its older than me.
- FuriouslyAdrift 3y ago
  I still have fond memories of flame wars on alt.devil.bunnies and alt.pave.the.earth It was a different world. Full of hope and wonder at this new thing. Remember the first major browser wasn't out until '94. We were all playing with Mosaic from the NCSA (which us Purdue kids got to have a small hand in).
pjmlp 3y ago
With many other non-copyleft alternatives shaping up, and systems like ChromeOS and Android, with the Linux kernel and completely unrelated userspace, I firmly believe when our generation is gone, Linux won't stay around on its present form for much longer.
- hedora 3y ago
  I wonder if the end-game is a BSD, or some sort of hard fork of the Linux ecosystem. Ubuntu and RedHat basically don’t work by any of my definitions of “work”. They’re both enterprisey and bloated and flaky in all the ways Windows was in the 90’s, except they add flatpack/snap, letting each program be its own flaky OS install, compounding the problem. Want to save a file to ~? Read this 1000 page tome on the 21 successors to SEL first. Anyway, my current heuristic is that if it defaults to systemd or wayland, then I don’t want to use it. Debian was never the default for big sprawling corporations, so it’s not clear to me that just staying on the “suckless ethos” side of such an ecosystem fork would be that bad vs. Linux in its previous heyday.
  - 5pales 3y ago
    [dead]
  - starttoaster 3y ago
    Perhaps that is the end game for you. My intent isn’t to say this to stir heated discussion but people have different opinions on flatpak and snap, in fact I even like snap besides the fact that you have to use snap’s store (you can’t just start your own snap repository and configure your local snapd to install from it.) No complaints with systemd, and you can still easily swap to Xorg. No idea what you’re referring to with the trouble of saving a file to ~, perhaps that’s a RHEL thing (it’s been so long since I’ve used RHEL.) All in all, my intent is mostly just to say we’re not in consensus. I doubt a massive revolution is coming if your assumption is that it is because there’s some overwhelming majority with your opinions.
  - FuriouslyAdrift 3y ago
    Personally, I like the ideas of Fuschia OS but it's a long ways off from a general purpose OS. Still usable today, though, if you are willing to build the userland stuff you need yourself. Not a fan of Google, though. meh. https://fuchsia.dev/ https://fuchsia.dev/
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
gautamcgoel 3y ago
Can someone explain the controversy surrounding Bruce Perens? I never heard the story and Google isn't being helpful.
- ploum 3y ago
  I’m also interested by any source about that. I’m reading a lot about open source history and can’t find anything about that story (which seems quite important for those who want to understand Debian history)
- FuriouslyAdrift 3y ago
  Perens was fairly dictatorial. He also viewed the open source thing as more of a marketing tool than an ethos. That rubbed a lot of people in the groups the wrong way. He also was an effective project manager. Little column a, little column b.

BruceEel 3y ago

Thank you for sharing this, it all rings so true. Love Debian and still use it.

Maken 3y ago

The hell happened with Murdock after Debian? His trajectory since he stepped down until his death seems quite erratic.

layer8 3y ago
How so? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Murdock#Life_and_career https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Murdock#Life_and_career
- aleph_minus_one 3y ago
  See the next section: > https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ian_Murdock&oldid=1170695012#Death https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ian_Murdock&oldid...
  - layer8 3y ago
    I’m aware of the circumstances of his death. That doesn’t say anything about his trajectory since leaving Debian.
FuriouslyAdrift 3y ago
He started his own company in Indiana called Progeny (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progeny_Linux_Systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progeny_Linux_Systems). My old roomate ended up working there. That's were they tried to get network-of-workstations (NOW) going but it never really took off. That company sort of just ran out of steam (many linux companies did at that time) After that, I heard he was CTO of Sun. At that point his marriage had fallen apart and his drinking had become a problem (I got all this second hand through mutual friends). Everyone was shocked by the suicide and the events leading up. Seemed like he spiraled at the end.

lionkor 3y ago

Its rare that we read a piece of content on the internet from 1994! Thanks for sharing this, its older than me.

FuriouslyAdrift 3y ago
I still have fond memories of flame wars on alt.devil.bunnies and alt.pave.the.earth It was a different world. Full of hope and wonder at this new thing. Remember the first major browser wasn't out until '94. We were all playing with Mosaic from the NCSA (which us Purdue kids got to have a small hand in).

pjmlp 3y ago

With many other non-copyleft alternatives shaping up, and systems like ChromeOS and Android, with the Linux kernel and completely unrelated userspace, I firmly believe when our generation is gone, Linux won't stay around on its present form for much longer.

hedora 3y ago
I wonder if the end-game is a BSD, or some sort of hard fork of the Linux ecosystem. Ubuntu and RedHat basically don’t work by any of my definitions of “work”. They’re both enterprisey and bloated and flaky in all the ways Windows was in the 90’s, except they add flatpack/snap, letting each program be its own flaky OS install, compounding the problem. Want to save a file to ~? Read this 1000 page tome on the 21 successors to SEL first. Anyway, my current heuristic is that if it defaults to systemd or wayland, then I don’t want to use it. Debian was never the default for big sprawling corporations, so it’s not clear to me that just staying on the “suckless ethos” side of such an ecosystem fork would be that bad vs. Linux in its previous heyday.
- 5pales 3y ago
  [dead]
- starttoaster 3y ago
  Perhaps that is the end game for you. My intent isn’t to say this to stir heated discussion but people have different opinions on flatpak and snap, in fact I even like snap besides the fact that you have to use snap’s store (you can’t just start your own snap repository and configure your local snapd to install from it.) No complaints with systemd, and you can still easily swap to Xorg. No idea what you’re referring to with the trouble of saving a file to ~, perhaps that’s a RHEL thing (it’s been so long since I’ve used RHEL.) All in all, my intent is mostly just to say we’re not in consensus. I doubt a massive revolution is coming if your assumption is that it is because there’s some overwhelming majority with your opinions.
- FuriouslyAdrift 3y ago
  Personally, I like the ideas of Fuschia OS but it's a long ways off from a general purpose OS. Still usable today, though, if you are willing to build the userland stuff you need yourself. Not a fan of Google, though. meh. https://fuchsia.dev/ https://fuchsia.dev/

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

gautamcgoel 3y ago

Can someone explain the controversy surrounding Bruce Perens? I never heard the story and Google isn't being helpful.

ploum 3y ago
I’m also interested by any source about that. I’m reading a lot about open source history and can’t find anything about that story (which seems quite important for those who want to understand Debian history)
FuriouslyAdrift 3y ago
Perens was fairly dictatorial. He also viewed the open source thing as more of a marketing tool than an ethos. That rubbed a lot of people in the groups the wrong way. He also was an effective project manager. Little column a, little column b.