------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Debian Project https://www.debian.org/
The Debian Project mourns the loss of Steve Langasek (vorlon)
press@debian.org January 17th, 2025 https://www.debian.org/News/2025/20250117 ------------------------------------------------------------------------


The Debian Project is sad to announce the loss of Steve Langasek
(vorlon), who passed away on Wednesday, January 1 2025. He was 45.

Steve became a Debian Developer on January 14, 2001, but even at that
time he was a well-known contributor to Free Libre Open Source Software
(FLOSS) in general. He started using Linux in 1996 and quickly became
well known and respected as a prolific contributor and mentor to his
fellow Linux enthusiasts. Steve's enthusiasm set many of those he
interacted with on their own paths to becoming developers, innovators,
and contributors across many disciplines in Free Software.

Steve's influence in Linux was profound and far reaching. He worked not
only in the Debian Project but also Canonical's Ubuntu - initially as a passionate contributor, and later serving as a senior developer. Steve's
work went beyond technical excellence. He was instrumental in showing
both projects that the human and community elements are just as
important, if not more so, than the gift we came together to share with
the world.

Steve's dedication to the social aspects of Free Software development
was not limited to addressing social injustice and inequalities. He was
very adamant that we should all be ourselves as we are: people helping
people, and having fun doing so. Steve advocated that very point in our Developer's Conferences, showing that despite all of the hacking and
talks, we could also be a social group without rigid form. He showed us
that we could still accomplish the business at hand and have fun while
doing so. DebConf organizers ever since have been influenced by his
ideas.

Throughout his over 20 years membership of Debian in particular, Steve
was a key influence on many of the Free Software tools used by
enterprises around the world. His work on Samba, PAM, and LDAP left a
lasting impact, as did his crucial role as a release manager for Debian
Sarge and Etch, and as a member of the Debian Technical Committee. It is
no exaggeration to say that Steve brought fresh perspectives and
innovation to the Debian release process, and he leaves an enduring
legacy.

Steve's email signature was a consistent reminder of his own dedication
to Free Software:

"Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS to set it on, and I can move
the world. - Steve Langasek"

I did not realize that Steve was not that many years older than I am,
which makes it more dramatic to me personally how young Steve was. Steve
had huge influence beyond his direct contributions as he mentored and
inspired so many of those he came in contact with.

— Jeremy Bícha

I warmly remember crossing paths with Steve over a Settlers of Catan
game on Linux, at the time called Gnocatan, eventually renamed to
Pioneers. I was adding a small software feature and he was near the
center of everything, including the rename. Then maybe 15 years later
when I randomly dropped by an Ubuntu Summit, he recognized my name tag
and made a point of saying hello. Great person, very sorry to hear the
sad news.

— Jeff Breidenbach

I was digging in local and public mail archives and found amongst them
some of Steves very first postings to debian-devel list. In context I
was working on and intended to package freetds for Debian but at the
time I was struggling with some technical problems. I remember I had
gotten some helpful answers from Steve and you can see from the
changelog of freetds that the very first entry is from him.

https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2001/03/msg00519.html

To: <debian-devel@lists.debian.org>
Subject: Flames, flames on the side of my face (Was: Bug#88588:
libpam-modules: pam-limits.so is broken)
From: Steve Langasek <vorlon@netexpress.net>
Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2001 09:32:00 -0600 (CST)
Message-id: <[🔎] Pine.LNX.4.30.0103070930420.1639-
100000@tennyson.netexpress.net>
In-reply-to: <[🔎] 01030714161900.00476@silence>

On Wed, 7 Mar 2001, Kenneth Vestergaard Schmidt wrote:

I feel that we should be grateful that Free Software exists. I meet so
many ego-centrical people everyday, who thinks the whole idea of
giving something for free sounds ridiculous, so seeing that Debian,
FSF, Linux, and everything Free Software (and to some extent Open
Source) is really happening is a minor miracle, and a testimony to
that not all humans are selfish, capitalistic bastards 🙂

I resent this statement. I'm a selfish, capitalistic bastard, and I'm
proud to work on Debian.

Steve Langasek
postmodern programmer

— Andreas Tille

I flew to Portland for a few days for some key signing. These were the
final signatures I needed in order to become a Debian Developer. That
was my first time meeting Steve in person. I vividly remember him
picking me up, the apologies about the muffler that he needed to get
fixed in his car, and the drive to a spot in Portland where we dined on Ethiopian food and chatted about Ubuntu, Debian, Portland, the midwest
US, and more.

Prior to meeting in person, we had many online interactions. As one of
many examples, I studied Spanish in high school, so there was a day
where we had an entire technical conversation in #ubuntu-release in
Spanish. (I never admitted to using a little bit of Google Translate
there.)

Steve was someone I looked up to throughout my entire time in Debian and Ubuntu. His deep commitment to technical excellency helped me become the developer (and by extension, person) I am today.

— Simon Quigley

Steve joined Debian in 2001 just a few weeks before I did, and I got to
know him when we worked together as release assistants and later as
release managers for Debian 3.1 (sarge) - although at the time I had
absolutely no idea what timezone he was in based on our online
interactions.

A few years after that he came to work at Canonical, we worked together
on Ubuntu for many years; each of us was the other's line manager at one
time or another, though he was much better at the job than I ever was.
He had an enormous intellect, a quick laugh, a multilingual sense of
humour, and a keen sense of justice. Everyone I know who worked with him
held him in the highest respect.

He was a friend whose company I always sought out, both in person when I
could and online, who always listened and offered wise counsel and good company. May his memory be for a blessing.

— Colin Watson

I've always known Steve as a kind and professional person. I first
encountered him when I worked on Gnocatan (now Pioneers). He provided insightful comments when important issues were discussed and gave
everyone space to share their opinions, thus allowing us to reach
consensus. Later on, I've seen him act similarly in other parts of
Debian. It is very sad indeed that he has passed away. He will be
missed.

— Dr. Bas Wijnen

We cannot forget to remember and mention Steve's amazing sense of humor:

<dilinger> woo, elmo put my key in the keyring. that was fast!
<vorlon> dilinger: so, how about those ndiswrapper RC bugs?
<dilinger> uh. no habla ingles.
<vorlon> dilinger: sabes que no alcanzarás escaparme así
<dilinger> vorlon: μιλάτε τα ελληνικά;
<vorlon> βίδα εσείς


About Debian
------------

The Debian Project is an association of Free Software developers who
volunteer their time and effort in order to produce a completely free
operating system known as Debian.


Contact Information
-------------------

For further information, please visit the Debian web pages at https://www.debian.org/ or send mail to <press@debian.org>.

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