NEWS has come out that Ian Murdock is dead. Assuming the most likely explanation for this, abuse by the police had a lot to do with it. Among the latest articles about it we have:
A big story getting a little attention today was the shocking news of Debian founder Ian Murdock's desperation at the hands of law enforcement. Much of the story is unknown, but Murdock was on the verge of suicide Monday evening. In other news, Brian Fagioli reported that the System76 Oryx Pro is the gaming machine of your dreams and Matt Hartley thinks he knows where Ubuntu went wrong.
It is with great sadness that we inform you that Ian Murdock passed away on Monday night. This is a tragic loss for his family, for the Docker community, and the broader open source world; we all mourn his passing. To Ian’s children, family and loved ones, we offer our full support and deepest sympathies.
Docker today announced that Ian Murdock, a member of the startup’s technical staff and a former Sun and Salesforce employee known for founding the Debian Linux operating system, has passed away. He was 42.
A cause of death was not provided in the blog post announcing the news. Docker declined to comment. The San Francisco Police Department did not immediately have information on Murdock’s cause of death.
Murdock’s Twitter account posted several tweets (PDF) on Monday that suggested he had been involved in an incident involving police, and one tweet said that he would commit suicide that night. Some people speculated that his account had been hacked. It has since been deleted.
The cause of death is unclear at present, but Murdock tweeted the same day that he would commit suicide that night. His Twitter account had since been deleted.
On Monday via Twitter he was threatening suicide over alleged police abuse in California. His Twitter account has since been removed. Other information about his suicide or alleged police detention and abuse has yet to be made public.
With a heavy heart Debian mourns the passing of Ian Murdock, stalwart proponent of Free Open Source Software, Father, Son, and the 'ian' in Debian.
Ian started the Debian project in August of 1993, releasing the first versions of Debian later that same year. Debian would go on to become the world's Universal Operating System, running on everything from embedded devices to the space station.
Debian GNU/Linux founder Ian Murdock has died.
Murdock, who lived in San Francisco, founded the open-source distro in 1993, and just recently started working for Docker in the city.
"It is with great sadness that we inform you that Ian Murdock passed away on Monday night," Docker CEO Ben Golub blogged a few moments ago on Wednesday.
