A Requiem for Ian Murdock | Hacker News Reader

A Requiem for Ian Murdock

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411 pointshepha1979122 comments

Just one day ago I had no idea who Ian Murdock was. He's name was not known to me even though I used to develop commercial software that shipped his creation inside. Had used his creation as my operating system for years.

So thank you Ian Murdock for helping me professionally, economically and just making my life better. And here's to all those great minds that do wonderful things to help us all out, even though most do not know you at all.

Oddly enough, I was reading Ian Murdock's blog post about Linux history just before the holiday kicked in. I knew roughly who he was and what his contribution to Linux had been but I had not realised how much he had done since Debian.

> ArsTechnica investigation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10817913

A point of analysis for the inquiry: can Twitter make a full dump of tweets available to journalists and investigators? Historical data is available to organizations who pay for Twitter's full data feed subscription. Many people who write/tweet from a mobile phone will use auto-correct. There were unusual spelling errors in the recent batch of tweets. Were these spelling errors consistent with his past spelling errors? Did his past tweets have spelling errors, or did they include words which are typical of auto-correct (i.e. correctly spelled but wrong within tweet context)? Did the tweets originate from a mobile phone? Any clues from gait analysis of the phone's accelerometer?

If observers are going to use a few tweets as a proxy indicator of evidence for mental state, those tweets should be evaluated within the context of all prior pubic tweets, including a history (or not) of tweeting under the influence. Furthermore, did Ian reach out to other members of his large technology community on channels other than Twitter? Those communications could also be proxy indicators of his perceptions, wishes and intentions. He must have reached out in person and 1:1 for support.

The highest priority is to understand what Ian would want at this point, using all available recent/historical data from all available online and offline channels. This does not mean that all data must be public, only that Ian's trusted confidantes be the ones to review both private and public data, at an appropriate time. But all public data should be consolidated by capable journalists.

A carefully structured public/private analysis can inform our individual and collective response to future incidents. Such tragedies have happened enough times [1] that we need proactive and preventive cultural and data-driven guidance within the technology community, the same way that opsec has become critical to journalists.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Programmers_who_commi...

These are awesome and appropriate questions. I hope that such an investigation is conducted, and conducted thoroughly.

Well I think you may have defined what is a potentially awesome and scary product: mental state tracking over the life of a Twitter poster....

Make a bot that will analyses tweets over time and connect it with something like Talix.com's nlp medical coding ability...

Palantir may have this in their analysis toolbox. Will they offer an on-demand SaaS/cloud version? Imagine the feedback loops when applied to HN or other social poster history! Or in real-time analysis of draft comments.

And it is remarkably true that the Debian project is like a unicorn. Very few projects are truly a community effort, and at the same time truly democratic. Linux has a BDFL (Benevolent Dictator for Life) as Drupal, Wordpress and many other projects.

I didn't always agree with Ian, but he was one of those people for whom that would be a clue to revisit and reevaluate my own point of view. No nonsense, and the the wheels were always turning. Five levels deep and six steps ahead. Deep respect. RIP.

https://bits.debian.org/2015/12/mourning-ian-murdock.html

Debian page for Mr Murdock. Note the modified logo.

Here are his last tweets before being deleted: http://archive.is/4a138

Notice in his last distressed tweets above Ian specifically says:

"if anyone would post this to hacker news, I would appreciate it"

He was dead shortly after.

This reminds of a case a few months back, give or take, but I can't quite remember. Similar circumstance of altercations with police and then sudden suicide. Does anyone else recall?

Freddie Gray?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Freddie_Gray

Sandra Bland?

That was my first thought, too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Sandra_Bland

Elisa Lam?

My first distro was Corel Desktop Linux, based on Debian circa 2001. That started me on a path of exploration I've never left.

Now I wait for the rest of the story...

I have spent too long building software that is bent or rippled because I feel the need to deliver it for today.

It's a selfish decision, and is not a valid memoriam, but I intend to take a leaf out of Ian's book, and build software and communities for the long haul - how will this look in 12 months or 12 years, when today's pressures have vanished in the wind.

It's not much for someone who built so much, but it's all I have.

My Condolences. I just lear about Ian. Debian has been an essential tool for my research.

