I’m sad to report that Thomas Gilliard (satellit), who was a
valued member of the QA team for many years, passed away last week. His
wife contacted me with the news. Thomas was a regular and reassuring
presence at QA and blocker review meetings and ran many thousands of
tests since he first joined the team in 2009. He was particularly
dedicated to testing our Sugar builds. We’ll miss him.
We learned this week of the passing of John McDonough (jjmcd). John was a long-time contributor to the Fedora Project, and we are sad to hear of his passing. John contributed heavily to the Documentation team, sharing his knowledge with a global user community. John didn’t just write documentation, he also mentored new contributors. He was a patient and caring mentor, and our community is worse for his loss.
When I first became a Fedora contributor 11 years ago, John was one of the people who welcomed me into the Docs team. His guidance helped me become a better contributor. Although he stepped back from contributing a few years ago, his impact continues.
John’s passion for open source was matched by his passion for amateur radio. His contributions to our Amateur Radio Guide helped many hams get the most out of their hobby. WB8RCR, WB8RCR, WB8RCR, SK
I created a memorial page on the wiki. I invite your contributions.
Matthew Williams (left) interviews Ryan Jarvinen (right)
One of the things about working in open source software communities is that you are always moving forward. It’s hard not to get a sense of momentum and progress when it seems you are constantly striving to improve and build on the work you and others have done before.
But sometimes you have to pause to reflect, because sometimes there is loss.
It is with heavy hearts that the Fedora Project community learned yesterday of the passing of one of its prominent members, Matthew Williams, who lost his three-year battle with cancer Wednesday morning. Matthew, also known as “Lord Drachenblut,” was an Indiana native and a passionate member of the Fedora community.
Matthew’s passion to constantly improve the software and hardware with which he worked created a tireless advocate for the Fedora Project, and his presence was felt at conferences across the nation: SCaLE, Ohio LinuxFest, and the former Indiana LinuxFest, an Indianapolis-based event that he helped found.
Matthew also devoted time to interviewing and archiving notable figures in the free and open source software communities to learn what drove people to work on their projects. He was also very driven to share what he knew, launching the Open FOSS training site in 2015 to help new Linux users with getting involved with any Linux distribution. While he was active in the Fedora community, Matthew was also very involved with Ubuntu as well.
A great deal of what Matthew did for Fedora centered on getting more people involved and knowledgeable about the project. To that end, he was the owner of the Fedora G+ page, a responsibility he took very seriously. Under his management, the page has over 25,000 members and is one of the Fedora Project’s strongest outreach channels.
All of this work and achievement does not really portray what Matthew was like as a person: a kind and thoughtful soul with an unwavering dedication to the things in which he believed. For those who worked with and knew Lord Drachenblut, it is your personal thoughts we invite you to reflect upon today. For the rest, know that the Fedora Project and the open source software community at large is a little more poorer today with the passing of our colleague.
The building will continue, but we will miss our friend Matthew.
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