Debian mourns the loss of two project members

May 15th, 2004

Recently, the Debian Project has lost two members of its community. Manuel Estrada Sainz (ranty) and Andrés García (ErConde) were killed in a tragic car accident while returning from the Free Software conference held at Valencia, Spain.

Manuel Estrada Sainz was a kernel hacker and maintained a number of packages in Debian including the VisualOS educational tool, for which he was the lead developer as well. The Orinoco USB driver as well as the multi-purpose firmware loading support he developed for the Linux kernel are also provided in Debian.

Andrés García was a Debian advocate, a contributor in the development of the custom Debian distribution for the Junta de Andalucía (regional government for most of southern Spain) and also an active member (and administrator) within the Spanish Hispalinux association.

The Debian Project honors their good work and strong dedication to Debian and Free Software. The contributions of both Manuel and Andrés will not be forgotten, and other developers will continue their work.

Manuel and Andrés will both be missed.