Ian Murdock: a tribute to the man and his work on Linux

Murdock's work combined an insistence on excellence with a public commitment to open, ethical software development, writes Doc Searls

Ian Murdock, who died in San Francisco on 28 December, was the co-creator of the Debian, the Linux distribution he founded while an undergraduate at Indiana's Purdue University in 1993.

The circumstances of Murdock's death have not been made public. After praising Murdock for the good work he did for the company and the world, a statement from his most recent employer Docker added that "Ian's family has requested that well-wishers and press respect their privacy and direct all inquiries through Docker".