Ian Murdock

Ian Murdock
Murdock, in interview, April 2008
Born	Ian Ashley Murdock (1973-04-28)April 28, 1973 Konstanz, West Germany
Died	December 28, 2015(2015-12-28) (aged 42) San Francisco, California, U.S.
Cause of death	Suicide by hanging
Alma mater	Purdue University
Occupation	Programmer
Employer	Docker
Known for	Debian GNU/Linux
Spouse(s)	Debra Lynn (div. 2008)
Children	3

Ian Ashley Murdock (28 April 1973 – 28 December 2015) was an American software engineer, known for being the founder of the Debian project and Progeny Linux Systems, a commercial Linux company.

Although Murdock's parents were both from southern Indiana, he was born in Konstanz, West Germany on 28 April 1973, where his father was pursuing postdoctoral research. The family returned to the United States in 1975, and Murdock grew up in Lafayette, Indiana beginning in 1977 when his father became a professor of entomology at Purdue University. Murdock graduated from Harrison High School in 1991, and then earned his bachelor's degree in computer science from Purdue in 1996.

While a college student, Murdock founded the Debian project in August 1993, and wrote the Debian Manifesto in January 1994. Murdock conceived Debian as a Linux distribution that embraced open design, contributions, and support from the free software community. He named Debian after his then-girlfriend Debra Lynn, and himself (Deb and Ian). They later married, had three children, and divorced in January 2008.

In January 2006, Murdock was appointed Chief Technology Officer of the Free Standards Group and elected chair of the Linux Standard Base workgroup. He continued as CTO of the Linux Foundation when the group was formed from the merger of the Free Standards Group and Open Source Development Labs.