freebsd.kde.org/memoriam/alane.php
When he was on his game, I know few people as productive, and he pushed us all to do better, be cleverer, work harder. Alan was quick to point out when he thought you were trying to sugar coat something. Alan was the archetypical geek at times, difficult to work with in a team, sometimes hard to get along with. He was sometimes bristling and difficult, sometimes naive about how his abrasiveness appeared to others, and yet could be totally artless and charming, should it be pointed out to him. He had a quick and often very sharp wit, and wasn't afraid to use it. An eclectic at heart, he turned me onto music I'd have otherwise never listened to, and books I'd otherwise never have read, films I wouldn't have watched, and you could have an intelligent disagreement with him on the wildest topics, so long as they weren't personal. Watching someone selfdestruct and not being able to help them is a painful thing to go through, whether it's from up close or from afar. The last few months, when things started to not go so well, he became a lot harder to deal with, incommunicative, withdrawing from his previous sociable self, no longer happy to idle on IRC or chatter in email. Alan had a lot to contribute, and people who really did care what happened to him. It was easy to be angry at him, but the reason he managed to inspire such anger is that I always knew that he was capable of so much more and better. I don't know if he understood that, or that if I didn't like him so much, I wouldn't have tried so hard. It's stating the obvious to say that Alan's life was in chaos, and he was in a lot of pain. Choosing to take the way out of this pain that he did, it is very easy to feel bitter, and guilty, and even to feel guilty for not feeling guilty, and I think it's important that we acknowledge this, and allow ourselves to feel it. My relationship with Alan reminded me of how Internet relationships were hardly much different from real life ones. They're both full of fun, happy times, and, of course, pain. When I met Alan I thought I'd found someone who had not only the skills but the attitude and desire to help the KDE-FreeBSD project in some ways that I'd been doing exclusively for a number of years. As 2002 wore on, it seemed likely that he would be helping out in this manner. I was very happy about that, and looked forward to working with him for the foreseeable future. Then things took a wrong turn around August or September. We were all up in arms about it, and he told us his lawyer thought they had a case, but that the company would drag it on in courts and it'd be a long time before he saw anything from it. We all figured that since he was skilled, he'd get a job before the end of 2002, for sure. He decided to move to Denver to live with a fellow member of KDE-FreeBSD. We all thought it was a great thing for Alan, since NYC was such a terrible place to live rentwise and jobwise. Everyone figured he would at least find SOME job, any job, since living costs were much lower in Denver. Then, after about 3-4 months of no luck, due to lack of money, he was going to be evicted. Alan was in the process of looking for a new place to live when one night, he decided to try dying again. Every time I went back and looked at the history, I got confused. I've decided that I'll never know, and will leave it at that. I hope that Alan at least died peacefully and not in pain. Thank you for all your help and the great times you brought. While Alan and I didn't always see eye to eye, and in fact frequently argued like cat and dog, I always had a respect for his technical skills. Quite often, he would figure out a brilliant workaround for a problem, one that had been evading me for hours or even days. Alan had this way of making us laugh, usually at completely random moments, with a silly little comment that you just weren't expecting. He would point us at an mp3, quite often something with twisted lyrics, and we would all end up listening to it. He really put a lot into it, and I like to think it gave him something back during a difficult period of his life. I believe that Alan helped with packaging KDE with one of the Linux distributions before he started helping with FreeBSD packaging, so while many people might not know his name, they've quite possibly benefited from the hard work he did for KDE for several years. I remember somewhat distinctly when Alan first started contributing to the kde-freebsd mailing list, and when he first started popping in our IRC channel. Funny and very clued were our first impression, and he lived up to it. With his take-charge attitude, he was very effective in everything he did. My friends and I went to LinuxWorld that year, and I made it a point of meeting Alan (exchanged cell numbers so we'd actually find each other). We had some good technical and other discussions between him and my friends. There is no doubt that Alan will be sorely missed by all. Alan was an asset to not only KDE-FreeBSD, but our lives in general. I remember Alan as an acerbic individual - a severe character, ready to point out if you're wrong, quick to anger if you ignored his advice. But, like a lemon, it's also good for you, taken properly. Alan was quick with a quixotic comment, willing to take some advice, and always ready with an anecdote. Looking back on my correspondence with Alan, it seems we wrote back and forth on some technical matters, but I remember him mostly from IRC. That was where his wit and technical skills could really shine, during our rapid banter with its wildly erratic topics. We were all shocked and horrified when he was held up at gunpoint in NYC, and spent a long time talking. But here Alan's life was already on the skids, it seems, and later he became more withdrawn, less talkative. The only photo's I saw of Alan were those posted after Alan's death. He looked totally different from what I pictured, and somehow I had been convinced that he was 55. With Alan, one would never know how things would turn out. If he was in a good mood he was one of the most clever people I have ever met, if he was in a bad mood he was one of the worst people I have ever met. This said and done, he has said and taught me things that I will remember for the rest of my life. Alan and I shared a wicked music taste and one song I will always keep close is by Warren Zevon, called "My Shit's Fucked Up". I played it after I got the news of Alan's death and the memories came back to me. It got me thinking, how is it possible that a clever guy like Alan could not find a proper job and settle down with his cats and live a quiet life ever after? Many long nights we have spent talking about insane things, some related to the projects we were involved in, others just plain garbage amongst two friends. Some people say one cannot get to know people on the Internet. I considered Alan a friend no different than any real life friends I have. If there is such a thing as reincarnation, I pray that Alan has moved onto a better life, less troubled than his previous one. I did not know Alan, but I know how tight-knit the FreeBSD community is and how much this affects everyone, whether they were friends with him or not. I hope this sad event is also a strong reminder to people that "FreeBSD" has always been far more than a mere collection of code, the actual code being perhaps one of the least significant reasons that people are drawn to it and stay around for so long. FreeBSD is first and foremost a community, for some a community even closer than family. As with all families, there are frequently squabbles with harsh words exchanged and feelings hurt, but I hope that no one lets such incidents come between them and the fundamental realization that, after this much time spent in one another's company, we're still family whether we all get along or not. I may not be as active in FreeBSD these days as I wish I could be, and I think a certain ebb and flow of involvement with the actual coding work is only natural given life's other demands and changing circumstances, but I'm still extremely proud of this community and the strength it has had to accomplish things that no single...
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