Debian Linux founder Ian Murdock dead at 42

[rmstock]

Debian guru ... Ian Murdock
Debian Linux founder Ian Murdock dead at 42
Tributes pour in for open-source pioneer who had threatened to kill himself on Twitter
30 Dec 2015 at 19:29, Chris Williams
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/12/30/ian_murdock_debian_founder/

  "Debian GNU/Linux founder Ian Murdock has died. He was 42.
   
   Murdock is best known for launching the open-source distro in 1993.
   Just last month, he joined the technology startup Docker in San
   Francisco.
   
   On Monday afternoon, he posted a string of distressing and erratic
   tweets, revealing he had been arrested by police near his home in the
   city, and that he was accused of assaulting an officer. Murdock was
   also threatening to kill himself. After people reached out to him, he
   appeared to calm down, vowing instead to clear his name. Murdock died
   that evening. His Twitter account has since been disabled.
   
   "It is with great sadness that we inform you that Ian Murdock passed
   away on Monday night," Docker CEO Ben Golub confirmed today. He added:
   
       Ian was perhaps best known professionally as the founder of the
   Debian project, which he created while still a student at Purdue
   University, where he earned his bachelor's degree in computer science
   in 1996. Debian was one of the first Linux distros to be forged, and it
   is widely regarded as a one of the most successful open-source projects
   ever launched. Ian helped pioneer the notion of a truly open project
   and community, embracing open design and open contribution; in fact the
   formative document of the open source movement itself (the Open Source
   Definition) was originally a Debian position statement. It is a
   testament to Ian's commitment to openness and community that there are
   now more than 1,000 people currently involved in Debian development.
   
       In the past decade, Ian's contributions to the tech community
   continued, as CTO of the Linux Foundation, as a senior leader at Sun
   Microsystems (including serving as Chief architect of Project Indiana);
   and most recently as Vice President of Platforms at Indianapolis-based
   ExactTarget, which became part of Salesforce in 2012.
   
       We consider ourselves lucky to have known Ian and worked with him.
   He amazed everyone whom he worked with for the depth of his thinking,
   passion and experience. He was truly brilliant and an inspiration to
   many of us; his death is a loss to all whom he has known and touched.
   
   The free-software community was stunned by news of Murdock's death.
   
   "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," the Linux organization said in a statement.
   
   "Ian's dream has lived on, the Debian community remains incredibly
   active, with thousands of developers working untold hours to bring the
   world a reliable and secure operating system. The thoughts of the
   Debian Community are with Ian's family in this hard time."
   
   While Ian is the "ian" in Debian, "Deb" is Debra Lynn, Murdock's
   girlfriend while he was creating the project. They married in 1993, and
   divorced in 2008. It is understood Murdock was the father of two
   daughters and one son.
   
   The cause of death is not known at this stage, but it is not believed
   to be suspicious. A spokesperson for Docker said it was a "private
   matter."
   
   According to the San Francisco police, officers were called to Steiner
   and Union St in the city at 11.30pm on Saturday, December 26, following
   reports of a man trying to break into a home – that man was identified
   as Ian Murdock. He reportedly fought with the cops, and was given a
   ticket for two counts of assault and one for obstruction of an officer.
   The techie had been drinking, according to the police logs. A medic
   arrived to treat an abrasion to Murdock's forehead, and he was released
   so he could be taken to hospital.
   
   A few hours later, on Sunday, December 27 at 2.40am, police were called
   again to reports of Murdock banging on the door of a neighbor at the
   very same block. A medic arrived to treat him for any injuries.
   Officers then took Murdock to the county jail where he was held in a
   cell.
   
   Murdock was bailed later that day, on Sunday, after a bond, said to be
   $25,000, was paid. He died the next day.
   
   His family has asked people to respect their privacy during this
   difficult time. ®"

Salesforce To Buy ExactTarget For $2.5 Billion
By Bruce Upbin ,Forbes Staff  Jun 4, 2013 @ 08:35 AM 41,689 views
http://www.forbes.com/sites/bruceupbin/2013/06/04/salesforce-to-buy-exacttarget-for-2-5-billion/


Marc Beni-off, CEO of Salesforce.com (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
[The Bernie Mad-off from the CRM branch in ICT software]

  "Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has been acquisitive in the past but today
   he topped himself with the decision to spend $2.5 billion in cash to
   acquire all the outstanding shares of ExactTarget ET +%, an
   Indianapolis seller of marketing software. Salesforce
   is paying $33.75 for each share of ExactTarget, a 50% premium above
   yesterday's close of $22. Shares of ExactTarget moved up to the bid
   price in pre-market trading. Shares of Salesforce are up slightly.
   
   Salesforce began as a provider of sales-automation software delivered
   via the cloud, and built itself into the leadership position in that
   category, but in recent years it has been directing its investment
   dollars to tack on a range of marketing software. Billions of marketing
   dollars are shifting from print to digital media and the company often
   quotes research showing that chief marketing officers will be
   outspending chief information officers on technology by 2017. A year
   ago Benioff paid $689 million for Buddy Media, which helps marketers
   run social ad campaigns. A year before that it bought social media
   tracker Radian6 for $340 million.
   
