Debian Founder Threatens Suicide on Twitter, Reports Police Abuse, Allegedly

Any word on Ian Murdock, after the Twitter account thing??? His Twitter account has been deleted, leading me to think that the account was hacked,... But has anyone heard anything, one way or the other???

Yes: http://www.tuxmachines.org/node/84171

A major loss.

Not sure what is more infuriating about the whole thing, 4chan going "do it" or the "SJW"s getting hung up on his use of "nigger" in a single tweet.

Only two words come to my mind. Bizarre and tragic.

My prayers and condolences to his family and friends. He will be greatly missed by us all.

> A major loss.

Very much so. My prayers and condolences to his family.

According to The Register :

A spokesperson for Docker said it was a "private matter." Murdock's family has asked people to respect their privacy.

Conspiration theory : Given his position in the Linux ecosystem, his tweets mentioning suicide, the closing of his account, the cause of death being kept secret despite public information of huge distress : could it be he has been killed ? by secret services ? because he refused to play nice with the govt ? in whatever way with regards to the so widely used Debian ?

In any case, I address my prayers and condolences to his family too.

I don't think it's time to wear any tinfoil hats,... I think it more likely that his tweet about committing suicide was the real deal... If I have to speculate, it would be that alcohol/drugs/depression caused a major psychological incident. It's a shame,... He will be missed.

I think he should be remembered for the project he started, and that his death should be kept a mere footnote.

>> Any word on Ian Murdock, after the Twitter account thing???

At last count, I've seen a half-dozen LXer posts on Ian Murdock's death. Not to take away from Ian's enormous contributions to FOSS and Linux, but was he REALLY on the same level as Apple Inc's great co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs???

2c

for the FOSS community, absolutely!

what has steve jobs done for FOSS and Linux? nothing really that he wasn't forced to by copyright law. his death didn't affect me at all, and should hardly affect anyone in the FOSS community. Ian's death however has a profound impact. he was one of us. steve jobs wasn't. it is the first death in our community that truly affected me personally.

Ian, you will be missed!

greetings, eMBee.

> Not to take away from Ian's enormous contributions to FOSS and Linux, but was he REALLY on the same level as Apple Inc's great co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs???

Yes. Debian is one of the pillars of the Linux ecosystem (Slackware arguably being the other). Without Ian, there wouldn't be a Linux as we know it.