Debian Linux founder Ian Murdock dies at 42; in apparent suicide

Docker CEO Ben Golub said in an earlier-this-week statement post on the company’s blog that software engineer Ian Murdock -- the founder of Debian Linux, and later a senior Docker executive -- died on the night of Monday, December 28. Murdock was 42.

Mourning the death of Murdock, Golub said in the blog post that his demise is “a tragic loss for his family, for the Docker community, and the broader open source world.”

Though Golub did not disclose the circumstances leading to Murdock’s death, it is believed that he died in an apparent suicide, after recent violent encounters with the San Francisco police during the past weekend. Murdock’s run-ins with police were a result of his attempts to break into a home on Saturday; and banging at the door of the same home again on Sunday.

Concerns about Murdock’s well-being mounted on Sunday, when he vaguely described -- in several distressing posts on Twitter -- his encounters with San Francisco police.

Murdock said in one of the Twitter posts that the police officials had beaten him up and sexually assaulted him during an arrest. In one of the tweets he said: “The police are uneducated, evil, and sadistic. Do not trust them.” Moreover, in a distressing Monday tweet, Murdock alluded to suicide, when he said: "I’m committing suicide tonight."