Debian Founder Ian Murdock Has Died (docker.com)

Unknown Lamer writes: It has been confirmed that Debian founder Ian Murdock has died. From the Docker blog: "It is with great sadness that we inform you that Ian Murdock passed away on Monday night. This is a tragic loss for his family, for the Docker community, and the broader open source world; we all mourn his passing. ... 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."

Comments

Whoa

[Anonymous Coward]

So all the race baiting about police brutality and how nobody believed him because he was white (and not a "n*gger" - his words) leading to a massively publicized suicide-note-rant-against-the-police on his twitter, that was actually covered on a similar website to this one, was legit? And nobody stepped in or did a gd*** thing?

Re:Whoa

[wonkey_monkey]

So all the race baiting about police brutality and how nobody believed him because he was white (and not a "n*gger" - his words) leading to a massively publicized suicide-note-rant-against-the-police on his twitter, that was actually covered on a similar website to this one, was legit?

What do you mean by "legit"? Are you asking if he actually said it, or are you asking if what he said was a resaonable description of actual events?

Re:Whoa

[HarrySquatter]

It was in response to people trying to claim previously that Ian's Twitter was hacked after he started threatening suicide and posting racist shit.

Re:Whoa

[shadowknot]

I think OP is referring to the speculation that Ian's Twitter may have been compromised and that it wasn't him who was posting the seemingly out of character tweets.

Re:Whoa

[Anonymous Coward]

And now it's being covered up. His twitter account is gone, and his blog has been scrubbed clean. The discussion he wanted to grow out of this won't happen, because some people find the subject too embarrassing. It's fucking tragic.

Re:Whoa

[Anonymous Coward]

And now it's being covered up. His twitter account is gone, and his blog has been scrubbed clean. The discussion he wanted to grow out of this won't happen, because some people find the subject too embarrassing. It's fucking tragic.

Tragic, indeed - I posted to an LMDE forum two days ago asking if anyone could confirm/deny that the twitter postings were indeed made by Ian. I noticed, after checking back today, that my post and any possible answers or comment had been removed by the moderator. I didn't even get a private message explaining why. Now that we know that he has died, and that the postings may well have originated from Murdock, any speculations have been removed. I didn't read anything racist at all in the tweets, though I certainly thought they were out of character for the easygoing, intelligent style his public posts generally possessed. I think he, like a lot of other folks these days, was concerned about out-of-control police in the US. Police have probably been getting away with this sort of stuff for a long time, but with the advent of social media and smart phone photography, they're being exposed for who they truly are. Anyway, I suspect that once the truth surrounding his death comes out, the censoring will have to cease. He was too large a personality in the Linux and software communities to be ignored. R.I.P., Ian Murdock. You were a class act.

Re:Whoa

[Anonymous Coward]

Whereas you are frantically posting here trying to defame a dead man who was violently attacked by the police before committing suicide.

You are a bad person.

Re:Whoa

[rubycodez]

racist shit?

the use of the word "nigger" in that last tweet could just be emphasizing the point of view that many have that police brutality against blacks doesn't matter.

plenty of people use the word "nigger" in contexts without any racial hatred.

Re:Whoa

[Hognoxious]

Or they were too busy trying to get systemd to work.

Re:Whoa

[Hognoxious]

If songs count there's Bob Dylan & Elvis Costello.

Re:Whoa

[whoever57]

How is it that he wasn't on a 5150 hold? If the police know that you threatened suicide, they are going to be knocking on your door, wanting to haul you away to be supervised in a suitable location (hospital).

When are the ****ing /. developers going to fix the problem that logs me out between opening a window to write a post and submitting it?

Re: Whoa

[demented_hedgehog]

No it doesn't, e.g.

Black people in the United States used to be called niggers. Originally from the latin "niger" for black. It's use is considered highly offensive.

Also why is it only white people who aren't allowed to use the word?

As a liberal I do think someone's right to use slurs is more important than those who are hurt by it. I regard your comment as offensive. I'm not going to run off to the court of popular opinion to try and whip up a witch hunt. We're grown ups now. If you don't like what someone is saying I suggest you: (optionally) politely point out to them what they've said that offended you and why, and then move on. The right to freedom is (in my humble opinion) more important than protecting people from being offended (because there's no line in the sand which you can draw where no one will be offended it just keeps moving). it never ends. We just keep restricting what can be said.

The word nigger has highly pejorative overtones. I suggest to anyone reading this that they not use it just as a matter of common courtesy. I strongly believe people should be allowed to use it however.

Re: Whoa

[imboboage0]

What the fuck does being white have to do with it?

Re: Whoa

[Fwipp]

"Allowed to"

bud, I hate to tell you this, but you certainly are "allowed to" be vile and say it as often as you like. The rest of us are also "allowed to" find you reprehensible for doing so!

The KKK still exists, as do many neo-nazi groups, and they haven't been arrested. Go join them if you wanna be gross to black people, they'll be happy to have you. But you might not be welcome at thanksgiving dinner anymore.

Your whole bit here is "I should be allowed to be caustic and intentionally inflammatory without anyone telling me I'm bad."

Society has been very clear that using that word, as a white person, is not okay. To choose to use it anyway, and then act surprised when you're called on it, is just ridiculous. Nobody is fooled.

Re: Whoa

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong, the slave trade supply was mostly black people capturing other blacks and then selling them to whites for shipment, or to whites after shipment. Look it up, slavery made possible by blacks. All races have practiced slavery. And whom is the largest group that murders, steals, rapes from blacks at the present? answer, other blacks -- rubycodez

Re: Whoa

[rubycodez]

Wrong, you only show how tiny your mind is. Words have context, people have motives and reasons for the words they use. No one has to live by your silly childish notions when having adult conversation.

Re:Whoa

[unencode200x]

Screen shots of the his Twitter account are here: https://img.sauf.ca/pictures/2...

Re:Whoa

[unencode200x]

I have no knowledge about the case or anything like that. Assuming his Tweets were real, I'd speculate that the police collected as much evidence as they could and asked people to take things like your post down. Or perhaps it's his family doing it.

Re: Whoa

[nobodie]

The history is deeper than this. Slavery in the new world was entirely different from slavery around the Mediterraean or in Asia and the Middle East. There were slaves in England, but they were called "Indentured Servants" and signed agreements to a limited time slavery. This was fairly common around the world. If your luck turned very bad it was an option that could save your life.
But new world slavery, that was entirely different. There was no agreement between the parties. There was a racial element that did not exist in the rest of the slave trade. In fact, the word "slave comes from "Slav" in other words Slavic people! They hit on hard times during the middle ages and sold themselves as slaves all over the world, and were white. Other differences: your children were born into slavery in the new world, but not in most other versions of slavery. Your marrieage was not legal, you could not educate yourself, or be educated by your owner in the new world. All of this marked a new kind of slavery that was easy to distinguish because of race.
So, that old argument, often used by racists and repeated but others who don't have all the facts (like me when I was young and unschooled in the world) can should be put to rest by the members of slashdot.

Re: Whoa

[demented_hedgehog]

You don't want anyone being vile but if they are you're going to be vile to them? I don't follow the logic. Your problem is that people are vile and your solution is to be vile as well? As soon as one person is vile everyone gets to be? Your train of thought is reminiscent to me of people who kill abortion doctors to save lives.

Re: Whoa

[demented_hedgehog]

Also is there any need for the false camaraderie.. "bud"? and the KKK comments. All I'm saying is that people should be allowed to express their thoughts and if you disagree the appropriate response is not to call them names but to argue the point. And your response to that is to denigrate me. I don't think your behaviour is any better than the people you are attacking.

As far as "society" is concerned I think that it is a made up thing that you and your friends have invented so that you can make arguments based on an appeal to authority. Why do you get to decide what society thinks? To quote Margaret Thatcher "There is no such thing as society: there are individual men and women, and there are families."

Re: Whoa

[demented_hedgehog]

Liberalism, is a political philosophy or worldview founded on ideas of liberty and equality. (from wikipedia)

. I might argue that the idea of being a liberal subsumes the right to freedom of speech. I'm not going to, however, as it's an extremely broad term by the looks of it. You're quite right. I should have said libertarian - my intent would have been far clearer.

Dat's racist

[HarrySquatter]

And what great parting words he left for us:

Maybe my suicide at this, you now, a successful business man, not a NIGGER, will finally bring some attention to this very serious issue.

Re:Dat's racist

[Anonymous Coward]

You have to be in a seriously fucked up place in your head to commit suicide in the first place. Completely out of character twitter posts are not the strangest thing that suicidal people do. Though the posts are fucked up, I'm willing to cut a little slack given the mental state he would have had to be in to do this. It's not the best way to go out but, suicide never is.

Re:Dat's racist

[Anonymous Coward]

And what great parting words he left for us:

Maybe my suicide at this, you now, a successful business man, not a NIGGER, will finally bring some attention to this very serious issue.

There are very few situations under which I'd condone the use of that word. This is in the grey area. What he meant in the context of his suicide (on which he blames, in large part, his mistreatment by the SFPD) was that we're a sufficiently fucked-up society that we ignore police brutality against poors and minorities, and maybe now we'll start paying attention when we realize that even the wealthy have something to fear.

That's not an endorsement of privilege, it's a refutation of it. Niemoller wasn't fascist or anti-semitic for saying "First they came for the Socialists / Trade Unionists / Jews ..." his point was that sooner or later, they'll come for you.

Ian chose his words poorly and under great emotional strain. But his point remains: if you ignore police misconduct when it's only happening to a group you consider "the other," pretty soon you'll find "the other" expands to include a group you do care about.

Re:Dat's racist

[dos1]

Great job at posting stuff out of context.

What he said was among the lines of "look, now it's happening also for a successful white man, you cannot ignore it like you did when they were beating up NIGGERS".

That's more like "stop belittling the problem with your racism, it's not about who is being beaten, it's about police". Of course given his situation, he was more focused on trying to show the police abuse than fighting the racism and without all these sudden emotions you would definitely find better words to use, but saying that he was racist in those posts is MASSIVE misinterpretation and cruelty.

Re:Dat's racist

[Anonymous Coward]

"You have to be in a seriously fucked up place in your head to commit suicide in the first place."

