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RIP: Leonard Zubkoff

Posted by chrisd on from the we'll-miss-you-friend dept.

UnidentifiedCoward writes "LWN.net has a link to a blurb at KTVA, "Alaska State Troopers have recovered the bodies and released the names of two men killed late last week in a helicopter crash in Southeast. They are 38-year-old David Zampino of Fairbanks and 45-year-old Leonard Zubkoff of Crystal Bay, Nevada." Mr. Zubkoff was a linux kernel developer and the maintainer of BusLogic and DAC960 projects." Leonard was a hell of a nice guy and will be missed.

13 of 345 comments (clear)

  1. Once again... by A+Clockwork+Orange · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Another of the world's many reminders of how fragile life is.

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    Fare thee well, poor comment. For thou hast been cast out amongst wolves.
  2. The Amiga. by Troy+H+Parker · · Score: 4, Insightful

    As is often said when an Amiga user passes away, "The Amiga, it will outlive all of us."

  3. Two people died by Anonymous+DWord · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Leonard was a hell of a nice guy and will be missed.

    And David?

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    "If he thinks he can hide and run from the United States and our allies, he's sorely mistaken." Bush on bin Laden
    1. Re:Two people died by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      You people can be so insensitive. Don't you realize that even though someone used so-and-so operating system, his life still mattered as much as any other person. Learn to be a little bit more sensitive.

    2. Re:Two people died by matt-fu · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And David?

      Well, if you knew him, you should say something. If you didn't, it's kind of hard to say anything but "I'm sure David was a great guy too!" or "Any friend of a kernel developer is a friend of mine!"

    3. Re:Two people died by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      This is Slashdot. The home of the warped perspective and alien attitude. 'Nuff said.

    4. Re:Two people died by einhverfr · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Story:

      Leonard was a hell of a nice guy and will be missed.

      Reply:
      And David?

      Of course, but not on slashdot ;)

      Lets face it, Leonard was a part of our community, David to my knowledge was not. His communities will miss him too, but not on slashdot.

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      LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
  4. Re:Moment of Silence by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    I rely on his driver for all the data that matters to me. Picture of my son from birth to today and all the code I have written and kept in my years.

    I don't think you can give a better salute than that.

  5. Obit topic by autopr0n · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Slashdot seems to run a lot of obituaries. Perhaps there should be a topic for it.

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    autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
  6. One to Emulate by QuantumWeasel · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I will never forget how it felt to install Mr. Zubkoff's BusLogic drivers in a 2.0.8 kernel for the first time. Back then, the drivers hadn't yet made their way into Linus' tree. As a veteran of rolling my own kernel, having built X and gotten it up when that was still an accomplishment, and having bled on libc #defines, I settled in for major pain. But Mr. Zubkoff's driver dropped right in. Like butter. The nost seamless thing I'd ever seen. He will be missed, not only for great drivers but also for providing a model of how the Linux community could approach initially reluctant vendors for register-level APIs. Here's to you, sir!

  7. His Gods have him well by CTib · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Oh my, it is so freakingly painful to look at the web page of a dead person that, even while you didn't know it, took part at your life...

  8. The fuck is the matter with you people? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    So a guy gets killed in an accident, and so far about 75% of the posts to this story are racist, homophobic, anti-Linux trolls and comments to the effect of "He deserved it" or "I'll bet it was Microsoft." For a group of people that is supposed to be so intelligent (key word there is "supposed"), there are a lot of idiots reading Slashdot. If you don't have anything constructive to say, then either don't say it at all, or save it for the next evolution flamebait story.

    Yeah, I know .. you don't care. But I'll tell you this: One day, somebody you do care about will die, and I hope that your thoughts are preoccupied with the horrific things that you've posted to this story, and how terrible you behaved. Most /. readers are high school and college kids that wouldn't know the first thing about true loss. That will change with time.

  9. Power of Open Source (not flamebait or troll) by powerlinekid · · Score: 4, Insightful

    First of all my condolances to the loved ones of David and Leonard. I never knew either, but from the glowing comments I've read... I wish I had. Unfortunately shit happens. Its part of life. However even though Leonard has passed on, his legacy will be the code he has contributed to linux. From what I've understand that seems to be some extensive work on the scsi system which is no small task in its self. All of this makes me wonder, because of the freedom of his code... his work will live on through others, would this be the case in "non-OS" software? Say Company M has a programmer P who is chiefly responsible for widget W. Now say programmer P passes on and besides maybe a few people who understand the code, who works on W? But if P's work was done to be scrutinized by the masses, that work would continue on. I believe this is one important reason why information should be free. If something happens to the creator, their work can continue on if it has value to someone. It makes me wonder how many people had brilliant ideas, but closely guarded them to the point that they died with them.

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    can't sleep slashdot will eat me