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Auto Accident at SANE Conference Kills One
Several people have submitted news from SANE 2004 that a car crash involving several Free Software developers has killed one and injured two others. Richard Stallman was in the car earlier but apparently had been dropped off prior to the accident.
My deepest sympathy to the family and friends of the loved one they lost.
Car accident details
There have been a bunch of rumours about a car accident involving some free software folks today. Since there seems to be no central place for all information I am trying to gather all information here.
If you have any other information please drop me an email at wichert@wiggy.net
All mentioned times are in CEST (UTC +0200).
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There has been a car accident returning from a trip to bring Richard
Stallman (RMS) from
SANE 2004 to Paris.
(confirmed by several sources)
-
they collided with a truck which merged onto their lane while
driving in fog (unconfirmed)
-
Exact time of the accident is unknown. It was on the
morning of September 30th before 09:00.
-
Richard Stallman was dropped off in Paris and no longer in the car
(confirmed by Rop and Richard).
-
At the time of the accident Hans Bakker (mclightje),
Edwin Hermans (madeddie), and
Sebastian S. (webmind) were in the car. (confirmed).
-
The car belongs to Rop Gonggrijp, who lent it to the travelers.
RMS was staying with Rop during SANE. (confirmed by Rop)
-
Hans Bakker (photo,
homepage)
did not survive the crash. (confirmed by girlfriend)
-
Edwin Hermans has a broken hip and has been transfered to a different
hospital for surgery. Sebastian is (or was by now) in surgery for
broken bones but is not in critical condition.
Bad information-
This Yahoo
France accident report is from another accident which occured
later and the car was traveling in the wrong direction
Press..and the first 3 posts I see are jokes about it.
Shit. I know one of those guys. It's messed up to read something like that on /.
Condolances to the family and friends of the individual killed. Good luck on a quick recovery to the injured individuals.
/. crowd that needs to try making a joke out of it (Gates/MS jokes), try and imagine if the individual who died was your father, or brother. If you can still make a joke about it, you're sick.
It's always sad when people die, but when they're connected to you in some way (even an abstract way), it hits a little harder. Any Christians (or other faiths, for that matter) should say a quick prayer for everyone involved.
As for the
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. --Winston Churchill
Yesterday I was demonstrating on the dam square in Amsterdam with some of the people involved. I want to express my deepest respect...
http://www.wiggy.net.nyud.net:8090/tmp/accident/
Never put RMS & Alan Cox & Linus in the very same car/plane or even building (just for sure ;-))). If you are paranoid it doesn't mean they aren't after you.
P.S.
Deepest condolences...
Please do not make any snarky comments about RMS getting out of the car before the accident. Regardless of your personal feelings, a person escaping potential serious injury or death should not be joke fodder - contrary to the first several posts.
Condolences to the family of the deceased.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
It's always tough to lose someone so young. May you find some peace in this time of sorrow.
Of course you should have heard about .
But anyway, this article isn't about him. Someone of our community just passed away, and we mourn him as one of us.
Also, John E. Mack was killed earlier this week after being hit by a drunk driver while crossing the street on foot.
Slashdot has a strange focus on issues of free software, an accident that killed one developer and could have potentially killed one of the founding fathers of the movement (Stallman aka Mr. GNU, Mr. GPL) makes it news. Even though Slashdot isn't generally an obituary site, I'd like to question why the person would have to be "important" for you to mourn them, a man with a girlfriend and a family passed away tragically. Do you need to know anymore to feel a pang of sorrow? Does he have to be a celebrity to make it important?
Sorry for the moral/ethical tirade, but maybe it'll give the moderators of this post and the poster himself something to think about.
Knowing hans since 1999 this is a real shock :( Condoleances to everybody who knew him :(
We'll miss you!
-- Cliff Albert
In addition to the other responses you'll get, please check out this thread. You'll notice that a handful of the posts are from people that knew these individuals, or had been around them within the past few days.
There's a good chance that 1 slashdot account will never be used again, which is a sad thing for us all. Not to mention that the individual that died wasn't just a member of the community, he was a contributor... something that makes him stand apart from most of us.
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. --Winston Churchill
The report says that the accident occured after dropping off Richard, this trip was specifically to bring him to Paris. I know in his place, I'd be blaming myself, that's my nature.