And you know so much about suicide? How?
Where did you get your M.D.?
Where did you get your Ph.D.?
Where did you get your Psy.D.?

Suicide, for some people, is a rational choice based on the information that they have at hand.
To label all suicides as "...seriously fucked up..." shows not only a tremendous lack of understanding and experience with suicide but a Great Bigotry toward people who attempt or commit suicide. The reason more people don't seek help is the unrealistic expectations and stereotyping from people like you.

You should be Ashamed at yourself!

Re:Dat's racist

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not racist, you fool.

I don't know his reasons and suicide is not the answer. But who knows what kind of persecution he was suffering. We will find out, and there is little more that we'll be able to do, like in Aaron's case.

But as I understand he wants exactly to say this is not a racial problem. He's outside the category of negros who are more commonly slain (in my country, too) and he's acknowledging a problem that affects all of us. Alas, it's very unfortunate to claim he's a racist, because that is part of the problem. Until we attribute the problem to the victim being negro or jew, nothing will be done. If someone is killed while being human, that should affect me -- whatever color I have.

Whoever talks about racism (and also systemd, BTW) is just a sad opportunist. Even if Ian was a racist (highly improbable, me thinks), that phrase above is not a racist one. Don't shout racism every time you read nigger, or we won't be able to sort this out.

Re:Dat's racist

[Vapula]

And that word has been used in an "anti-racist" way...

I read his comment "until now, people complaining were discarded as "niggers" but here, it's not the same so it can't be discarded that way", putting the "nigger" word in the mouth of the protagonists.

Re:Dat's racist

[squiggleslash]

FWIW, in context, he was (after implying he had a fairly substantial confrontation with the SFPD) saying that police misbehavior might be taken more seriously now that a successful white male, rather than black person, was the victim of it.

It's poor wording, but I don't think the choice of word there was meant maliciously or in any racist sense, rather than a comment upon the SFPD's and general publics perceptions of whose word is worth taking seriously.

Re:Dat's racist

[Lord Kano]

I'm in the western hemisphere.

LK

Re:Dat's racist

[Lord Kano]

And in what way does that equate to institutional racism?

Re:Dat's racist

[IMightB]

If you bother to read and think a bit instead of going off in some kneejerk reaction. It appears he had some sort of altercation with the police where he receieved a righteous ass whuppin. Then was charged for assaulting the cops. When he got home, he claims they kicked his ass again and had to go to the hospital for stitches.

If you read his last comment and *try* to put even a little bit of context around it, it appears that he felt that he was trying to say something like "it doesn't just happen to black people" it happened to me. etc etc etc

Re:Dat's racist

[Anonymous Coward]

Suicide IS irrational, unless you are going to include selfless acts of heroism, i.e. throwing your body on a grenade to save everybody else in range

Suicide is a response to short-term hardships which the person does not want to/know how to deal with.

It is a tragedy that he did not know how to deal with the situation that he got himself into, and a tragedy that he did not have faith in his ability to outlast any bad outcome that he was facing

Re:Dat's racist

[Kjella]

What he said was among the lines of "look, now it's happening also for a successful white man, you cannot ignore it like you did when they were beating up NIGGERS".

That part was clear... but what was less than stellar clear is if it was "You think you can beat me up the way you beat up NIGGERS? I'm going to raise hell." or "You think you can beat up people, but now you picked on a person who is not a NIGGER and can raise hell."

Re: Dat's racist

[LesFerg]

Not immediate death... They deserve the chance to learn that they were raised by and/or among ignorant people. Older generations maybe cannot be expected to change the racist views they were imprinted with, but younger people in this bigger more communicative world should be expected to see beyond that crap, and also be able to see that people of any race can be an arsehole.

Re:Dat's racist

[Anonymous Coward]

It's quite obvious when you read the rest of his feed from that night that he is claiming the police and the apathetic public are the racists. Even in that quote alone, addressed to a reader who presumably doesn't care about brutality when it happens to black people, as most middle-class whites feel. You idiots seem to think any use of the word 'nigger' is an ultimate condemnation, as if the meaning of words is innate to their very letters, instead of being determined in relation to the rest of their contacts. Your motivation for doing so is highly questionable considering that Murdock was beaten by police, twice, and then fucking killed himself in protest against them. If you can only conclude 'racism' from this tragedy, then bad news for you: you're the racist.

Re:Dat's racist

[bytesex]

Wait. Is that real? Is that really his twitter account (and not some impersonator, like what happens quite often actually)?

Re:Dat's racist

[mark-t]

You touch on one right idea, that it can be caused by a hardship that the person does not know how to deal with, but gloss over it by suggesting that this should be considered synonymous with does not *want* to deal with the problem. It is not inconceivable that the hardship at hand has been quite thoroughly rationally analyzed, and living through it, perhaps because it is not so terribly short term at all, simply would make every conscious moment nothing but a burden. Death represents freedom from that. It may be seen as the easy way out, but in some all-too real cases it is the *only* way out. Suicide merely expedites the process.

Re: Dat's racist

[Anonymous Coward]

What if it's a long term state the person committing suicide is reacting to? Say they tracked their desire to be alive on a daily basis for years and it was 80/20 against. Would it be rational then?

Re:Dat's racist

[Orgasmatron]

Wrong on two counts.

1) He is not attributing it to the police, but to us, his audience. Or to "the American people" or most broadly speaking, "everyone". His intended scope is not clear here because this clause is written in the passive voice with no explicit owner. "bring attention to this issue" - Whose attention? Dunno.

2) There is no perception that black people are 'niggers' in this sentence. The perception (our perception) is that police violence isn't important (to us) because it is happening to 'niggers'.

(Note that I'm not making any claims beyond the meaning of the sentence as written.)

Re: Dat's racist

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah the difference is you're weaponizing the phrases of racism in order to otherize your opposition while being immune to such claims yourself.

Not a single person who says racism requires institutions of power is doing so to bring greater specification to a matter saturated in ambiguity, they are, and you are, making the discussion worse by trying to silence your opposition by ad hominem.

Tell me, what's my moral imperative to oppose ethnic oppression? If you're one of the many morally retarded (and this is a crucial word, for though I am contemptuous of the roots of political correctness I appreciate and support an increase in compassion,) for lack of a better word, not only by literal definition but the visceral connotation accompanying it. The morally retarded who believe in imperatives but have no codified ethos and indeed even explicitly espouse consequentialist ethics while unironically demanding deontological treatments and all the while never establishing the source of their moral authority.

So what's my moral imperative? If I follow deontology, the ideological roots of these movements are gutted, while if I follow consequentialism I don't have any obligation except to identify what ultimately does the most useful thing for humanity, regardless of how many it maims or kills along the way.

Re:Dat's racist

[Anonymous Coward]

'Want' has a lot to do with it, but in many cases, such as crippling illness, wanting to end your life is not considered suicide

The range of behavior that I was referring to was, I do not want to spend the next 20 years in jail, I do not want to face the consequences of my actions, I do not want to live without my 'name of addiction here'

There are plenty of examples of people who have survived, even succeeded in each of those cases in the second set, and certainly at least as many who have followed not wanting to deal with it and ending their life with suicide

It may be quibbling, but in the first case it is euthanasia, in the second suicide

fwiw, 'Death represents freedom from that' is much more of a statement of belief than of fact

Re:Dat's racist

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm guessing that it's because the police stripped him and then raped him.

Now in my mind this means they forcefully used a baton and inserted it somewhere a baton should never be inserted.

This incident is going to explode in a massive way

Re:Dat's racist

[Darinbob]

Ask the people in Rwanda if that's true or not.

Re:Dat's racist

[mars-nl]

Thanks for saying this.

Re:Dat's racist

[KGIII]

No, Black people can have institutionalized racism. Just not in your location. By the way, as I've said before and my hair indicates, I'm part black. If you don't believe that black people can effect institutionalized racism then I'd encourage you to step out of your bubble and visit somewhere that has black people as the majority. South Africa would be a great place to get some experience, perhaps Nigeria, Somalia, Ghana, or Senegal will help you understand it.

The willful, it can be nothing less, ignorance expressed by some people just astonishes me. Any *people* can be racist, in congregation or individually. They don't even have to be in power to be racist. There's a dictionary available for free and online. I'd suggest using Oxford or M-W. There's a whole host of history and current events reading to be had - you can select your site(s) as you wish but I'd suggest a broad source to ensure you get a better picture as everyone is biased.

To think that there are no areas with institutionalized racism that elevates black people is absolutely silly. I'm not sure if you're a troll or just haven't actually stepped outside of your bubble so I'm trying, really hard, to give you the benefit of doubt. We'll see, should you choose to respond.

That said; Does anyone know if there's something to be done to help his family in their time of sorrow? I'm not sure that it is needed but I can toss a few bucks at them.

On a personal note; I did not find his usage of the word "nigger" to be offensive. It looked, to me, as if it was intended to shock people into noticing that even white people can be subjected to abuses by authorities and that there's no reason to believe you're immune because you are not black. If anything, and this is just from a few prior contacts, I'd expect that he's purposely doing so in order to bring attention to the matter.

And, in closing, it's disappointing to see the moralizing by the feelings police on the subject of suicide. You have a right to life, the opposite is also be true. One should be able to do so in a dignified manner and not need to resort to methods that may not succeed and may leave one severely handicapped. Because one should have a right to end their own life, I strongly support something known as PAS (Physician Assisted Suicide). Not allowing people to control their life is the ultimate reduction of liberty. Had policies been in place to allow one to peacefully go with minimal pain and with respect then, perhaps, this sort of thing could have gone much better.

Re:Dat's racist

[KGIII]

Yeah, that's how I read it. However, I spent about an hour catching up and reading a few other things before I felt like I had enough information to actually opine in this thread. I've also had personal interactions with Ian and have found him insightful and intelligent. We never met in person - our communication was via email.

My reading is that it was an attempt to open the dialogue and things went steadily downhill from there. Well, things were already going downhill at that point. As mentioned above, I'm partially black and not even remotely offended by the word in the way that it was used. Then again, I'm not actually offended by words - only deeds. Words don't offend me one bit, how they're said may.

