[HN Gopher] Wolfgang Denk, creator of the U-Boot bootloader, has...
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       Wolfgang Denk, creator of the U-Boot bootloader, has died
        
       Author : gdgghhhhh
       Score  : 220 points
       Date   : 2022-10-23 14:31 UTC (8 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (lists.denx.de)
 (TXT) w3m dump (lists.denx.de)
        
       | gonzo wrote:
       | Sad day.
       | 
       | I used ppcboot at musenki 20 years ago (2001-2002) on a set of
       | MPC 824x boards.
       | 
       | Wolfgang was always helpful.
       | 
       | Support was removed in 2014
       | https://lists.denx.de/pipermail/u-boot/2014-December/198820....
        
       | IYasha wrote:
       | He's a true OpenSource propagator, and a professional. In growing
       | world of embedded systems, the importance of U-Boot is hard to
       | overestimate. What a loss!
        
         | minraws wrote:
         | Very true, I have seen many people who won't go nearly as far
         | in their professional life for supporting OSS, including
         | myself. And U-boot is just incredible to say the least.
        
       | joezydeco wrote:
       | Almost every embedded Linux system, especially on ARM platforms,
       | uses u-boot to start up. And that includes Android.
       | 
       | It's everywhere and it's all invisible to you. But it's a crucial
       | piece of code.
        
       | minraws wrote:
       | Many thanks for standing strong for and with Open Source, Rest in
       | Peace, dear sir. :)
        
       | lol768 wrote:
       | There are some tributes on LWN: https://lwn.net/Articles/912052/
       | 
       | Would also vote for the black banner treatment, U-Boot is
       | pervasive. It runs on satellites in space, it runs on the phones
       | in our pockets:
       | https://lists.denx.de/pipermail/u-boot/2006-December/018577....
        
         | Deeg9rie9usi wrote:
         | He was also a great supporter of Xenomai:
         | https://lore.kernel.org/xenomai/eca5db9d-5e39-672a-e190-1c8e...
         | 
         | https://lore.kernel.org/xenomai/87v8oa60bx.fsf@xenomai.org/T...
        
           | _0ffh wrote:
           | Wow, I didn't even know about this. It's a cool project!
        
         | soneil wrote:
         | We use u-boot at work, in completely uninteresting places. You
         | don't think about it, it just is. Curl is probably a good
         | equivalence - its pervasiveness is more impressive than its
         | extremes.
        
       | xony wrote:
       | RIP ,no match to it ,its used everywhere
        
       | _0ffh wrote:
       | Agree with others, black banner appropriate.
        
       | qbasic_forever wrote:
       | Wow RIP, u-boot is fantastic and it's a real loss to have its
       | creator gone.
        
       | rolph wrote:
       | i vote the man deserves a black banner.
        
       | Toutouxc wrote:
       | Often someone's obituary gets posted on HN who was well known in
       | some parts of the IT community, but not well known enough to have
       | a Wikipedia page or a bio somewhere.
       | 
       | One thing that I usually want to know (and that's usually hard to
       | find), and it's not out of morbid curiosity, is how old the
       | person was and whether their death was sudden and tragic or more
       | or less natural and expected.
       | 
       | I know the loss hurts in either case, but it's somehow much more
       | comforting knowing that e.g. an 82 year-old kernel dev demi-god
       | grandpa died in his sleep, having lived a long, fruitful life,
       | than that some game dev prodigy in her late twenties got hit by a
       | drunk driver.
       | 
       | RIP Wolfgang, I read a bit about your work and it sounds like you
       | did enough good for several lives.
        
         | Macha wrote:
         | He was employed 25 years ago, at least long enough to be senior
         | to the author of this post, so that puts a lower bound of 50
         | (which at least matches with how he looks in his profile on his
         | company's about section).
         | 
         | Still unfortunate if he's just 50, however.
        
       | lizardactivist wrote:
       | What happens to U-Boot now? Will it continue to live on, or will
       | it be replaced by something else from another vendor?
        
         | bragr wrote:
         | I doubt anything changes. It's open source under the GPL2 and
         | is used by everyone under the sun so there is plenty of
         | motivation to maintain it.
        
           | josemanuel wrote:
           | I believe the project is headed by Tom Rini.
        
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       (page generated 2022-10-23 23:01 UTC)