Ian's personal life was at times at great odds with what we know of Ian as
a public person. This became known to me while Ian was running Progeny
Linux Systems. I hired Ian for that position, helped to arrange the funding
for that company, and was its chairman of the board.

I would rather preserve what people know and love about him than go into
detail. Unfortunately his suicide is consistent with a previous history. In
this case there is no reason to believe in conspiracy theories.

It just kills me that someone like that could die with essentially no
friends left in the world to help him. But that is exactly what happened.

Our heroes are human beings and have human failings.

If you absolutely have to discuss this, contact me privately. Let's keep it
off the list.

Thanks

Bruce



On Sun, Feb 18, 2018, 13:45 William C Vaughan <curtvaughan@???>
wrote:

> I have thought the whole issue of his supposed suicide was murky. If you
> ever heard/watched any of his lectures or read any of his writings
> regarding the early days of Linux and Debian, he never struck me remotely
> as being high strung and suicidal. His death was a complete shock to many
> people. He had just started a new career direction with the Docker folks,
> and things looked bright for him, both personally and professionally. I
> guess his death will fade into a strange mystery with time, much like the
> assassination of JFK. He indicated in interviews, going back to 2000 or so,
> that he preferred to stay out of politics and focus on technical issues.
> That his death came soon after the systemd controversy went viral is
> certainly "interesting", though it had been many years since his direct
> involvement with the Debian distribution. I really miss the guy, as he was
> such a great contributor both technically and as a historical source in
> regard to Linux and the Open Software movement.
>
> Curt Vaughan
>
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