Unfortunately, this will be maligned to make all sorts of conclusive statements, probably none of which were the intended statement, and nothing will change. It looked to be a cry for notice - that the police are abusive authoritarians with far more power than they should have. It looked to be an attempt to say, "I'm not even a nigger, it happened to me!" Could it have been better said? I don't know - would it have carried the weight?

That said, hopefully more and more people will start to get the opportunity to notice. We've got someone up thread who's claiming black people can't be racists, they even claim they can't have institutionalized racism. We've got people claiming that the account was hacked. We've got people thinking that the guy's a racist and are hell bent on social justice. We've got others who are saying that it's about time the stupid fuck learned that niggers were evil. So, I'm pretty sure nothing will happen and that nothing good will come of this.

It's unfortunate. It is what it is.

Re:Dat's racist

[mark-t]

Do you seriously think that 20 years is "short term"?

Re:Dat's racist

[KGIII]

Machine translation butchers the hell out of that:
Hate easily a collective or a particular person, and hate you rather be alone or collectively?

I'm otherwise entirely unfamiliar with it. Do you have a paraphrase or more enlightening translation for me?

Re:Dat's racist

[mark-t]

I make no argument to the morality of it, I only dispute the notion that suicide induced by hardship is necessarily an irrational act.

Re:Dat's racist

[Pseudonym]

Yeah, I thought the same thing. You can interpret his use of the word as putting words in the mouth of someone who dismisses the issue of police violence because "well, it's only happening to [insert terms of racial abuse here], so who cares". When you only have 140 characters, that's a very powerful way of putting it.

Re: Dat's racist

[Lord Kano]

Bet you live in the West or North or The Great Canadia.

Pennsylvania.

It must be nice to live in your sheltered little lily white world where black people are as rare as unicorns and you can set them up on a pedestal.

No... I'm black. In America.

But the rest of us live in actual reality, the one where black people are people are actual, real people in our lives - meaning that they are burdened with the same buckets of prejudices and racism and shitty attitudes and beliefs that every other fucking human being on this planet has.

I have never denied that there are racist black people. My first post on this topic conceded that there are. My point is that there aren't enough black people in this society to engage in institutional racism.

Yes, an individual cop may hassle you because you're white. His partner may turn and look away because he assumes the worst of you too. Even under the worse of circumstances, you're not going to face two racist black cops who can kill you at will and with impunity because the majority of society will assume that you were a dangerous criminal because of the color of your skin. If they arrest you on a bogus charge, you will not face a prosecutor and judge who are predisposed to assume that you're guilty because of the color of your skin. You're most likely not going to face a jury pool that is made up of people who not only are not members of your racial group but harbor preconceived notions about you based on the color of your skin. The trial will not be covered by news media who make their money by playing to black-held stereotypes about white criminality.

LK

Re:Dat's racist

[Lord Kano]

I originally posted this in reply to another comment but it applies to yours as well, so I'll duplicate it here:

Yes, an individual cop may hassle you because you're white. His partner may turn and look away because he assumes the worst of you too. Even under the worse of circumstances, you're not going to face two racist black cops who can kill you at will and with impunity because the majority of society will assume that you were a dangerous criminal because of the color of your skin. If they arrest you on a bogus charge, you will not face a prosecutor and judge who are predisposed to assume that you're guilty because of the color of your skin. You're most likely not going to face a jury pool that is made up of people who not only are not members of your racial group but harbor preconceived notions about you based on the color of your skin. The trial will not be covered by news media who make their money by playing to black-held stereotypes about white criminality.

Re: Dat's racist

[Lord Kano]

Yeah the difference is you're weaponizing the phrases of racism in order to otherize your opposition while being immune to such claims yourself.

Not a single person who says racism requires institutions of power is doing so to bring greater specification to a matter saturated in ambiguity, they are, and you are, making the discussion worse by trying to silence your opposition by ad hominem.

That's not what I did, at all. In my original post, I conceded that racism can be present in the behavior and actions of individuals.

Racism can happen anywhere. Minorities cannot engage in institutional racism.

So what's my moral imperative?

That's not for me to determine.

LK

Re:Dat's racist

[Lord Kano]

South Africa would be a great place to get some experience, perhaps Nigeria, Somalia, Ghana, or Senegal will help you understand it.

You raise a valid point. In those places where black people are the overwhelming majority, institutional racism against non-blacks (and even against non-native born blacks) happens.

In my original post on this subject, I didn't clarify that I was talking about in western society and I should have.

LK

Re:Dat's racist

[DarkTempes]

In the case of Murdock we really just don't know enough to make any sort of judgment about his twitter posts.
We know he was arrested, treated by EMTs, and bailed out of jail.
We have reports that he was drunk but there is no verification of that.
We know he died and that's about it. We need more facts to really understand why he died.

I agree that if he was facing potential jail over the tickets and arrest and killed himself because of that then it's truly an irrational tragedy. I suspect there was a lot more going on.

With regards to suicide, as someone who has personally experienced severe depression and most of the range of suicide ideation, I can tell you that you are very mistaken. Suicide and suicidal thoughts can be both rational and irrational. Hardship, short or long-term, is not even necessary.

Thoughts of self-harm can be sporadic irrational desires that sneak up on you unwanted, and unacted on, sort of like a craving for junk food that you ignore.
These sorts of thoughts, at least in my experience, don't have to be in response to short-term hardship and certainly not because one doesn't want to deal with something. Many medications even warn about giving them to teenagers because they are correlated with an increase in such thoughts.

My understanding is that they're also the least serious form of suicidal ideation. I'd guess that they're simply a chemistry fuck-up. It's pretty amazing that we're theoretically conscious self-determining beings in a (mostly?) deterministic universe so a few glitches are ok with me.
Ending your life because of such urges doesn't make any sense and it is truly tragic if anyone dies from that.

Thoughts of ending your life can also be well-thought out and quite rational. You can end up playing in your head what you think your future will be like, even if you persevere, and seeing only more suffering. Your judgment on the issue might be sound or it might not be

I haven't personally experienced severe, incurable, chronic pain or a terminal illness so I can't pretend to understand that mental state. I know that most non-religious people would agree that there is nothing wrong with ending your life with dignity in the face of terminal illness.
I suspect that the U.S. hospice system has a lot of "dirty" little practical secrets where overdoses are given to ease suffering and speed up dying -- which would not be politically acceptable by the religious masses.

I can say that I have dealt with illness and lifestyle changes that ended up with me taking both a very irrational/emotional and rational look at the new path of my life and if taking it was acceptable to me.

First, rationally, life has no meaning and is pointless (unless you irrationally believe in religion.) The obvious purpose of the state of life might be existence but almost certainly nothing you do will matter and in a few billion years humanity won't exist anymore. As the saying goes: life's a bitch and then you die.

That said, one sometimes has to find or give their own meaning to life. I personally think the meaning of life is to enjoy yourself (and before you think that's selfish -- I find joy in others finding joy.)

In the absence of ability to do that either due to environment or emotional state then suicide can certainly seem like the rational choice.

I think the strongest rational argument against suicide is that, statistically, one probably enjoyed life at some point and thus continued existence holds the chance of enjoying life again. Hell, even people with terminal illnesses sometimes survive.

Lastly, it's really hard to talk about suicide in our society because of how it's reacted to by authorities. People get angry at those who commit suicide, frequently calling the deceased selfish, and asking why the person didn't just talk to them.
Well, if you talk to someone and then they go behind your back to the authorities because they don't agree with you, you can end up losing (at least in the short term) your right to self-

Re:Dat's racist

[juanfgs]

I thought the same but good luck trying to explain that to a crowd.

RIP Ian

Re:Dat's racist

[YttriumOxide]

Not the above AC nor do I really get the point they were trying to make; but here's a translation:

Do you more easily hate a collective or a particular person and do you prefer to hate alone or in a collective?

Re:Dat's racist

[KGIII]

Thanks to you - and the others, for responding. I was awfully confused.

Re:Dat's racist

[Orgasmatron]

When you sober up, please explain what you were trying to say here. It may help to read what I wrote, and the post to which I was replying, too.

P.S. I'm posting on my actual account. Between my 4 digit user ID and the quality of your post, it is entirely possible that I've been posting here since before you were born.

Re:Dat's racist

[Orgasmatron]

Wait, sorry, I figured it out. You weren't replying to me, but to an anonymous post that you thought was from me.

I'm not posting anonymous in this thread. I didn't know Ian, never met him, don't really know anything about him except what I've heard anecdotally. (Patrick Volkerding has a story about him, from back when Debian was just an idea.)

For all I know he was a raging racist, but I haven't seen any evidence to suggest that. I reject the notion that using the word "nigger" automatically makes a person a racist, and I've already posted my analysis of the sentence in question.

Re: Dat's racist

[LesFerg]

You would have to judge how old is too old, by meeting some of the racist old bastards who unfortunately have too much influence on others around them. I was not excusing them by any means, simply stating that, in my opinion, the older people are, the less likely they will be to change the attitudes that have been ingrained in them by their family or peers all of their lives.

Re:Dat's racist

[niftymitch]

Wrong on two counts.

1) He is not attributing it to the police, but to .................

Not clearly correct on many counts.
The most disturbing is that: mind set, policies and procedures work hard to remove
any testimony except that of trained story tellers in blue. This process of content
editing begins in police academies where reporting is taught. University writing
is full of flaws to the point that a thesis review committee is held to sort it out.
Department heads educated with MS and PhDs will aspire to a review board in
kind.

Other story tellers have their cameras damaged and stolen. Digital and
undeveloped film records are deleted, altered or lost. Reports are edited and
reviewed for internal consistency. Reports written with the likes of Word shall
have revision history enabled by the records system in addition to the lame
history mechanism in Word itself. Safety barriers are erected so far from the action
that no third party will have access. Remote cameras get run over or knocked down
or stolen.

The single largest problem is the code of silence on both sides.

Juries are led to believe that an airtight case should be expected and that
invites parallel reconstruction from well controlled sources. A big hint that
there is reasonable doubt is a total lack of loose strings. Especially if much
of the evidence is digital.

Twenty years plus ago an animator then at ILM commented that the days of
video evidence being incontrovertible were passed with the foot note
that it was currently expensive but that would change.

