Sadly, I read today that Ian Murdock, the “Ian” in Debian, died on Monday, 28 December 2015. He was only 42 years old. Various reports indicate that he had been distressed for some time before his death. The tweets reportedly from Murdock’s twitter account shortly before his death are very disturbing.
Murdock’s contribution to the FLOSS community was immense. The operating system he created with “Deb”, Debra Lynn, his then girlfriend, is the foundation upon which much of today’s internet infrastructure is built. Ubuntu, one of the most popular desktop linux distros, is itself built upon debian. This blog, and all of my web, mail and other servers is built upon debian. His legacy will endure.
Murdock left a wife and two young children. He died much, much, too young.