Date: Tue, 24 Nov 2009 19:36:36 -0500 From: Arwuah _ <arwuah@gmail.com> To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: [FreeBSD-Announce] Death announcement for John Birrell Message-ID: <9c6409a70911241636x68150cb7v87816594e817bfb5@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <20091124220457.GA74857@FreeBSD.org> References: <20091124220457.GA74857@FreeBSD.org>
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Craig- I just wanted to say what an excellent write up that was. I don't know John, but I can tell just what a great personal and mentor he must have been. Thank You & Best Regards, Arwuah On 11/24/09, Craig Rodrigues <rodrigc@freebsd.org> wrote: > Dear Friends, > > It is with great sadness that I announce the passing of FreeBSD > committer John Birrell <jb@freebsd.org>. > > > > > > John Birrell / jb@freebsd.org > > BACKGROUND > ========== > John Birrell was a Unix developer since 1988 and a FreeBSD user since > version 1.0.5. > He had a Bachelor Degree in Engineering (Electrical, First Class Honours, > 1981) > from Monash University in Australia. > > Over the years he developed with various commercial Unix variants such as > SysVR2/3, > Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, OSF/1 and SCO and several embedded operatings systems > like VxWorks, LynxOS and Microware's OS9. > > In the open source world he was once a user of NetBSD and OpenBSD in > addition to FreeBSD. > Afterwards, he preferred just to use FreeBSD. > > In 20 years of consulting he worked in the automotive, building materials, > pharmaceutical, petrochemical, telecommunications, defence and business > systems industries. > > John worked on an oil rig in China, for Ford in Australia, and for other > customers > in Philippines and other parts of Asia. > > While on a business trip visiting his employer Juniper Networks in > Sunnyvale, California, > U.S.A., John suffered a stroke, and passed away on November 20, 2009. > > > FREEBSD CONTRIBUTIONS > ===================== > > John Birrell was a member of the FreeBSD project, for over 12 years, > and could commit to the FreeBSD source code. John felt passionately > about FreeBSD, and his contributions to this software project were many and > varied: > > - port of Sun's DTrace to FreeBSD (2007) > - contributed BSD licensed libdwarf to FreeBSD (2008) > - contributed initial implementation of FreeBSD on DEC Alpha, from NetBSD > (1998) > -> this was the first 64-bit OS that FreeBSD ran on > - contributed original libc_r pthread implementation to FreeBSD before KSE > (1998) > - contributed to port of Sun UltraSPARC-T1 (Niagara) to FreeBSD (2005) > > John also participated as a mentor in the Google Summer of Code project. > For Google Summer of Code, John mentored students in various FreeBSD > projects that were funded by Google. Mentoring new developers and > colleagues > was something that John felt very strongly about. > > John also liked to attend BSD conferences. In May 2009, I attended > the BSDCan conference with John in Ottawa, Canada. He was in his element, > and had many interesting and animated discussions with other FreeBSD > developers, > including people like Randall Stewart. > > > JBUILD > ====== > > As part of John's work at Juniper Networks in 2008, John started working > on a project called jbuild. jbuild is a modification of the > FreeBSD make(1) utility, which adds improved dependency tracking as a first > level feature, by tracking read/write system calls of all invoked utilities, > either by using DTrace, or by using a special kernel module named filemon. > > At Juniper, the project is ongoing and will be deployed as part of the > software build at Juniper next year. > > Although this work was started in response to needs at Juniper, > John was quite passionate about pushing this work back to FreeBSD, in order > to improve the FreeBSD build. John observed that in FreeBSD, > a "make universe" which verifies that all code changes work on all > architectures takes so long that very few people actually do it, so > less popular architectures often get broken. John also observed that > by simplifying a "make universe" and other "buildworld" targets often > rebuilds a lot of things unnecessarily, due to the fact that it is "safer" > to do so, because the dependencies are not tracked as accurately as they > could be. > > John has a branch in the FreeBSD svn repo for building all of FreeBSD with > jbuild here: > > http://svn.freebsd.org/viewvc/base/projects/jbuild/ > > I will update this branch as I have time, but it would be nice if folks in > the FreeBSD community could keep this work alive. > > John was keen that distributions like PC-BSD could adopt jbuild. > John wanted to simplify the FreeBSD build, to make it easier > for people to make new distributions based on FreeBSD. > > Let me know if you want to learn more about any of this stuff. > > > PERSONAL > ======== > > John lived alone on a 118 acre rural property in Apollo Bay, Australia, > which > is on the southeastern coast of Australia, approximately 4 hours from > Melbourne. > > His house was not connected to the local grid.....his water supply > was obtained from tanks on his roof which were filled with rainwater. > His electricity was supplied by solar cells. > > On one trip to Sunnyvale in 2008, he bought an alcohol distilling device > which he brought back home. His goal was to try to grow potato and sugar > beets on his property, and distill them into alcohol, so that he > could fuel is car with ethanol instead of gasoline, thus having > a very minimal carbon footprint. > > John was also passionate about animal welfare. He owned a few > cats, and just bought a puppy dog in 2009. In 2008, when massive fires > swept much of the Australian countryside, he took time > off of Juniper to volunteer with Wildlife Victoria. > This organization provided assistance to many animals who suffered > during the fires, such as kangaroos, wallabies, and even pets > of people who abandoned their properties when fleeing the fires. > > John also liked motorcycles. He told me stories about how he > motorcycled around Asia many years ago. He was also hoping > to buy a motorcycle to garage in California, so that he could > drive it whenever he visited Sunnyvale. > > > WORKING WITH JOHN > ================= > > I worked very closely with John over the past year. > I was in constant communication with John over IRC chat, > and Skype. I also Skyped John into many meetings, to keep > him up to date on the pulse of what was going on in Juniper. > Although John was in a remote place, he felt like he was > in the cube next to me. > > John was very patient with me and took the time to explain point by point > what he > was trying to achieve with jbuild and why it solved legitimate problems > with make(1) based builds. > > John also had taste for good "expensive" food and fine wine. > In 2009, as thanks for my help in working on jbuild, > John treated me to a sumptuous and expensive meal at > Sent Sovi Restaurant, in Saratoga, California, U.S.A......a fond memory for > me. :) > > John was one of the smartest engineers that I have ever worked > with, and was a mentor and friend. > > > SUMMARY > ======= > > I am going to miss talking to John every day on IRC, hearing interesting > stories > about living in rural Australia, and solving new and challenging > technical problems with him. His passion really pushed me to work very hard > on jbuild, > and learn new things. I will miss him as a colleague, mentor, and friend. > > -- > Craig Rodrigues > rodrigc@FreeBSD.org > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-announce@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-announce > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-announce-unsubscribe@freebsd.org" > -- Sent from my mobile device
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