According to operators of FreeNode.net, Rob Levin, who was the President of the Peer-Directer Projects Center which operates irc.freenode.net, has passed away in an accident. Slashdot has a summary here: http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/09/16/2152243
I've only interacted with lilo (his IRC nickname) a few times, but I have a long time connection to the FreeNode community. About 6 years ago, when it was still known as openprojects.net, I created a channel there for a website which I run. It grew very rapidly and then moved to another network, but I stayed with OpenProjects/FreeNode, where we started the #wikipedia IRC channel in December 2001.
Back then, it was often only 3 or 4 people who would hang out occasionally, while I'm now counting 263 people on the channel. Since then, the Wikimedia community has created countless other channels on the FreeNode network, which are invaluable to our commmunity on so many levels. Every now and then lilo would drop in and see how it goes.
Rob Levin was very much part of the fabric of FreeNode, and he helped turn it into a place that is generally pleasant and vibrant, a home for many, many open source and free content projects.
Fortunately, FreeNode will continue to operate. Truly, this vast international communication network is a powerful legacy. But lilo had many more ideas, and the passion and intellect to pursue them. His passing is a great blow to all who knew him and who worked with him, and a fatal personal loss for his loved ones.
I will miss him. :.-(
Erik Moeller wrote:
According to operators of FreeNode.net, Rob Levin, who was the President of the Peer-Directer Projects Center which operates irc.freenode.net, has passed away in an accident. Slashdot has a summary here: http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/09/16/2152243
I've only interacted with lilo (his IRC nickname) a few times, but I have a long time connection to the FreeNode community. About 6 years ago, when it was still known as openprojects.net, I created a channel there for a website which I run. It grew very rapidly and then moved to another network, but I stayed with OpenProjects/FreeNode, where we started the #wikipedia IRC channel in December 2001.
Back then, it was often only 3 or 4 people who would hang out occasionally, while I'm now counting 263 people on the channel. Since then, the Wikimedia community has created countless other channels on the FreeNode network, which are invaluable to our commmunity on so many levels. Every now and then lilo would drop in and see how it goes.
Rob Levin was very much part of the fabric of FreeNode, and he helped turn it into a place that is generally pleasant and vibrant, a home for many, many open source and free content projects.
Fortunately, FreeNode will continue to operate. Truly, this vast international communication network is a powerful legacy. But lilo had many more ideas, and the passion and intellect to pursue them. His passing is a great blow to all who knew him and who worked with him, and a fatal personal loss for his loved ones.
I will miss him. :.-(
Seconded. A truly sad day for IRC. I'm very saddened.
Filip
On 9/16/06, Erik Moeller eloquence@gmail.com wrote:
According to operators of FreeNode.net, Rob Levin, who was the President of the Peer-Directer Projects Center which operates irc.freenode.net, has passed away in an accident. Slashdot has a summary here: http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/09/16/2152243
Rob and I go back around ten years. We first met on #gimp on irc.gimp.org, where I used to be a regular (as a lead developer on the GIMP). I don't remember when I started visiting the Open Projects servers, exactly, but it couldn't have been much later than 1999 or 2000. I remember long discussions with him about Advogato's trust metric (Rob originally became a Master there because of my certification) around that time. Later on, Rob more or less recruited me me to help combat the overt sexism and homophobism in some of Open Projects' more heavily populated channels, something which I admittedly did not have much luck with. I drifted away from open source (I've been gainfully employed as a Windows administrator for the past several years) and haven't done any serious development in the past few years, but I've never managed to stay away from the freenode servers very long. Rob was a good friend with whom I have shared many hours in IRC conversation and many kilobytes of mailed and blogged discussion (if you can call Advogato a "blog"). He will be sorely missed.
Kelly
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org