Editing equipment in the presence of law enforcement is problematic.
At no time should edited material be entered into evidence without the
original. Evidence lockers lack facilities for storage of digital content
including pass word management.

Re:Dat's racist

[Orgasmatron]

LOL. Are you sure you understand how the "Post Anonymously" box works?

Re:Dat's racist

[Orgasmatron]

I have this mental picture of you cursing at me from your mom's basement. You should probably get out more if you think I'm being witty. Ask her if she can drop you off at the mall.

Re:Dat's racist

[RockDoctor]

Don't try explaining anything to a crowd in units of 140 characters. Twitter might be quick and easy, but it is a fucking stupid idea for anything more complex than "I'm pissssed. Summmun gemmme uh taxi"

42 year old dies and nobody asks why?

[Spy Handler]

In this day and age, it's highly unusual for healthy 42 year olds to die all of a sudden. TFA says nothing about how he died, just that he died.

Car accident, drug overdose, heart attack, or ???

Re:42 year old dies and nobody asks why?

[wonkey_monkey]

Car accident, drug overdose, heart attack, or ???

??? = none of your business?

Re:42 year old dies and nobody asks why?

[bluegutang]

Suicide.

Re:42 year old dies and nobody asks why?

[HarrySquatter]

How is it non of their business? The dude was threatening suicide on Twitter. That hardly is a bastion of privacy.

Re:42 year old dies and nobody asks why?

[Anonymous Coward]

he was threatening suicide yesterday... apparently it wasnt a hoax.

Re:42 year old dies and nobody asks why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anti systemd assassins, no other explanation.

Re:42 year old dies and nobody asks why?

[Anonymous Coward]

In this day and age, it's highly unusual for healthy 42 year olds to die all of a sudden. TFA says nothing about how he died, just that he died.

Car accident, drug overdose, heart attack, or ???

Suicide

Re:42 year old dies and nobody asks why?

[Narcocide]

The police most certainly know, or at least have 2 plausible theories, but I think its up to the family whether anything is actually publicly acknowledged.

Re:42 year old dies and nobody asks why?

[rubycodez]

what? biggest demographic for suicide is white males 35-64, and since 1999 up 30+ percent

over police brutality he says, hmmm maybe some other things and this plus some substance abuse was trigger

Re:42 year old dies and nobody asks why?

[Anonymous Coward]

How is it non of their business? The dude was threatening suicide on Twitter. That hardly is a bastion of privacy.

His family is asking for it now and there's no reason not to honor that. It changes nothing and gives them the space they need and deserve.

Re:42 year old dies and nobody asks why?

[ArmoredDragon]

My theory is Hans Reiser.

Re:42 year old dies and nobody asks why?

[Lord Kano]

All indications are that it was a suicide. He even announced on Twitter that he would be committing suicide.

LK

Re:42 year old dies and nobody asks why?

[cant_get_a_good_nick]

His family asked for privacy. People are trying to give it to them.

That said, there's a The Register Article that implies some erratic mental state. All the more reason to not pry and not guess. They're having a very hard time. Our best tribute to what Ian has done is not to make his family worse off.

Re:42 year old dies and nobody asks why?

[IMightB]

It looks like He blamed it on Police Brutality. Some sort of incident happened where he claims(ed) he was beaten by the police badly enough to go to the hospital, got home, was assaulted again by police.

http://pastebin.com/yk8bgru5

Re:42 year old dies and nobody asks why?

[squiggleslash]

He committed suicide after being beaten up by police (requiring hospitalization as a result) and then charged with assaulting a police officer. I'm not sure where "going mentally unhinged on Twitter" comes from, but his last tweets were angry, not unhinged.

Re: 42 year old dies and nobody asks why?

[cyber-vandal]

SJWs are very obnoxious when I point out that white men have problems too. They don't want to include us in their "equality" conversations unless we're abasing ourselves for existing. This is part of the reason why President Trump is a possibility.

Re:42 year old dies and nobody asks why?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's every reason not to honor it: it was the last wish of the deceased that we use his death as a springboard to discuss issues that the was, at least at the end, very passionate about. Fuck the family. Fuck their discomfort with the topic being cause to cover up the reason behind this man's death. He had his own values and wishes, and they should be respected; not whitewashed to make a few soon-wealthy beneficiaries a little more comfortable.

Re:42 year old dies and nobody asks why?

[adolf]

The Reiser Uncertainty Theorem.

Re:42 year old dies and nobody asks why?

[Anonymous Coward]

If what he says was true, that the police followed him home from the hospital to beat him up again, I think they just straight up murdered him.

Re: 42 year old dies and nobody asks why?

[rubycodez]

no long term worries, the typical SJW is tumblr femi-nazi who won't reproduce. their kind is going to be Darwined out of existence in one generation

Re:42 year old dies and nobody asks why?

[jbolden]

FWIW Ian was anti-systemd so it would have been pro-systemd assassins if it wasn't the police.

Re:42 year old dies and nobody asks why?

[phantomfive]

"systemd is roko's basilisk" --wonkey_monkey

Re:42 year old dies and nobody asks why?

[arth1]

Most likely, yes, and the fine blurb does a disservice in stating "passed away". Certain euphemisms are just out of place.

Re:42 year old dies and nobody asks why?

[Lakitu]

No, there is every reason to honor their wishes. His family presumably wants privacy because they don't want to see anyone's memory of him be tarnished, and most likely that's because he obviously committed suicide in a non-suspicious manner after having some kind of mental breakdown. Which may have been the culmination of some kind of ongoing series of mental breakdowns that they'd rather not have him be remembered by.

The guy threatened suicide, and ranted about the police, and then stated that "my career is over now, so I'll be gone soon". It's fucking idiotic to suggest that the family is in on a police coverup of his murder or whatever the fuck crazy ideas people are having all because they might inherit some dollars, or that they're threatened, or that they just feel so terrible about him being murdered that they don't want to ever think about it again.

The guy's last wish was to kill himself. I wish it hadn't happened, because he did a hell of a lot for Linux. Doing a little bit for his wife and kids and family in return is the least anyone could do. Go fuck yourself if you're some kind of conspiratorial moron who would use his name to feed your fantasies without a SINGLE piece of evidence otherwise.

Re:42 year old dies and nobody asks why?

[Lakitu]

I'd say it was pretty unhinged. He threatened to kill himself because he thought his career was over, which he presumably thought was because of a bogus arrest?

Re:42 year old dies and nobody asks why?

[gerald.edward.butler]

Or maybe, he died of a brain bleed or brain swelling brought on by being roughed up my the cops. Or maybe, the cops went to his house and put him out of their misery to shut him up There are lots of possibilities. Everyone should demand a thorough investigation by an independent (from the SFPD) investigator.

Re: 42 year old dies and nobody asks why?

[gerald.edward.butler]

This is what I hear from your comment, "...."....never mnind, I'm not free to speak my mind without the threat of persecution.

Re:42 year old dies and nobody asks why?

[squiggleslash]

He didn't "threaten" anything. And believing your career is over in the fact of criminal charges that can lead to imprisonment if successfully prosecuted is fairly normal. You think assaulting an officer is a trivial crime?

Re: 42 year old dies and nobody asks why?

[gweihir]

Everybody has problems. Everybody deserves consideration form them. SJWs are just the ultimate in racism, sexism, etc. and are at heart fascists that want to humiliate and destroy everybody except their chosen group "victims". A force of evil and destruction to be sure.

Re:42 year old dies and nobody asks why?

[Lakitu]

He threatened to kill himself. And then he threatened to kill himself again because his "career was over".

While successful criminal charges may be life-changing, they are not automatically an end to your career, especially not a unique and special one as Mr. Murdock had. His career was one which he created for himself, which he was the main driving force of, and which was based on his accomplishments and reputation in the Linux and Open Source communities where it was basically unassailable, as should be obvious from a lot of the replies about his death.

There's a drastic leap of logic here needed to believe any of this to be true.

You think assaulting an officer is a trivial crime?

Well, instead of just emotionally asserting "facts", as you seem to want to do, let's take a look and see how serious it is. A quick google search reveals that:

Battery on a peace / police officer is typically a misdemeanor in California law. The potential penalties are up to one (1) year in county jail, and/or a fine of up to two thousand dollars ($2,000).4

But if the battery causes an injury requiring medical treatment, then this crime becomes a wobbler (that is, a crime that may be charged as a misdemeanor or a California felony).

If it is charged as a felony, battery on a peace officer carries a potential sentence of sixteen (16) months, two (2) or three (3) years in county jail, and/or a fine of up to ten thousand dollars ($10,000).5

Seeing as no police required medical treatment, and that the description of his arrest(s) and treatment don't seem to be out of the ordinary, he wasn't likely to be charged with a felony and wasn't likely to see jailtime. Considering he was in good standing with the community and had no prior arrests (?), he was probably going to receive IF FOUND GUILTY some combination of probation, fines, community service, or mental health treatment. Do you consider that to be "serious"? Or worth taking your life over?

The entire argument against this being anything other than a tragic suicide rests on making up "facts" and emotionally appealing to the state being able to do anything it wants, with the proof being the same thing as the question in the first place: that they just murdered Ian Murdock and are conspiring with his family members to cover it up.

I'm going to go with option (b) here, which is that his family desires privacy because he tragically took his own life in a way that never needed to happen and they don't want to drag his name through the mud. His family has more reasons than anybody to pursue the truth here.

Re:42 year old dies and nobody asks why?

[Lakitu]

Or maybe, he died of a brain bleed or brain swelling brought on by being roughed up my the cops. Or maybe, the cops went to his house and put him out of their misery to shut him up There are lots of possibilities. Everyone should demand a thorough investigation by an independent (from the SFPD) investigator.

It's possible, sure. But you're 100% wrong that "everyone" should demand a thorough investigation. Everyone should be following the wishes of his family here, whether that be them demanding a thorough investigation or whether it means they want to remember him as the good, productive, inspiring man that he was for decades before his suicide.

His family has more reason to see this investigated than anyone, so if they are content in believing it was an unsuspicious suicide, which is what it sounds like, then you probably should be too.

reply to AC below:

Nobody is suggesting his family murdered him.