I never knew the origin of the ne Debian. RIP Ian and condolences to the family

Kind of disappointed that HN isn't putting a black top banner to show respect to Ian like they did with Steve Jobs and others. I've been using Debian for more than 15 years and it runs half of the web today, the International Space Station, Tesla motor vehicles and more. Ian's impact on the world and our community is simply incalculable. It also looks like he wanted to use his suicide to grab people's attention on the issues of police brutality, serving humanity even through his death. Thank you Ian.

Please, let's don't do this. Is it an Internet thing? "why hasn't Obama said anything yet?", "why did the Muslims not distance themselves?", "why is there a national holiday for x but not y".

Symbols are cheap, but not very important. Let's not make the absence of symbols into a huge thing. State your grieve, I'll grieve with you, but let's not get angry at other people who don't show their grieve the way you expected it.

Symbols are a powerful thing and are very important. ie: symbols are a big part of collective identity. Collective identity helps a mission.

The "collective identity" component of this comes from the group of HN readers collectively deciding to upvote this to the top story for an extended period of time. I'm not sure what would be added to that by a single admin making a decision by fiat.

It would add respect, status, etc.

No, you can't just say that without backing it up. The Guardian (good, left-leaning UK paper) can't go more than a few days without a deadline like "We're all [name of someone who just died and who you've never heard of and won't again] now" or whatever. People get forgotten and all that matters is how much people have changed reality whilst alive (or what impact they have after they're dead). Just printing their name or a little slogan or icon or whatever...it literally means nothing, either at the time its printed or afterwards.

Collective identity? We're all individuals.

From Wikipedia: "Collective identity is the shared sense of belonging to a group."

I guess some nights for some people who aren't part of a group can be very lonely.

I get the point about belonging but your comment reeks of dehumanization.

Join us or else....

That kind of attitude creates and/or enforces much of the negativity in this world such as the actions of cops alleged by Ian Murdock.

That statement was about collective identity. Everyone has a collective identity.

You are free to choose your own collective identity. Do whatever you want. If you say that you are not part of any collective identity, I'm not sure about that...

I try very hard to avoid any collective identity for myself, even to the extent where a lot of people would say "I am a [verb]er," I consciously prefer "I [verb]."

The collective identity mindset opens people up to manipulation, guilt by association, and undeserved praise by association (which sounds nice but can lead to poor decisions based on a distorted sense of self). Any benefits are comparatively small. You can still go [verb] with the [verb]ers without merging your identity and worldview with theirs.

There should be a Russel point just like there is a Godwin point.

It's only right to balance the availability of internet adage. Might as well call it Russell's Law.

Not angry, just disappointed. That's why I didn't demand that HN start showing the symbol.

Hopefully, they aren't working today either. With any luck, the people who could put a black banner have a chance to spend a couple days with friends or family to celebrate the new year.

Symbols are literally everywhere you look. The sentence you just read is nothing but a chain of symbols which got resolved to an overall concept. 2 + 2 = 4 means nothing except to a human.

You're right -- symbols are cheap. However, they're the very threads our world is weaved with. Off topic I know, but I always think it's important to keep in my mind.

A friend respond to the uproar (by some) after the recent Paris attacks that Facebook had not offered temporary logo profile picture for other recent atrocities: "Don't have a go at mourners in a funeral that they didn't go to other funerals."

It hit me very hard yesterday when I heard he passed as he was one of the really big contributors to the technology we are using now.

Even harder when I first read of the dubious circumstances regarding his twitter account.[0] Arstechnica started an Inquiry.[1]

[0]http://archive.is/OPlI7 [1]http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/12/ian-mu...

Agreed. I didn't see the black thick line on HN yesterday evening, but I was really expecting it to be there today. Its absence genuinely makes me sad.

Yes, the reactions on HN in general have been kind of underwhelming compared to Steve Jobs for reasons I can understand although for me Ian's death has hit harder than Steve's. My guess is that many here are young, mostly devs that have been using Mac all their dev life and before that windows. For the older folks who do dev ops or were around in the 90's and early 2000's and who cared about free software, Debian really had a huge impact on us and so we feel more sad about Ian's death than the rest.