For what it's worth : It wasn't your fault Mr. Stallman, so don't blame yourself. And my sympathies to the families involved.
Seriously. Someone is dead. Two others are injured.
/.
People die every day. Seriously. Many of them children. Many of them after living lives of such desperate poverty that most of us cannot even imagine it except in vague abstract terms.
In my mind crocodile tears over people who you do not know, and whom you only care about because they're linked to a famous person are far more patronising and -frankly- downright insulting to the very real, very person suffering and grief that they are going through than if I had made a beowulf cluster of first post jokes about how the OSS movment will start wearing tin-foil hats and start looking for MS-assasins behind every grassy knoll.
Their suffering is real.
But your outrage is contrived and your "grief" is a grief of convience.
If Dick Stallman's name wasn't linked to this; no-one would give a shit --and that's the only reason this is on
Hans Bakker was the organizer of several NE2000 camps. Ne2000 is a yearly event where about 200 people show up with their tents/campers/caravans and plug into the network, it's a fairly open source oriented happening. I've seen and spoken Hans around there although I wasn't a close friend of him or anything. He has also participated in several open source projects.
The people involved in this car accident are all from the same fairly big group of "young" open source fans in The Netherlands that keep contact with each other over IRC and also IRL. Therefore I'm not surprised that this story was submitted by several readers. I hope this explains why it is important, I know I was shocked and saddened by the loss.
It's a good question, and I think the answer lies in how much of your life was tied up in the life of the other person.
." .....
For some insight into this you might want to read this extract of chapter 21 of "The Little Prince"
"What does that mean--tame?"
"It is an act too often neglected," said the fox. "It means to establish ties."
"To establish ties?"
"Just that," said the fox. "To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world . .
if you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all the others. Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music out of my burrow. And then look: you see the grain-fields down yonder? I do not eat bread. Wheat is of no use to me. The wheat fields have nothing to say to me. And that is sad. But you have hair that is the color of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat . . . "
The fox gazed at the little prince, for a long time. "Please--tame me!" he said.
You can read more at http://students.washington.edu/yana/LP.htm or various other locations shown by google
blog.sam.liddicott.com
For those of us who are not as religous:
Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome.
-Isaac Asimov
In this case his transition was swift and for that I am happy. My condolances to his family and the community for our loss.
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
It's a lovely poem, by Eden Philpotts. I think it makes a very appropriate dept.
GHOSTIES AT THE WEDDING.
Turn down a glass afore his place;
Draw up the dog-eared chair;
For though we shall not see his face,
I think he will be here
Our wedding day to share.
Turn up the glass where she would be
And put a red rose there.
Her quick, grey eyes we cannot see,
But weren't they everywhere,
And shall not they be here?
Though them old blids are in the grave
And their good light's gone out,
We'd sooner their kind ghosties have
Than all the living rout
As will be there no doubt.
For some are dead as cannot die.
Some flown as cannot flee.
You still do fancy 'em near by.
'Tis so with him and she,
At any rate to we.
"The Milliard Gargantubrain? A mere abacus - mention it not."
However, with all of the SUV bashing you see on this site, it should be mentioned that they are the safest vehicles on the road.
Bullshit.
While it's true that if you are in a huge SUV and hit a car, the SUV will come off better, the overall safety picture is not good for SUV drivers.
The additional mass also has downsides. In single vehicle accidents it's better to have less mass as there is less energy to dissipate. According to the NHTSA, single vehicle accidents accounted for only 18% of crashes, but 44% of fatalities.
Larger vehicles have longer stopping distances, increasing the likelyhood of a crash.
Also figures from the NHSTA show that SUV fatality rates are 11% higher than cars.
According to those statistics, the safest vehicles are minivans, with a fatality rate of 2.76 per billion miles travelled, 2nd were large cars, with a rate of 3.3 fatalities per billion miles. The largest SUV's came in 3rd with 3.79 fatalities per billion miles
time to adjust your review mirror methinks
But it's ok, as the Slashdot story states that Stallman wasn't killed. It's a sad world when a story tells me who wasn't killed and not who was (killed or injured). It's obvious that the poster thinks Stallman living is more important than someone dying. Shame on you!
fame != importance
I'm hoping that at least one of my friends or family can find the courage and heart to make a joke. Mind you, it should be made at the appropriate time. At the only funeral we went to, we talked a lot about my friend's life, and made quips about how "Adults Only Video" would probably go bankrupt without his business. He would have appreciated the joke... we made much the same remarks when he was with us.