People are suggesting that his family is partaking in the cover up by not demanding an investigation and "whitewashing" the announcements of his death. To suggest that they would do this for anything other than benign reasons absolutely is suggesting that they were involved in, complicit with, or are helping to cover up his murder. It's insane and incredibly disrespectful both to him and to his family.

Re: 42 year old dies and nobody asks why?

[gweihir]

If you had any actual intelligence, you would have noticed that I commented on SJWs and not on the case at hand. But I guess that distinction flies right over your head, despite being glaringly obvious.

Re:Did he commit suicide?

[HarrySquatter]

Yeah he did:

Maybe my suicide at this, you now, a successful business man, not a NIGGER, will finally bring some attention to this very serious issue.

Re: Died? Just restart

[Anonymous Coward]

Just how fucked up are you anti systemd people to take Murdocks death as an opportunity to spread your ideas?

Murdock had nothing, nothing to do with systemd what so ever.

Re:Circumstances surrounding his death disturbing

[rubycodez]

wouldn't a successful businessman with money normally go round up the lawyers normally and stay out of town and retaliate from the outside. unless he went on a bender right after and never sobered up, going into depression spiral

Rest In Peace

[LocutusOfBorg1]

Goodbye from a Debian Developer. Thanks for all the fish

Re:Rest In Peace

[godrik]

Just a Debian user. But thanks Ian. That's a great thing you did with Debian!

So long. And thank you for the fish.

Re:Rest In Peace

[unixisc]

RIP, Ian

Thanks. This is the first decent post I read on this thread about someone's death. Everybody before this just trolled about either racism, or the circumstances of his death. Can't people be more civilized in paying homage to him, regardless of what they think regarding Debian, systemd, Wayland or anything else?

Re:Rest In Peace

[Cro Magnon]

RIP, Ian Murdoch from an Ubuntu user. Thanks for the father of my fish.

Note to self

[Anonymous Coward]

Note to self:

Never, never give up after torture, abuse or rape. Few can send a real signal by killing himself. Suicide destroys the meaning of one's suffering.

Live to the end. Live and fight the injustice. Live and tell the truth.

Re:Note to self

[Anonymous Coward]

Mental illness is a terrible thing. The torture he endured almost certainly originated in his own troubled mind. He couldn't fight it.

Re:Note to self

[rahvin112]

You might never give up but you will surrender to torture. Everyone does.

The soldiers tortured during Vietnam without exception gave the Vietnamese torturers what they were asking for. They also gave them a pound of garbage for every real thing they gave them, because that's what torture does, forces the torturee to provide invalid and garbage intelligence to make the torture stop and it's the reason there is little to no point in doing it.

There is no dishonor is surrendering to torture or other forms of abuse.

Re:Note to self

[NicknameUnavailable]

Because we live in a society filled with propaganda telling people that anyone who takes such actions is a bad person and not worth listening to - the majority of people either believe that or believe that the majority of people believe that so the net effect is nill.

Re:Ian Murdoch was a racist

[greenfruitsalad]

i remember him as a genuinely nice guy. 15ish years ago, when i was a naive youngster just starting with gnu/linux (progeny linux), i often got stuck on pretty basic stuff. one day i simply emailed him and asked these absolutely beginner's questions about partitioning and debian installer. he, the legendary debian founder, took his time and patiently explained things to me. we exchanged over 50 emails that year. i wish i still had that mbox file. we kept in touch until he started working for sun.

RIP

[Anonymous Coward]

Your uptime was shorter than normal, but you were a master of creation and you served the community well.

Re:RIP

[Max Sinister]

RIP, Ian.

Re:RIP

[rewindustry]

this one, on a t-shirt.
thank you.

Something is very fishy

[tloh]

The bizarre nature of those last tweets and the fact that the attached email domain on those was imurdock.com rather than his actual website which is ianmurdock.com makes this situation very suspicious. I hope more information is release soon as it seems highly likely foul play is involved.

Re:Something is very fishy

[Drakster]

Nope, he owned both domains.

Re:Something is very fishy

[SkunkPussy]

Ian Murdock, of course, being different to Ian Jackson,

Re:Something is very fishy

[tloh]

I stand corrected. Still, there is so much that doesn't make sense. There is talk of mental illness being involved. The family has asked that people respect their privacy. But doesn't appear to be any indication that Ian has been unwell recently... has there?

This is what mental illness looks like...

[Anonymous Coward]

and I am ashamed to live in a society where there was no one around to help him find a better way through this.

Re:Circumstances surrounding his death disturbing

[wonkey_monkey]

If there's anything we could reconstruct out of the fragments, he probably suffered torture at the hand of police.

I think about the most we can say right now is that he probably wasn't in a rational state of mind.

Thank You, Ian

[Anonymous Coward]

I am very, very sad to hear this news. Debian GNU/Linux has brought much joy to my life. Thank You and Rest in Peace, Ian Murdock.
-drew (@pdp7)

Re:Thank You, Ian

[Anonymous Coward]

I am very, very sad to hear this news. Debian GNU/Linux has brought much joy to my life. Thank You and Rest in Peace, Ian Murdock.
-drew (@pdp7)

This. Thanks, drew, for posting a little sanity here. RIP, Ian.

Re:So, what happened?

[Anonymous Coward]

Too soon!

schizophrenia likely

[Anonymous Coward]

It sounds to me like he was clinically schizophrenic and went off his medication. That would explain why he interacted with police (odd behavior in public), was restrained and then released, why the tone of his Twitter messages changed abruptly, and why he subsequently committed suicide (schizophrenics are at high risk for suicide).

Not sure about suicide

[Anonymous Coward]

5:13pm: i'm committing suicide tonight.. do not intervene as i have many stories to tell and do not want them to die with me #debian #runnerkristy67
5:14pm: watch my blog later http://ianmurdock.com/
5:17pm: https://t.co/I1CSCJErWf
5:20pm: I'll write more on my blog later. But the police here beat me up for knowing on my neighbor's door.. they sent me to the hospital.
5:20pm: Then beat me up some more.
5:21pm: My bail for "assault against a police officer" are all that: $25,000.
5:22pm: I'll write more much later. They still don't have cameras on all police so I'm going to use my somewhat celebrity to hopefully stop this.
5:23pm: Quote: "We're the police, we always win."
5:25pm: My career is over now, so I'll be gone soon.
5:27pm: Maybe my suicide at this, you now, a successful business man, not a NIGGER, will finally bring some attention to this very serious issue.
5:30pm: I'm not committing suicide today. I'll write this all up first, so the police brutality ENDEMIC in this so call free country will be known.
5:34pm: if anyone wants to come over and see what the police did to me i would be more than happy for that
5:35pm: they beat the shit out of me twice, then charged me $25,000 to get out of jail for battery against THEM
5:36pm: i had to go to the hospital
5:36pm: they followed me home
5:36pm: then they pulled me out of my house and did it again
5:37pm: i had to have swtitches
5:37pm: then followed my home from there
5:38pm: i asked if they had cameras
5:38pm: they said no
5:45pm: shall i post pictures for all my bruises from my against the police officers?
5:45pm: where they put you in a cell with absolutely no instructions whatever aside from the spell on the floor in piss?
5:48pm: Writing up my experience for others to hopefully prevent others from police abuse then you won't hear from me again
6:00pm: @jacksormwriter wants me dead
6:06pm: i'm going to post my case on my blog.. if anyone can post it on hacker news or wherever i would apprieciate it
6:07pm: i'm hoping coming from a successful white guy it will help everyone
6:31pm: (1/2) The rest of my life will be devoted to fighting against police abuse.. I'm white, I made $1.4 million last year,
6:33pm: (2/2) They are uneducated, bitter, and and only interested in power for its own sake. Contact me imurdock@imurdock.com if you can help. -ian
6:41pm: The police are uneducated, evil, and sadistic. Do not trust them.
6:42pm: The rest of my life is to fight against the police.. they are NOT friends, so don't ever ever believe otherwise.
6:49pm: What does one have to get education wise to become a police officer.. asking for a friend.
7:03pm: "We're the police, we can do whatever the fuck we want.."
7:08pm: This was right after the female officer ripped off my underwear.. I guess that's not considered rape if you're not a woman being raped.
7:12pm: I am a white male, make a lot money, pay a lot of money in taxes, and yet their abuse is equally doned out. DO NOT CROSS THEM!

People deciding on suicide for real rarely make future plans, but his last tweets were full of them. I wonder about head trauma, mostly because of the extreme confusion here. Note his first line. He didn't want anyone to stop him from killing himself, because he had stories that he wanted to tell.

Re:Not sure about suicide

[Aleksej]

People deciding on suicide for real rarely make future plans, but his last tweets were full of them.

How far is "future"?

Re:Not sure about suicide

[Bite The Pillow]

Suicide intervention takes focus and energy away from processing and logging information. It makes sense, in a strange way, to request not being interrupted.

Looking for the autopsy, which the family will surely release, and the lawsuit.

Re:Ian Murdoch was a racist

[bytesex]

Why is Barack Obama not white? Is it because he has more than zero drops of native Kenyan blood in him? If that is the case, aren't you in all actuality subscribing to the 'one drop of blood / white is the norm' position? And if you don't - because that would be quite racist - then why is Obama black? He has a 'white' mother after all... And if your position is that 'he identifies as black', then can he change his mind tomorrow? And if he can't, then at what age do people get to choose their 'race'? And if he can, what in the name of bloody bollocks does an outdated concept of 'race' even mean outside the industry that breeds cats, dogs and horses?

Race is a load of meaningless crap. Humans like to fark too much for it to exist. It has no concept in biology, and even in its last hold-out - sociology - it can easily be degraded to meaninglessness, see the reasoning above.

RIP

[vikingpower]

Old programmers never die. They redirect to /dev/null. RIP, Ian.

Re:Ian Murdoch was a racist

[epyT-R]

Sounds like you are a victim of newspeak reeducation. Racism is the use of race as a discriminator either for or against an individual or group.

Re: Ian Murdoch was a racist

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a nonsense ideological position rooted in ignorant sophistry (I know, quite the ostensible contradiction)

The point of saying non-whites can't be racist isn't to form a more cogent and useful definition of racism (as we see in replacing LGBTQA into GSA) but so neoprogressive zealots can call people racist while themselves being racist.