   Like Salesforce, ExactTarget sells its software directly to marketing
   departments. Its customers include Nike, Coca-Cola KO -2.38% and Gap
   GPS -4.17% Inc., which use the software to plan and manage digital
   marketing campaigns and email and SMS communications.

[ Every Friday, after listening to the Alex Jones infowars
  radio show, Marc Benioff is riding shotgun as AJ has explained many
  times to him howto perform such an act. This to buildup and restrengthen
  renewed CRM relationships with his top-dog customers, like Nike and
  Coca-Cola. Thats what the old mobster bosses did, and today Benioff
  the CRM boss does the very same thing only by using different means.]

   The two companies are highly complementary. In a
   brief interview with executives this morning, Salesforce CEO Benioff
   described how Salesforce already handles sales support for the private
   wealth group at Bank of America BAC -6.25% as well as the bank's
   twitter site for customer support.
   ExactTarget manages push notifications for fraud alerts and balances
   for the bank. Says ExactTarget cofounder and CEO Scott Dorsey, "I feel
   so excited and have great admiration for Marc. In many ways we modeled
   ourselves after Salesforce and we built our business on it."
   
   ExactTarget competes most directly with companies such as Constant
   Contact CTCT +0.00%, MailChimp and Responsys. The company, started by
   three friends in
   2000 for an initial investment of $200,000, raised its 2013 revenue
   guidance to $379 million but missed its earnings guidance in the most
   recent quarter, an issue Salesforce flagged in the press release that
   went out with the deal announcement. The acquisition is expected to
   dilute Salesforce's earnings by 16 cents and add $120 million to $125
   million in revenue in its fiscal 2014, which closes July 31. The
   acquisition is a big win for venture firms Battery Ventures, Scale
   Ventures, Greenspring Associates and Technology Crossover Ventures, all
   of which contributed to a $145 million funding round in 2009. Another
   big shareholder is mutual fund giant Fidelity, which owned 13% of
   outstanding shares as of the April proxy filing. The founders over the
   years have had their stakes diluted to 3% or less, so no new
   billionaires minted here. The deal was approved unanimously by both
   companies' boards and is expected to close on July 31."

The mobster dude with zero programming skillz, like e.g. using BitCoin,
buys the Techie ExactTarget software house with $2.5 billion in cash
dollar notes. Debian founder and programming talent Ian Murdock never
saw the Mob enter his life.  Benioff, Jewish Mobster Tycoon,
allows Ian Murdock to enter his Salesforce Marketing Cloud, as Vice
President of Platform and Developer Community in June 2013. Then in
October 2015 Murdock is let go, and after joining the EU Docker#con in
Paris, a week after the Bataclan siege by Muoeslim terrorists, he joins
Docker and seems happy.  As an anonymous coward comment at TheRegister
already noted (of course meant as a satire) :

 

"In the small print

    Docker also announced that Ian would not be joining their main
    office just yet. He'll be in the unstable garage until he can
    compile on a Belgian translation running on IA-64 with no errors,
    followed by a six week waiting period. After that there will be
    some argument over if his paperwork is GNU compliant, so he'll be
    moved to an unofficial office across the river.
   
    When he's about 5 years past his prime, he'll finally be allowed
    into the main office. Don't worry, they have good first-aid, so
    they'll patch him up if he gets injured, though.
   
    (I kid, I kid, I remember waiting for potato to become stable...)"

Something went wrong for Ian Murdock, from leaving Salesforce and
joining Docker which was, as i sense, a natural response to a successful
presentation event, in a wave of enthusiasm, but also being sacked
by the Mobster boss from Salesforce. The last thing tweeted was that
the police was heisting Murdock for an amount of $25,000 . This was
of course a bogus reason as a shark tech company like Salesforce will
never allow a brilliant techie to walk with full functional brains
, thereby carrying the Salesforce keys to the CRM ICT Kingdom,
to a branch competitor in the Cloud Business.

Links and Notes :
https://web.archive.org/web/20151229024414/https:/twitter.com/imurdock

https://twitter.com/jacksormwriter

Linux container shop Docker.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/12/30/ian_murdock_debian_founder/

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/11/17/ian_murdock_joins_docker/?mt=1451582929346

https://archive.is/OPlI7

http://lwn.net/Articles/669668/

http://ianmurdock.com/post/how-i-came-to-find-linux/

http://ianmurdock.com/

http://pastebin.com/yk8bgru5

https://twitter.com/jacksormwriter

https://web.archive.org/web/20151229024414/https:/twitter.com/imurdock

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salesforce_Marketing_Cloud
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Benioff
http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/2013/09/18/salesforce-and-workday-crash-oracles-earnings-day/