Now, for people who don't really know the deceased to make such comments, it just isn't appropriate. It also depends on the character of the person involved in the tragedy. A joke should bring light smiles and help offer some balm to the wounds of those affected, not simply be the attention-seeking acts of immaturity we unfortunately tend to see online.
To state that "Richard Stallman was in the car earlier but apparently had been dropped off prior to the accident" is so incredibly RUDE and DISTASTEFUL and INSULTING, especially when the names of the dead and injured are left out. To even insinuate that we are all so lucky that Stallman wasn't hurt even tho these nameless folks got pasted infuriates me to no end. Heaps of SHAME and DISHONOR to the poster "michael" for his horrid thoughtlessness.
...has definitely lowered the discourse on Slashdot. 90% of the people who post just want to get modded to +5 funny. It would probably be better to retire the Funny modifier for a couple weeks so people can practice posting useful comments.
"... every live comes to an end, when time demands it. Loss of life is to be morned, but only if the life was wasted."
-Volcan Proverb
Hans Bakker's Life was not a waste. My sympathies.
We're quick to jump into camps here. There are the "ha ha, man fall down and die" nervous humor camp. Then there's the "don't make fun of death" camp. Still another camp comes in next to say "lighten up, people are coping in different ways"
Not many clue in to this pattern, even as they help to shape it. Go look at the stories from 9/11. Same threads, different (in some cases) posters. Slashdot is a COMMUNITY of people, not a uniform voice. I see people on all sides of every controversy here deriding the "slashdotters" or "slashbots" or whatever term they can think of. But, if you're posting here, THAT'S YOU you're talking about (hi, I'm in camp #4, good to meet you).
Some of us are flamers and trolls. Some of us are the innapropriate joke-makers. Some of us are suits with pointy hair. Some of us are late-night coders. And today, one of us is no more. If you're a regular, come in, sit down and have a drink. We'll toast the honored dead, maybe share a story or two, and the guy over in the corner will spout an embarassingly rude comment every few minutes. I just hope that when my time comes, he thinks of something really funny to say about me, and that (behind the masks of indignation), my friends smile just a little bit and remember me....
Peace and long life.
Troll -1, Here I Come!
Reading 100's of strangers passing their respect to yet somebody they've never met dieing gives me a funny feeling.
How many people die each day? And of those, how many lead sorrowfull lives, filled with pain and suffering? How many of you pay a thought to them, and of those of you who do, are you willing to take a large dent in your own wealth to help them? Are you willing to spare your own time?
Its a common fact that people really don't care about strangers, but this shirade of caring when the opportunity arises makes me want to puke.
(To those who knew the victims, apologies for ranting, this was certainly not directed at you)
"" How about taking the safety labels off everything, and let the stupidity-problem solve itself? """
I saw this accident scene this morning. Driving back from Paris to Brussels, there was a large traffic jam which took about 20 minutes to get through. The accident occured just after a rest stop, just after the point where the rest stop traffic merges back into the autoroute. Since its where I usually stop for a rest about an hour north of Paris, I can imagine they either stopped for a rest and were merging back onto the autoroute, or else they got caught in a bunch of trucks scooting around someone merging slowly. Lots of accidents happen at the far end of rest areas. It was pretty foggy this morning, its that season.
There was quite a bit of heavy equipment on the scene, a mobile crane on the slip road, and a bucket-crane truck with a dump truck picking up what was left of the one truck's load, it looked like scrap metal. There was the cab and remnants of a trailer, very shredded, on flatbed trucks on the slip road. There was obviously a fire, since parts of the guard rail were burned, and the asphalt was scorched. There were some Pompiers (firefighters) and about a dozen Gendarmes from the B.E.A (Bureau d'Enquetes Accidents) standing around, but they had obviously finished all of their report gathering by 10:30 AM when I passed.
I know Rop, and I've probably met the others at various linux/hac-tic/2600/CCC/EC patent protest events. My heart goes out to the families and loved ones of those involved, and here is wishes for a speedy recovery for the injured. This accident affects all of us in the techie, hacker-in-the-good-sense-of-the-word, and linux scenes here in Europe. Lets remember Hans for the good things he accomplished in his life.
the AC
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on