And it's dumb anyway, "racism" can't be cause _and_ effect, if racism is systemic oppression by the powerful then you can't say it'd caused by racism, you have to say it's caused by prejudice and thus it's meaningless to call individuals racist because the term only applies to edifices of power. But of course as already said the point isn't for better definitions, it's to call people racist and then say "lalala you can't call me racist back."

Re:Circumstances surrounding his death disturbing

[Anonymous Coward]

This does not look like your traditional suicide: http://webcache.googleusercont...
Some choice quotes from his twitter timeline the day before he died:

• * This was right after the female officer ripped off my underwear.. I guess that's not considered rape if you're not a woman being raped.
• * The rest of my life is to fight against the police.. they are NOT friends, so don't ever ever believe otherwise.
• * then followed my home from there
• * then they pulled me out of my house and did it again

This is not your average suicide note.

Re:Ok, what I make of it

[squiggleslash]

This is based upon what exactly?

Given he was hospitalized that night - because of injuries from his confrontation with police - and given he was subsequently released, it seems improbable he was on some psychotic bender.

No official report after 48 hours+ ?

[dickens]

I certainly will not believe any official reports - the fact that they're late means they're being cooked, without doubt. Some multi-millionaires out there need to make sure to get all the way to the bottom of this.

Re:Ian Murdoch was a racist

[0100010001010011]

Looks like SJWers on 4Chan were egging him on last night:

https://archive.is/2Cdj1

https://i.imgur.com/A1xlnVi.pn...

Re:Ok, what I make of it

[tomhath]

But instead of institutionalizing him, they left him at his house

It is very, very difficult to institutionalize someone against their will - personal freedoms and all that.

Why do you think there are so many homeless people wandering the streets? Everyone agrees they are mentally ill and need help, but you can't force help on them unless they are violent.

Would you want the police to have the authority to decide you need to be locked away and drugged into a stupor?

Re: Ian Murdoch was a racist

[bestweasel]

You are mistaking plain stupidity for being progressive or left-wing. Stupidity and ignorance are not restricted to the left.

Re:Ok, what I make of it

[wonkey_monkey]

Everyone agrees they are mentally ill and need help, but you can't force help on them unless they are violent.

I wonder if you could replace "force help on them" with "get the money to help them."

Re:Ian Murdoch was a racist

[Anonymous Coward]

Racism is the groundless use of race as a discriminator either for or against an individual or group.

That one word is important. Not all distinction making on base of race is racism. In medical matters it happens all the time, for good reason.

Re:Ian Murdoch was a racist

[swillden]

And if your position is that 'he identifies as black', then can he change his mind tomorrow? And if he can't, then at what age do people get to choose their 'race'? And if he can, what in the name of bloody bollocks does an outdated concept of 'race' even mean outside the industry that breeds cats, dogs and horses?

These question contain a raft of invalid assumptions.

Clearly, race is a social construct, not a genetic one, and anyone who tells you otherwise hasn't looked closely enough at the question. This means that to a large degree people do choose what race they are. Obviously there is no age by which people must make that choice, but that's not because there is no choice to be made, but because they're perfectly free to change their choice at any point in time. Racial identity is really just a form of tribalism, and people absolutely can choose to move from one tribe to another.

However, that in no way implies that changing tribes is easy, because what tribe you're a member of depends less on what you think than on what the other members of the tribe think. Tribal boundaries are fluid, dynamic and context-dependent, but they shift based on group decisions, not individual decisions. Witness the public hue and cry over Rachel Dolezal.

But, in fact, people do change their racial identity. A 2010 study found that going to prison can turn white people black. Specifically, people who previously self-identified and were identified by researchers as white committed crimes, went to prison, and subsequently self-identified -- and were identified by researchers -- as non-white, in most cases black.

Could Barack Obama decide to be white? Sure. He could decide to self-identify as white, and he could announce that to the world. The response would be a mixture of bafflement, outrage and laughter, and no one would buy it, because his tribal membership is too strongly and publicly established.

Race is a load of meaningless crap.

Any notion of genetic, objective race is meaningless crap, sure. But tribal identity is very, very far from meaningless. For many people racial identity is a central part of their individual identity. Identity is powerful... people befriend, ostracize, even kill over identity.

Note that I'm not saying this is good, or right, or in any way desirable. We'd all be a lot better off if everyone discarded racial identity from their personal worldviews. But that's not the world we live in, and calling it meaningless, ostrich-like, is foolish.

All his twitter comments from Pastebin

[Anonymous Coward]

Puts his last comments in context. RIP.

  http://pastebin.com/yk8bgru5

Re:Systemd's first victim

[jeffmflanagan]

Professional police don't rough anyone up. That's what goon police forces do.

Ian's twiiter posts

[Anonymous Coward]

http://pastebin.com/dX3VSPkM

Re:Ian Murdoch was a racist

[0100010001010011]

I read Slashdot 4x a day

.

Which is why you're posting as AC.

Fuck Ian in his dead racist ass.

Did you even read his posts in context? They make perfect sense, should he have put quotes around "Nigger", would you have understood it then?

Re: Ian Murdoch was a racist

[epyT-R]

I didn't say they were.

Re:Ok, what I make of it

[Anonymous Coward]

It is very, very difficult to institutionalize someone against their will - personal freedoms and all that.

Why do you think there are so many homeless people wandering the streets? Everyone agrees they are mentally ill and need help, but you can't force help on them unless they are violent.

Would you want the police to have the authority to decide you need to be locked away and drugged into a stupor?

Bull-fucking-shit. You'd be amazed how easy it is to get locked up for over a week because of false statements from a pathological liar.

Re:Did he commit suicide?

[rahvin112]

Others have already pointed out that said message is posted with a domain name that isn't known to be associated to him and is designed to look like it is his normal domain (imurdock versus ianmurdock) and which doesn't match any of his previous twitter posts.

This makes the messages entirely of suspicious origin.

That's real

[Demena]

Thank you.

Re:Ian Murdoch was a racist

[penguinoid]

Nope, sorry, choice of words has little to do with racism, it's how you arrange them that counts. Plenty of racists say very nasty things using flowery nice-sounding language, it's far worse than your average racist but no one calls them out on it because they didn't use any banned words. In this case Ian was warning that police brutality can affect successful white men too, and not just [short word for "who cares, it's just poor and/or black people"].

Re:Ian Murdoch was a racist

[fche]

"Race is a load of meaningless crap. Humans like to fark too much for it to exist. It has no concept in biology"

The first and third parts of that are a lie.

That interbreeding occurs does not diminish the concept. It just means that the concept doesn't apply as cleanly to as many individuals as it used to.

Re:Ian Murdoch was a racist

[Fwipp]

SJW's, on /pol/? Come on. They're calling *him* a SJW on there.

Re:Ian Murdoch was a racist

[Anonymous Coward]

No, using race as a discriminator occurs all the time in medicine, there's nothing racist about it. You're the racist for insisting that any form of race recognition is automatically the one thing that you think about. I'm not joking. You're racist, even if you're against the actions of some racists, because you still buy into the simplified binary worldview and you can't conceive of a multitude of alternative worlds where race exists without a social subjugation component one way or the other.

Re:Ignorant and thoughtless

[Demena]

So, why are you not posting as yourself? Rhetorical question. You live up to your name and it is you that does not want their goose cooked. I stand by my words. You do not.

In most circumstances self sacrifice (by males) is common and instinctive. I have actually put my body between harm and someone else. When you have actually expected to die protecting some one, then you can talk. I have actually been there, "manned up". Have you? Do you actually know what you are talking about? Self sacrifice may be the right, respectable, whatever, thing to do but it is never, never rational. Logic has nothing to do with it. Not at life and death level. If you think that it is then you have never been in that place.

Well, I am getting on towards to 80 but it is doubtful I will actually get there. When my health problems get too bad I will make a graceful exit.

Facts? Why facts? I never claimed any, you did. I just demonstrated (1) Your lack of intelligence (2) Your immaturity. Your dishonesty and trollishness are there for everyone to observe.

As a matter of curiosity, why are you like this? I mean you could be something useful if you wanted to be. Why choose negativity?

Re:Ian Murdoch was a racist

[Hognoxious]

Have you seen a chihuahua? Have you seen a bulldog?

They exist, and they're quite easy to tell apart - try kicking one in the butt. And yes, I know what a mongrel is, and no, that doesn't disprove the existence of St Bernards and greyhounds.

Fuck the SFPD

[MalleusEBHC]

This hits very close to home for me. I was also arrested for felony battery and held by the SFPD. (The San Mateo County sheriffs, who police Caltrain, were the ones to make the arrest, but I was taken to the SFPD jail.) That's the only time I've ever been in jail, and it seriously fucked with me. I always thought that I would be able to handle jail/prison - hah, wrong! It's a completely dehumanizing experience.

When I first got there, I was thrown in the drunk tank and left for hours. (After a false felony battery charge, why not a false drunk in public charge?) Like Ian, I couldn't find out anything about my situation. The guards refused to answer any of my questions. There was a phone in the cell, but it was next to useless because everyone I called was unable to navigate the byzantine collect call system. (I briefly wrote about this in a previous comment in an earlier story.) The only things to do were to ponder how truly fucking scary it would be if I were eventually tried and convicted or stare at the ceiling and wonder if the stains were feces or peanut butter from the disgusting sandwiches they provided. I'm a self-confident, mentally-stable person, but that started evaporating disturbingly fast.

Things got a little better for me once they moved me from the drunk tank to a regular cell. I finally made some progress on getting bail. They took my mugshot and started processing the fingerprint/background checks. At this point, at least there was a light at the end of the tunnel. While things were looking up for me, at this point I started seeing the more fucked up shit other people were going through. The majority of the people in my new cell were making phone calls to anyone who would answer (this phone made local calls free) trying to scrounge together bail. While I was mad as hell that I was throwing away >$2,000 in bail (10% of the $25k that Ian mentioned), I'm well-off and would have spent far more to get the hell out of there. This was a Friday night, and you wouldn't get arraigned until Monday morning if you couldn't make bail. It was heartbreaking to watch these guys make call after call for bail money that they just didn't have. In retrospect, maybe I should have helped them out, but at the time I was doing my best to keep to myself.

