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Debian Founder's 2015 Death Ruled A Suicide (theregister.co.uk)

gosand writes: According to a story on The Register, the death of Ian Murdock in late 2015 has been ruled a suicide. This news brings some closure to the sad ending of his life. An interesting note from the article that I never knew before: "he was the Ian in Debian; his girlfriend at the time, Debra Lynn, was the Deb." Debian has truly been a cornerstone in the Linux world, and the founder will be missed. The medical report was obtained on Wednesday by CNN journalists.

15 of 160 comments (clear)

  1. This is a great loss by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    So sorry to learn of Ian's passing. I've been a big fan of Debian for at least a decade. Rest in Peace.

    1. Re: This is a great loss by davester666 · · Score: 3, Funny

      Clearly it should be renamed to 'Deb'

      --
      Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
    2. Re: This is a great loss by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You believe in an all powerful god (often described as all loving) where if:
      One of his creations finds existing in the rest of his creation so unbearable and takes his own life
      ...then...
      That god has set it up so that person will exist in the greatest possible agony without release for an unlimited amount of time. Eventually his one unfortunately Earthly lifetime will be dwarfed by a million non stop agonising lifetimes.

      So yes your opinion will be unpopular around here, because you pray to the greatest evil god I could even imagine.
      An alternative is that religious leaders didn't want people to commit suicide (can't blame them for that) and they made up a story to give people extra incentive not to.

    3. Re: This is a great loss by justthinkit · · Score: 2

      My father committed suicide because he had an inoperable brain tumor and there was at the time no medical
      solution for his problems.

      What he did made sense to me.

      So much for basing opinions on personal experience.

      --
      I come here for the love
    4. Re: This is a great loss by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 2

      the christian definition of god seems to self-contradict itself. many times.

      I assert its impossible to be 'loving' and at the same time submit one of your 'children' to infinite amount of time being tortured.

      the cogn. dissonance that christians who swallow this crap is unfathomable to me. they must not have ever really THOUGHT it thru.

      you spend a nearly zero amount of time on earth (compared to infinity) and you do something that a book says is wrong. you then get no real chance to fix it (views vary, though, on this) and you then spend infinite time in pain.

      yeah, that sure sounds like a loving caring JUST god to me (rolls eyes).

      how can the 'believers' really believe this? I know the answer: emotion. that is the ONLY answer. rationality is not the way to insert bullshit into the mind. emotion is.

      get the kids when they are too young to question; and if they do question, smack them or just make fun of them. they will stop questioning. also, associate 'happy shiny memories' with these so-called teachings and it will be nearly impossible to question them and separate them later when you are old enough to think rationally.

      how many young people are brainwashed into following a religion - vs how many older (teenage or older) people are, if both had no exposure to this beforehand? obviously its easier to 'get' the younger ones to follow your ideas than ones who have not had that happy fuzzy association burned into their brain. when given a religion's ideas at an older age, I suspect the numbers of believers are a tiny fraction of the ones at very young ages.

      its child abuse. but try to tell people that - and their happy fuzzies get in the way; even worse, they may be so offended they want to, now, KILL YOU.

      religion is more dangerous than nukes. and its the worst part of humanity. sad that only a few of us see that and, historically, we have been oppressed and denied the ability to confront the brainwashers for what they truly are.

      --

      --
      "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
  2. Re:Is ruled a suicide now? by Narcocide · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Its pretty suspicious, though I believe the ruling of a suicide could be technically correct still if its true that the cops were harassing him or abusing him and managed to drive him to it because of his already agitated mental state. Without a good video of what really happened we're never going to actually know.

    My advice? Stay under the radar or you'll find out exactly what happened, but you probably won't live to tell us about it. People who spend "alone time" with the cops these days are starting to turn up dead too often.

  3. Re:tired of being second by fredrated · · Score: 2

    I lived in darkest West Oakland for 8 years and didn't become a racist. People are the same.

  4. Re:tired of being second by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 2

    I didn't know ian. obviously you didn't either.

    but for FUCK'S SAKE, dude, what would you do if you were beaten by the cops. TWICE.

    you miss his point entirely. sucks to be your ignorant ass.

    very sorry for ian. I can only imagine the horror he felt when all he believed came crashing down.

    life is not a disney movie. stuff like this makes me think THIS life is hell; there's no more 'down' to go from here.

    --

    --
    "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
  5. Re:He was killed by the prison-police-industrial c by ArmoredDragon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I think there was probably more to it than that:

    - His girlfriend recently broke up with him, which was after already having been divorced.
    - He was within days of being evicted for routine noise and other disturbances.
    - He was a very habitual drinker and often had side effects from alcohol withdrawal, had Asperger's, and known psychological problems for the past 20 years.
    - The neighbor said he apologized to them about the noise and other disturbances he has made in the past at about 3:30PM the night he committed suicide. The neighbor commented that they though this was really odd.

    This has all been corroborated by other witnesses and medical professionals.

    It seems as though he was already in a really bad position and probably decided to commit suicide earlier in the day. When somebody is in such a state, it's happened many times that they try to make somebody else feel at fault, or otherwise try to push blame on somebody else, which could be a motivation for police involvement (and subsequent blame.) I've witnessed this before myself.

    I'm of half of a mind to think that the police themselves had little to do with it, other than perhaps they were routinely called to his residence (probably for good reason, based on the neighbor's statements) which made him have a grudge against the police.

    I don't know him so this is mainly speculation, but when it comes to suicide you often never know why somebody actually wanted to kill themselves. Even when they leave some kind of note, there's often a misdirection of blame (which I guess his twitter feed was his suicide note. Notice the repeated use of the N word, among other things.)

  6. Re:Is ruled a suicide now? by ArmoredDragon · · Score: 3, Interesting

    A few people I've known have committed suicide, (one of which I was present for) and I can't say a single one of them ever made sense. In talking with other people at Survivors of Suicide, all of the people who go to those meetings basically say to not bother asking yourself why they did it, because you'll most likely never know why. Based on Ian Murdoch's other circumstances, I think it's safe to say that his life was in a somewhat shitty state at the time (see the four reasons I listed in my post above) which is probably why, more than anything else.

  7. Re:tired of being second by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Wow, someone's invented the self-rating comment!

  8. Re:He was killed by the prison-police-industrial c by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Framed? You have got to be kidding.

    Reiser dodged a needle in the arm by showing the authorities where his wife's body was. Some years later, he admitted in open court to killing her.

  9. Re:tired of being second by mikesum32 · · Score: 2

    You missed his point. His point was that the police beat him up, and that people don't care most of the time because all they see is a black victim who must've done something to deserve it. This is dehumanization. Using the N-word shocks the apathetic and fencer-sitter in the face restoring humanity by generating anger and empathetic feelings.

  10. Re:tired of being second by Maritz · · Score: 2

    You appear to think that race and culture are the same thing. That's pretty fucking stupid.

    --
    I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
  11. Re:tired of being second by Maritz · · Score: 2

    I've read every post of his on that page and I don't see what is racist. He seemed angry because of police brutality. Usually the police only brutalize blacks, colored people or whatever the politically correct term today is. Now they brutalized him.

    Where are the racist parts?

    You're not supposed to actually read the posts. You're supposed to take the dickhead's word that he's racist. The link is just so you know he's telling the truth (long as you don't click it).

    --
    I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.