PI ZERO

News
FEATURE
Photo by Ilya Schurov,
Computerra Weekly
IAN MURDOCK,
CREATOR OF DEBIAN,
PASSES AWAY
A giant in the Linux and open-source community
leaves behind a legacy of code
D
ebian is one of the most
important versions (or
distributions) of Linux.
It powers Ubuntu and helped pave
the way for a friendlier Linux
that was much easier for people
to get started with. It’s the basis
for Raspbian, the main Raspberry
Pi OS, for this very reason.
With this in mind, it’s very
sad to hear of the passing of Ian
Murdock, the creator of Debian
and its ethos. His death on
28 December 2015 came as a shock
to the Linux and open-source
community at large, especially
as he was only 42.
Debian Manifesto
Though Ian’s legacy goes beyond
just Debian, it is where he first
made a name for himself. While
studying at Purdue University,
Indiana, Ian created the Debian
Manifesto, a basic premise as to
why Linux should be packaged as
distributions and how the best way
to go about that was. “The Debian
design process is open to ensure
that the system is of the highest
quality and that it reflects the
needs of the user community,”
Ian wrote in 1994. “By involving
others with a wide range of
abilities and backgrounds, Debian
is able to be developed in a
modular fashion. Its components
are of high quality because
those with expertise in a certain
area are given the opportunity
to construct or maintain the
individual components of
Debian involving that area.
Though Ian’s legacy goes beyond
just Debian, it is where he first
made a name for himself
Involving others also ensures
that valuable suggestions for
improvement can be incorporated
into the distribution during its
development; thus, a distribution
is created based on the needs
and wants of the users rather
than the needs and wants of the
constructor. It is very difficult for
one individual or small group to
anticipate these needs and wants
in advance without direct input
from others.”
Many of these concepts are
now fairly standard in Linux
distribution development, keeping
them open and allowing for the
best work possible to go into
them. Debian was first released
in September 1993 and, 22 years
later, is still going very strong.
Linux Foundation
After his work on Debian, Ian
was appointed CTO of the then
Free Standards Group (FSG) in
2006. When the Linux Foundation
– the leading Linux advocacy
group – formed from FSG a year
later, he continued in this role.
In the same year, Ian joined
what was then Sun Microsystems
and created an open-source
version of Solaris, called
OpenSolaris. Based on the ‘lessons
of Linux’, it included many GNU
tools, as well as a GNOME desktop
and other Linux-like trappings.
While there, he was vice president
of emerging platforms.
When Sun Microsystems merged
with Oracle, Ian left and joined
Salesforce Marketing Cloud as
vice president of platform and
developer community. Salesforce
creates analytics software for
marketing companies.
Shortly before his death, Ian
joined Docker. His name will
be remembered in the Linux
community, and not just because
the ‘-ian’ in Debian is from his
own name. His philosophy lives
on in his projects and in the
others that he inspired, and will
do for a long time to come.
8 February 2016
raspberrypi.org/magpi