I don't know. I'm only 26. Still it hit me harder than Jobs' death. I used to own a PowerBook in high school / first uni year. At that time I was already using Debian on my servers. Since then I also use it on my laptops.

I chose Debian because it is technically awesome, and also because it is politically awesome. Be it the Debian manifesto, Debian's social contract, Debian Free Software Guidelines, the way the Debian project is organized (e.g., the use of the Schulze/Condorcet method for electing the project leader), etc. All of this is the result of the work of the many people in the project/community that Murdock created with his ideals.

I thought that would count for something for everyone, especially among HN folks.

I worked closely with him at Progeny, and I've long admired Apple and Steve Jobs. Both deaths hit me pretty hard.

Ian reminded me a bit of Steve; he had a similar ability to look a few steps ahead, anticipate technology trends, and he was quite charismatic.

Orthogonal to the above: I remember when Ian first got an iPod and started downloading music from iTunes. He was astonished at the convenience. "How has no one done this before?" is nearly an exact quote.

Steve Jobs is more famous and thus known by more people. I use Apple products on a daily basis and I use Debian only once in a while. Yet I feel more sad about Ian's death.

And while many Mac users attribute their OS to Steve Jobs, I bet most Ubuntu users never heard about Ian (or Mark Shuttleworth for that matter).

Looking at the subthread spawned from this comment, I'm partial to flagging all of it. Some of your responders may end up later regretting the things they said.

Seriously, comparing two deaths like this is not a good idea, not when it's so fresh. Both Ian and Steve impacted the computing world in a huge, if different way, and both deaths are tragic. We've honored Steve Jobs then, this is the hour of honoring Ian Murdock. Black bar be damned.

We can sort out who did more for the world later.

Deleted comment

Read my second sentence, the one that starts with "My guess is that...". That's just a guess though.

The very glue within the majority of HNers' effort here is money. Jobs represented $$$$$, Ian's Debian is free.

lots of money has been made on top of debian.

The development community still respects FOSS.

Therefore, HN does not really represent the development community. More like javascript hipsters.

Please hang out here for a bit longer and get to know the place before deciding what community does HN represent.

I had been a lurker for ~2 years and a registered user for ~3 years, so about ~5 years in total. I don't believe that HN adequately represents either independent developers, non-corporate FOSS community or web developers ("JS hipsters").

My only problem with representation here is that if you have differing opinions than one of the other groups, you get downvoted into oblivion. Hell, saying anything that goes remotely against the tide gets you downvoted.

I can understand what he means though, because most people that downvote me are "JS hipsters." Since these people comment the most, they have the ability to control the conversation, and thus leave a larger visible proportion of representation.

Everyone has this policing tone, too, and it's obnoxious.

Nah, one has to learn to stop caring about downvotes that much. You can very well express contrarian views on HN, and yes, you sometimes have to pay the price in blood^H^H^H^H^Hkarma. Like with all worthy causes. What matters is that people will engage your argument constructively, if you write it in a substantial and civil way.

Case in point: only yesterday 'miguelrochefort had the guts to post advocating a completely contrarian view on privacy[0]. That particular comment, predictably, got downvoted, but it didn't stop a thoughtful discussion from spawning. As long as this happens, HN serves its purpose.

Also, how do you know that people who downvote you are "JS hipsters" and not someone else? :).

[0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=miguelrochefort

My ultimate paranoia is that they are part Lua hipster like me. My own kind downvoting me.

I can imagine. Getting into a disagreement about programming with another Lisper is something that would break my heart.

I had noticed also the top banner absence also, and agree that is missing.

Ok. Do not wait for others to change the things that you can change by yourself. Topcolor changed to 000000 in config. Annoying banner issue solved. This was the easy problem.

Agreed. If the black banner is going to be used, this is an appropriate time.

I agree. If this site is for 'hackers' or programmers, than it should get black banner.

But if this is site for investors that call programers hacks, then carry on.

Why do we keep losing all these good men at such young ages?

* Ian Murdock (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Murdock)

* Michael Hastings (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Hastings_%28journalist...)

* Aaron Swartz (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz)

A few days before Christmas, I was emailing a friend and wrote about how it seems like the odds of a liquidity event are about equal to the odds of having at least one founder try to commit suicide. That is likely an exaggeration, but like you, I feel like we are losing too many of our people.