The low point for me was one point when I saw a number of guards rushing to some situation. I couldn't see what was going on, but it was a few minutes of a lot of shouting and one voice yelping in pain. I then saw 5-6 officers manhandling an inmate to lead him to a cell. They were forcing him to do some reverse crabwalk sorta thing with his wrists chained down by his ankles, all while he's clearly in pain and protesting that he didn't do anything. This is when it really dawned on me how much these corrupt fucks can control your lives. I was confined to this cell of thick glass and concrete because of a lie. Once in jail, there's virtually nothing stopping them from using further lies to justify abuse. I have no clue if the inmate actually did something wrong or was being abused by sadistic guards, but I sure as hell wasn't going to believe the guards (who are sheriffs) just after being falsely arrested by one of their fellow officers.

Eventually my bail went through, the background check came back clean, and I was going to be released soon. For some reason I don't understand, they again transferred me to another cell. When we got there, it was full of what I stereotyped as mentally ill homeless people. One dude was lying on the floor drooling and shaking. I could not deal with this and froze up. Ignoring that this man clearly needed to be in a hospital instead of a jail, all I could do was ask to go back to the previous cell. Thankfully, it wasn't a sheriff but an administrative employee moving me around at this point, and he was sympathetic enough to take me back to the previous cell. That was the only shred of humanity I saw from anyone who worked at the jail, and it's not

Re:Fuck the SFPD

[trybywrench]

you guys expect jail to be like going to the dr office and sitting in the waiting room. It's jail, there's no customer service in jail, no one smiles at you in jail, no one wants to chat with you, no one really gives a fuck because it's jail.

I got picked up by a state trooper with a warrant I had forgot about (old traffic tickets) and was taken to Denton county jail. I sat in holding ( the drunk tank ) for about 10 hours before i was processed and could see a judge, once i paid my fines I was then released.. to the parking lot at about 3am, my car had been towed to a place across town and I only had my two feet to get there ( this was before i had a cell phone ). Jail is not a pleasant experience, stay out of it.

Re:Fuck the SFPD

[MalleusEBHC]

You were in jail "on a lie", so it wasn't the officers fault, it was your accuser.

I screwed up and left that part out of the story. I was accused of felony battery against a police officer. The officer alleged that I bumped into him on a busy train platform. When he started questioning me and I wasn't sufficiently submissive to his ego, he arrested me.

Re:Fuck the SFPD

[BlackPignouf]

Thanks a lot for your story.
I had a similar experience in Germany. It was definitely feces on the wall :-/
I spent half a night in a cell, only knowing that the charge was something like "sexual assault" and that a witness said I kinda looked like the culprit. You *really* don't want to land in jail as a foreign rapist, even for just a night.
They released me after 4 hours, not telling me anything else. I received a letter after 1 month, inviting me as a "witness".
Those assholes actually wanted to take pictures of me, and I realized too late I was still a suspect.
My lawyer asked for the files, and told me the sexual assault was "boob gropping", and that the victim described the culprit as being 16 (I was 28 at that time) and about 20 cm shorter than me.
WTF?
Oh yes, fuck the police.

PS: RIP Ian, and thanks for the hard work.

Re:Fuck the SFPD

[T.E.D.]

The one and only time (so far) I got arrested was about 30 years ago in New Orleans. Not a good place to get arrested. (For the curious, it was for making an illegal left hand turn in traffic with an out of state license. Yes, I was polite as could be.)

While in the communal holding cell I particularly remember one black kid they brought in. He was probably about 5'6 or so, and perhaps 130lbs tops, and was bleeding a bit from the nose. The cops of course were all huge heavy guys, so it didn't take much imagination to figure out how he got that way. One of the guys in the cell got worried about him possibly having internal injuries, so he convinced the kid to ask for medical help. The cops just laughed at him, because they said he wasn't complaining about that when they brought him in.

Of course some times you're damn glad to have those big cops around. They brought in one guy who was probably 6-3, 300lbs and was clearly on something. I'm guessing PCP. The single most violent human being I've ever personally witnessed. It took 5 big cops to wrestle him into the cell. The body language of everyone in the holding cell went from "I'm tough don't mess with me stay out of my space" to "Please Jesus don't let them put him in here" in an instant. Would have been funny if I wasn't one of them. Thankfully he got his own personal cell.

Bizarre

[hackus]

You know I asked my grandfather about the weird banker deaths, Swartz's death and now this one this evening and he had a interesting response:

"During the purge in the 1930's lots of people went missing. Mainly individuals in societal roles that some in society are not happy with."

I replied: "But these people had families and nobody hated them they did interesting things and certainly were not criminals."

His response?

"Not criminal perhaps to you and me, but those in power have their own rule of law."

A Requiem for Ian Murdock

[bkuhn]

I wrote A Requiem for Ian Murdock.

Re:Ian Murdoch was a racist

[Pseudonym]

No, the third part is pretty much correct. Biologically speaking, "race" isn't a thing.

There are genetic traits that run in families, and this effect does scale up. There is no trait or collection of traits that correlates with whatever "race" means this decade.

Any more information?

[AbRASiON]

Any sign of the bruises / beating? When did it occur? I'm curious wtf happened and when it happened
Also, nothing on his web page, did someone revert it? Anyone got a cached copy?

Re:Ian Murdoch was a racist

[quantaman]

Are you daft? Race is not a social construct. Have you ever seen black people? They have a completely different skin colour from white people. That's a fact, not a social construct. It proves that different races of human beings exist.

Your SJW attitude to *facts* is appalling, retract it.

Is Obama black or white? Are Kazakhs arab, asian, or a different race? What about Moroccans? Are the East African ethnicities that dominate the marathon the same race as the Jamaicans who dominate sprinting? Their skin colour is the same but the body types are drastically different.

You can draw a dividing line one the colour scale and call every darker than that "black" and everyone lighter "white" or some other ethnicity, but it's not nearly as meaningful as we imagine. We use that characteristic because it's the easiest to see, but if we started grouping by some other gene variants then we would get a drastically different set of races.

Just that?

[jsse]

I'm very shocked that the death of Ian got so little attention or coverage. He died on Monday, but the world was notified until Wednesday, without any more detail regarding his death. All you guys talking about was criticising him being racist, what's wrong with this world?

Re:Just that?

[drinkypoo]

I'm very shocked that the death of Ian got so little attention or coverage.

When a major event occurs and you don't even hear about it, don't be surprised. It's just the world continuing the way it usually does because we don't pay enough attention to the corrupt bastards in charge. We should all have taken up our torches and pitchforks and marched en masse on the places of power long before now. And by that, I mean the homes of the ultra-wealthy.

Re:Circumstances surrounding his death disturbing

[Lakitu]

he probably suffered torture at the hand of police.

Torture? He didn't even suggest that. It sounds like he was arrested against his will. He suggested that the arrest was unnecessary or illegal, not that there was torture.

It's certainly fair to ask why, but presumably his family has done that or feels it is unnecessary because the why is already obvious. I'd rather not see his decades of effort bettering society being minimized if he had some kind of substance abuse or emotional issues and ended up taking his own life.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Ok, what I make of it

[whoever57]

Would you want the police to have the authority to decide you need to be locked away and drugged into a stupor?

They won't. They will drag you away to be assessed by a mental health professional. Look it up.

Re:Ian Murdoch was a racist

[quantaman]

You can draw a dividing line one the colour scale and call every darker than that "black" and everyone lighter "white" or some other ethnicity, but it's not nearly as meaningful as we imagine. We use that characteristic because it's the easiest to see, but if we started grouping by some other gene variants then we would get a drastically different set of races.

In the context you are talking about, is race only color? Race has also had the meaning of a subgroup within a species sharing characteristics. In the terms you are talking about, is only characteristic superficial skin color?

When referring to humans race is almost exclusively used to refer to colour, in which case it isn't much use outside of an often harmful social construct. If we start talking about ethnicities then it becomes more useful, but at the end of the day it's important to remember we're just referring to probability distributions of genes.

Re:Ian Murdoch was a racist

[Pseudonym]

Of course that person was trying (and failing) to parody what they think a "SJW" (whatever that means these days) would say.

Ask practically anyone that you would consider to be a "SJW", and they would no doubt agree that both Ted Cruz and Ben Carson are a) not white (by the standards of a white supremacist), b) privileged and powerful, and c) prone to racism, at least when it comes to Syrian refugees.

Read again

[Demena]

One one hand, most decisions are made on an emotional not a rational basis. But it is almost impossible to entirely separate them as we will rationalise the emotional decision. But in urgent, emergency situations it is almost purely emotional. So, jumping on the grenade is a purely emotional decision. Rationally, throwing someone else on the grenade would produce the same result - one death - but you would survive. A thick steel table would be even better. But there is no time to examine data, to think, in a hand grenade situation so whatever action is taken it will not be rational.

On the other hand, I knew a few people who have exited this world of their own accord. At least one of them I could have prevented with a few days or a week's searching. I did not make the effort and he died. Yet I do not feel guilty that I failed to act out of my own self (and family) interest. I waited for him to return. He chose not to return. That was his choice and he made it rationally, painless and carefully planned. Wether it was a good solution for him or not I will never know but it was reasoned and rational.

In the gripping hand ,we have we have those who for various reasons choose euthanasia (still suicide). A good solution for some intractable problems and a rational response to them.

So, rational/irrational, good/bad all depend on circumstances. No generalisations are possible and peoples opinions of each case will differ wildly. You would think an atheist and a deist might even agree - but for very different reasons.

The negativity (as I see it) comes from having fixed attitudes with not a lot to support them. "This is right and all else is wrong" is a bit damn religious for me. Little turns out to be black and white in reality. That is one part of the negativity. Also, In this thread I have been called an asshole, and attacked because someone desired to win an argument irregardless (and no, that does mean the same thing as regardless). That seems negative to me.

Sorry if I have offended you but it is hard to discuss things when I do not know which person is posting. AC is generic. If you have something to say then at least use "a" name. I do not care if it AC451 but unless I have some sort of identifier I tend to be flippant. Okay, more than you wanted to know. Sorry.

Re:Read again

[Demena]

You do understand what ratiocinate means? If you want to rewrite the language to win an argument then you lose without me even competing (or desiring to do so).

