The Debian Project mourns the loss of Steve Langasek (vorlon)
January 17th, 2025
The Debian Project is sad to announce the loss of Steve Langasek (vorlon), who passed away on Wednesday, January 1 2025. He was 45.
Steve became a Debian Developer on January 14, 2001, but even at that time he was a well-known contributor to Free Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) in general. He started using Linux in 1996 and quickly became well known and respected as a prolific contributor and mentor to his fellow Linux enthusiasts. Steve's enthusiasm set many of those he interacted with on their own paths to becoming developers, innovators, and contributors across many disciplines in Free Software.
Steve's influence in Linux was profound and far reaching. He worked not only in the Debian Project but also Canonical's Ubuntu - initially as a passionate contributor, and later serving as a senior developer. Steve's work went beyond technical excellence. He was instrumental in showing both projects that the human and community elements are just as important, if not more so, than the gift we came together to share with the world.
Steve's dedication to the social aspects of Free Software development was not limited to addressing social injustice and inequalities. He was very adamant that we should all be ourselves as we are: people helping people, and having fun doing so. Steve advocated that very point in our Developer's Conferences, showing that despite all of the hacking and talks, we could also be a social group without rigid form. He showed us that we could still accomplish the business at hand and have fun while doing so. DebConf organizers ever since have been influenced by his ideas.
Throughout his over 20 years membership of Debian in particular, Steve was a key influence on many of the Free Software tools used by enterprises around the world. His work on Samba, PAM, and LDAP left a lasting impact, as did his crucial role as a release manager for Debian Sarge and Etch, and as a member of the Debian Technical Committee. It is no exaggeration to say that Steve brought fresh perspectives and innovation to the Debian release process, and he leaves an enduring legacy.
Steve's email signature was a consistent reminder of his own dedication to Free Software:
Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS to set it on, and I can move the world. - Steve Langasek
Debian contributors share their own memories of interactions with Steve:
I wasn't close to Steve on a personal level, but I have had many years of professional interaction with him, mostly in his work on the Ubuntu Release and Archive Admin teams.
Looking back on a post in my email archives, I was unaware that Steve had been battling illness in January 31, 2021 when he spoke about another Developer, Adam Conrad (infinity)'s passing, saying that, "The world is a dumber place without him". [[How ironic?]]. Despite what he was going through, Steve still made the trek to the Netherlands in October of that year to be there for a conference but his troubling health prevented him from doing so in person. Around November of that year I saw him active again and things seemed well with him from my perspective.
My first direct contribution to Ubuntu came in 2009 which I was testing the Edubuntu 9.10 Beta. I needed to get approval from the Ubuntu Release Team for my moodle fix to land before release and Steve approved my request. I was thrilled to be able to meet Steve the next year at the Ubuntu Developer Summit in Brussels.
I did not realize that Steve was not that many years older than I am, which makes it more dramatic to me personally how young Steve was. Steve had huge influence beyond his direct contributions as he mentored and inspired so many of those he came in contact with.
— Jeremy Bícha
I warmly remember crossing paths with Steve over a Settlers of Catan game on Linux, at the time called Gnocatan, eventually renamed to Pioneers. I was adding a small software feature and he was near the center of everything, including the rename. Then maybe 15 years later when I randomly dropped by an Ubuntu Summit, he recognized my name tag and made a point of saying hello. Great person, very sorry to hear the sad news.
— Jeff Breidenbach
I was digging in local and public mail archives and found amongst them some of Steves very first postings to debian-devel list. In context I was working on and intended to package freetds for Debian but at the time I was struggling with some technical problems. I remember I had gotten some helpful answers from Steve and you can see from the changelog of freetds that the very first entry is from him.
https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2001/03/msg00519.html
To: <debian-devel@lists.debian.org>
Subject: Flames, flames on the side of my face (Was: Bug#88588: libpam-modules: pam-limits.so is broken)
From: Steve Langasek <vorlon@netexpress.net>
Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2001 09:32:00 -0600 (CST)
Message-id: <[🔎] Pine.LNX.4.30.0103070930420.1639-100000@tennyson.netexpress.net>
In-reply-to: <[🔎] 01030714161900.00476@silence>
On Wed, 7 Mar 2001, Kenneth Vestergaard Schmidt wrote:
> I feel that we should be grateful that Free Software exists. I meet so many
> ego-centrical people everyday, who thinks the whole idea of giving something
> for free sounds ridiculous, so seeing that Debian, FSF, Linux, and everything
> Free Software (and to some extent Open Source) is really happening is a minor
> miracle, and a testimony to that not all humans are selfish, capitalistic
> bastards 🙂
I resent this statement. I'm a selfish, capitalistic bastard, and I'm proud to work on Debian.
Steve Langasek
postmodern programmer
— Andreas Tille
I flew to Portland for a few days for some key signing. These were the final signatures I needed in order to become a Debian Developer. That was my first time meeting Steve in person. I vividly remember him picking me up, the apologies about the muffler that he needed to get fixed in his car, and the drive to a spot in Portland where we dined on Ethiopian food and chatted about Ubuntu, Debian, Portland, the midwest US, and more.
Prior to meeting in person, we had many online interactions. As one of many examples, I studied Spanish in high school, so there was a day where we had an entire technical conversation in #ubuntu-release in Spanish. (I never admitted to using a little bit of Google Translate there.)
Steve was someone I looked up to throughout my entire time in Debian and Ubuntu. His deep commitment to technical excellency helped me become the developer (and by extension, person) I am today.
— Simon Quigley
Steve joined Debian in 2001 just a few weeks before I did, and I got to know him when we worked together as release assistants and later as release managers for Debian 3.1 (sarge) - although at the time I had absolutely no idea what timezone he was in based on our online interactions.
A few years after that he came to work at Canonical, we worked together on Ubuntu for many years; each of us was the other's line manager at one time or another, though he was much better at the job than I ever was. He had an enormous intellect, a quick laugh, a multilingual sense of humour, and a keen sense of justice. Everyone I know who worked with him held him in the highest respect.
He was a friend whose company I always sought out, both in person when I could and online, who always listened and offered wise counsel and good company. May his memory be for a blessing.
— Colin Watson
I've always known Steve as a kind and professional person. I first encountered him when I worked on Gnocatan (now Pioneers). He provided insightful comments when important issues were discussed and gave everyone space to share their opinions, thus allowing us to reach consensus. Later on, I've seen him act similarly in other parts of Debian. It is very sad indeed that he has passed away. He will be missed.
— Dr. Bas Wijnen
We cannot forget to remember and mention Steve's amazing sense of humor:
<dilinger> woo, elmo put my key in the keyring. that was fast!
<vorlon> dilinger: so, how about those ndiswrapper RC bugs?
<dilinger> uh. no habla ingles.
<vorlon> dilinger: sabes que no alcanzarás escaparme así
<dilinger> vorlon: μιλάτε τα ελληνικά;
<vorlon> βίδα εσείς
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