I'm not qualified to speak to why. I have suffered and many of my issues were due to a bad combination of burnout and 'I'm killing it' culture. Simply, admitting weakness in our field feels career ending and so the tendency is to push through burnout and depression. But, I wonder if the fear of admitting weakness is endemic of our culture of if it just a symptom of the disease.

In light of my past, I have started emailing my friends, telling them that I care about them, and letting them know that if shit looks bad, they can tell me. They don't need to kill it, or be ultra successful. They just need to be.

I've also wondered if something like that could become sort of a volunteer organization. Kind of a founders helping founders organization??

I seem to remember reading about an organization whose aim is to help startup founders battling depression, but I cannot seem to find the reference. I did, however, come across this article from last year:

http://techcrunch.com/2014/07/30/founders-on-depression/

In any case, I believe those endeavoring on leading ambitious projects almost entirely on their own must have a strong personal circle of friends and colleagues that are always supportive and know how to encourage preventative measures. Easier said than done, but maybe providing incentives for startup founders and investors would be one way to encourage a program like this.

'founders helping founders'. Not to make fun of a terrible disease that is depression, but a better name must be made. It's is just SO techy sounding and first-world-problem-ish. I like the idea, but then again, not a soul on earth is making you be a 'founder' other than the one in the mirror.

Maybe go book a fly fishing trip in Montana?

I tossed 'founders helping founders' out to describe an idea. Don't worry, I haven't bought the domain yet...:)

Because people die.

"We" are probably not losing young people at any greater rate than the general population.

It would be interesting to see the rate of suicide (I'm not sure Ian's death is certain to be suicide yet, and I don't wish to speculate.) amongst tech-industry positions, and other industries as a whole, and whether the rate is increasing.

I've struggled recently with burnout, and add that to personal struggles such as relationships and friendships, I've been in a bad place more than once. Talking helps; though with Ian everything happened so quickly, and with Aaron also, the law was seemingly involved with both.

There must be FOI requests that can be made for this sort of data, and some analysis might indicate an underlying problem which could begin to be addressed.

I don't think you need FOI requests for this info. What you'll probably find is that occupations exposed to "seeing the worst" (doctor, soldier, cop), and those with rising rates of unemployment, have the most suicides.

Suicide statistics are tricky. What you do or don't count as a death by suicide isn't always obvious. And there's a bunch of data that isn't always collected, or has only just started to be collected. (Was the person gay? Were they trans?)

When we look at work we think that jobs affected by economic downturn are risky (builders, vets, farmers). We also think that some other jobs are risky because they provide access to means and methods (doctors, vets, farmers).

There are some risk factors for programmers: young; single; male; intelligent enough to research methods;

For England there are these sources:

Office of National Statistics.

these numbers are robust, and good quality. They very clearly define what they do count as suicide and what they don't count. They also clearly define how they define the year - the year of registration, which may not be the year the death happened.

Searching for suicide returns a lot of information, some of which is provided under FOI request.

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/search/index.html?newquery=suicide

Suicides in the UK (2013 registrations) http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/subnational-health4/suicides-i...

Suicides in the UK (2012 registrations): http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/subnational-health4/suicides-i...

National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Homicide by People with Mental Illness

http://www.bbmh.manchester.ac.uk/cmhs/research/centreforsuic...

There's also information available from Public Health England.

http://fingertips.phe.org.uk/profile-group/mental-health/pro...

http://www.phoutcomes.info/public-health-outcomes-framework#...

EDIT: Here's the link to the CDC stuff: http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/suicide/statistics/

http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/suicide/definitions.ht...

This also reminds me of Luke Arduini, who took his own life by jumping off the Golden Gate bridge on January 1st 2014. Yahoo even hired a private investigator to find him. He also left (in hindsight unsettling) tweets shortly before his death.

In case someone is interested in the background story:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7048249

https://twitter.com/luk

https://the-pastry-box-project.net/charlie-robbins/2014-sept...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2536683/Yahoo-hires-...

Wikipedia has an index of programmers who were reported to have committed suicide, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Programmers_who_commi...

People die. We don't have forever. Make use of it. These gentlemen did.

* Ilya Zhitomirski

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