Re:Read again

[Demena]

"Original AC here, I post AC since Dice took over /. because I do like posting here but I do not like Dice" Bzzzzt! So you only want to make toss-away remarks? Well, OK. But stop then trying to claim you were the original AC. You want things both ways. World does not work like that. You choose to be unidentifiable and then want to be identified.

Neither rationally or emotionally is there any need for anyone to respect that (just demonstrated) hypocrisy.

I like civility. Posting as an AC lacks civility in my opinion. Here am I "risking my reputation" and you are slipping notes under the door. Yet you accuse me of lack of civility. I am civil, but not servile.

Re:Read again

[Demena]

"Whoopsy", yes, right. That single character was crucial to the meaning of the post. Since we are talking civility, please have the common decency to check the mission critical parts of your post. /. forces you to review your post and you cannot even make the effort to make sure your post means what you want it to mean. It is insulting that you would allow such a mistake. How do you expect to be taken seriously when your very competence is in doubt.

Re:Ian Murdoch was a racist

[Pseudonym]

Did you know that there are actually standards which define terms like "chihuahua"? That's because dog breeds are marketing terms, not descriptions of phenomena found in nature.

Re:Ian Murdoch was a racist

[Pseudonym]

Just like "troll" (ah, the Golden Age of Usenet, I remember it well), the term "SJW" used to mean something specific. The Urban Dictionary definition is the best one I've seen.

Today it's meaningless, and that's a shame, because we've lost a really good word. The distinction between real-world activists who are honestly trying to make the world a better place as they see it, and those who forcefully regurgitate half-understood material exclusively online in return for kudos points, is still a distinction that exists. We just don't have a good word for the latter any more.

Horrible

[Bruce Perens]

This is horrible.

Having gone through the data I could find this evening, it appears that Ian was a victim of mental illness and perhaps substance abuse which initiated two interactions with police. I do not have sufficient information to say if police conduct was at fault.

He was a very bright and creative guy who, unfortunately went through lots of ups and downs. He didn't deserve to end this way. Nobody does.

Re:Horrible

[Bruce Perens]

you know the police are thugs, and out of control

Unfortunately this is indeed the case for some number of individual police officers and police departments. It does not mean, however, that we can assume police brutality in every case of a police interaction resulting in injuries. I also know a lot more of Ian than you do.

Ian was a victim of mental illness.

Re: Ian Murdoch was a racist

[silentcoder]

> "racism" can't be cause _and_ effect

Of course it can, that setup happens in the real universe on every level all the time. Science is filled with examples in every field - it's called a "feedback loop". With a completely artificial man-made construct like race, if anything, it's simpler. Physical feedback loops need two components - x causes y which causes another x. With a made-up idea, that idea can perpetuate itself indefinitely and x can cause more without even needing that intermediary y.

Re:Ian Murdoch was a racist

[silentcoder]

Yes... but you are basically claiming that a brown bulldog and a white bulldog are not the same breed !

Re:Ian Murdoch was a racist

[silentcoder]

Simply put - studies have repeatedly found that there is far more genetic diversity *within* races than *between* races.

Re:Ian Murdoch was a racist

[camg188]

Racism is the belief that one race is superior to another.
Your talk about "a social relationship of white supremacy" is bullshit.

What is wrong with you people?

[Anonymous Coward]

A man is dead. A good man who did great things in our lives. He's dead. At only 42 years old. The cause is unknown, and the information shared publicly is either a cover up or very disturbing. As a big community, the only thing we should be talking about is why. Was he at a mental breaking point, did something terrible happen to him, was he murdered? These are are legitimate concerns we should have, not your petty juvenile banter about his supposed words or your topically incorrect assumptions about racism. He's dead people, and at least those in the peanut gallery really don't understand why. Please, get over yourselves and start asking the right questions.

Re:What is wrong with you people?

[labradort]

I agree the majority of the coverage and comments don't get it. I think there is a sense that we want to respect his family's wishes for privacy and not make this into a CNN parade. I think people feel that tributes to his legacy are more fitting to remembering him than a media treatment. At the same time, I think there is an unresolved question around police brutality which needs to be answered. Someone in the know should say something to confirm what was happening in his life. I can imagine many things which may have contributed to his mental state spiralling down, but I don't know if any of the possibilities are likely. A person might say he did some stupid things, but if you look at it another way, the first responders only helped the people who complained of noises, they did not help the person who was at the source of the issue. Did he need counselling, did he need detox, did he need to talk to a friend, did he have any friends he could rely on? If I had a personal issue, I would not take it to twitter, but to family or friends. Around Christmas, many people suffer from loneliness. Maybe this, family matters, other issues, piled up? Hard to know when no one is talking about it.

Linux developers don't die...

[ewhenn]

Linux developers don't die, they just become part of /dev/null

Re:Ian Murdoch was a racist

[camg188]

Obama identifies as black because of the way he looks. If you put his picture in a pile of 100 other pictures of random people and asked people to separate the pictures by race, Obama's picture would be put in the black pile every time.

Re:Ian Murdoch was a racist

[RoLi]

Yeah right, that's why whites profit a lot from Affirmative Action and hate crime penalties are only instituted when a white person is the victim.

Re:Ian Murdoch was a racist

[konohitowa]

You need to go back and read what he said. Very slowly and very carefully. If at that point you don't see that your response makes no sense, return and read it again. And again. And again.

Re:Ian Murdoch was a racist

[fche]

"There is no trait or collection of traits that correlates with whatever "race" means this decade."

Haha, ok, then y'all modern types are trying to redefine the word "race", and not claiming that the normal, plain meaning of the word has no biological basis. That's circular reasoning. #wrongskin

Re:Stupid subject is stupid

[wjcofkc]

Peace sells, but who's buying?

Re:Stupid subject is stupid

[wjcofkc]

If there's a new way, I'll be the first in line.

Re:Ian Murdoch was a racist

[misexistentialist]

right, and we share 97% of our DNA with mice

Re:Ian Murdoch was a racist

[fche]

"That's why humans don't *have* "races" in the biological sense, we do have what biologists call "klines". The difference is important."

Please explain why the difference is important. One sounds like the normal civilian language and the other professional jargon, but both have the same meaning & effect.

Re:Ian Murdoch was a racist

[epyT-R]

No I don't. You need to reread what I said to him slowly and carefully. Then you'd realize I was discussing it with him.

Re: Ian Murdoch was a racist

[Fwipp]

First link, not the second.

Re:Far better comments elsewhere

[NoOneInParticular]

That's because he used the N-word while white. If you're black you can say 'nigger' all you want, but when you're white you can't. American English has become a racist language.

Re:Ian Murdoch was a racist

[konohitowa]

That was intended for AC. Not you.

Re: Ian Murdoch was a racist

[KenHansen]

Why is Barack Obama not white? Is it because he has more than zero drops of native Kenyan blood in him? If that is the case, aren't you in all actuality subscribing to the 'one drop of blood / white is the norm' position? And if you don't - because that would be quite racist - then why is Obama black? He has a 'white' mother after all...

Read his autobiography (I forget which one it's in), he 'choose' to be black.

Re:Ignorant and thoughtless

[Demena]

Which one of my offspring?

Of course it is ridiculous. It was meant to be ridiculous. It is called sarcasm and is part of the English language that most people understand. Sorry, I did not realise you were sarcasm impaired. Point I was trying to make is that jumping on the grenade might not be the best decision and that different people might make different decisions. The same one you just redundantly tried to make.

Re: Ian Murdoch was a racist

[LinuxLuver]

racist ËreÉsÉst/Submit noun 1. a person who believes that a particular race is superior to another. "I had a fear of being called a racist" synonyms: racial bigot, racialist, xenophobe,

Re:Ian Murdoch was a racist

[Pseudonym]

Haha, ok, then y'all modern types are trying to redefine the word "race", [...]

It's not so long ago in the United States that Irish people were not considered "white". European Jews still aren't, to most racists.

Re:Ian Murdoch was a racist

[Pseudonym]

If we start talking about ethnicities then it becomes more useful, but at the end of the day it's important to remember we're just referring to probability distributions of genes.

Exactly.

To pick one famous example, we tend to associate sickle-cell anemia with people of Sub-Saharan African ancestry, but the incidence is higher in Saudi Arabia than it is in (say) Somalia or Lesotho.

Re:Dammit, Ian, why'd you have to use That Word

[ebvwfbw]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:Circumstances surrounding his death disturbing

[wonkey_monkey]

Sometimes when your enemies are too powerful, suicide is the option that involves the least suffering.

And sometimes people just go crazy.

Re:Ian Murdoch was a racist

[fche]

A merely lexical analysis of your sentence contradicts your claim of non-existence of races. (If they didn't exist, you couldn't differentiate diversity within / between them.)

And if you retreat to word games ("race" didn't mean "race"), then note that the existence of "far more diversity" with respect to some genes says nothing whatsoever about the existence of less-diverse shared other genes in various populations.

christ, ian...

[rewindustry]

where is open source when we need it, eh?

i'm bleeding inside, i NEED to hear you out, to KNOW what happened for you, from you.

i need to see your code.

all i get is these damned twitter messages, where is the REST?

i'm sure i understand a little of where you have been, have been there myself, i feel, many times.

like most of us, i live in debian, love it because i can read EVERY WORD of it's story.

i need to know yours now, please show us where to find it.

thank you, ian, from the bottom of my heart,

all the best, out there..

another debian user

Demand an independent investigation!

[jmcvetta]

I encourage everyone reading this, regardless of where you live, to contact California Assemblyman David Chiu. Chiu is a the California state legislator for the district including San Francisco. He is a mainstream elitist Democrat, but historically he has been close to the Silicon Valley tech community.

When you call Chiu's office, politely explain the Murdock case if the staffer you speak with is not familiar. Mention that the SFPD is widely known to be corrupt. Then - again, politely - ask that the Assemblyman work to have the incident investigated by an independent investigator from outside the San Francisco Police Department. A state assemblymember does not have direct legal authority to appoint an investigator - but for sure, if an elected legislator speaks out, many people will listen.

Assemblyman Chiu's office phone number is (916) 319-2017. His staffer was interested and courteous when I called earlier today. You can also contact Chiu electronically thru his official website