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I found out today that François Pinard died recently :-(
He was an early inspiration for me. I exchanged email with him frequently when I first tried to maintain a GNU program, and he was always kind and thoughtful. He was an early adopter of and contributor to Automake and a major source for the "Automake style" of Makefiles.
Sadly I never got to meet him in real life, but I'll always remember him for his kindness and charm.
I remember getting email from him signed "Frangois", and I thought that "g" was a really funny way to spell c-with-cedilla -- until I mentioned it and he pointed out to me that some mailer had simply stripped the high bit :-). I called him "Frangois" in my head for years.
He was an early inspiration for me. I exchanged email with him frequently when I first tried to maintain a GNU program, and he was always kind and thoughtful. He was an early adopter of and contributor to Automake and a major source for the "Automake style" of Makefiles.
Sadly I never got to meet him in real life, but I'll always remember him for his kindness and charm.
I remember getting email from him signed "Frangois", and I thought that "g" was a really funny way to spell c-with-cedilla -- until I mentioned it and he pointed out to me that some mailer had simply stripped the high bit :-). I called him "Frangois" in my head for years.
Jul 8, 2014
Indeed, this is a great loss for the FOSS community :-( His passionate advocacy of FOSS and on i18ln issues (in particular French) in the mid '90s was influential in my early use of and involvement in free software development tools.Jul 8, 2014- He's done outstanding work.Jul 8, 2014
Jul 8, 2014
He was my colleague for a few years. Truly a remarkable person. I remember having long talks with him about tons of topics. He was always paying attention when I was telling him something. He was very gentle and kind, very generous. I'm saddened by his death.
I admire his constant enthusiasm and passion. François was interested in many topics such as physics, music and math. He started to learn drawing just a few years ago. He also rode a monocycle. The heart of a child.
I didn't know the "Frangois" anecdote. So typical of him. In his view, he was correct to write his name with a cedilla. He would never had adapted for a 7-bit system!Jul 9, 2014
Another story he told me that I'll always treasure -- he said his mother told him once, "One ought not argue about taste. But nevertheless some people have better taste than others".Jul 9, 2014
François was among the few people you can finally call "friends",
even when you never met them, just because they care about taking
the time to discuss things thoroughly and friendly on the Internet.
I was impressed to discover all the things he did for free software
and I suggest you have a look.
I was also impressed by all the patience he had when dealing with
people. He has been more than supportive with me when things were
difficult, and I owe him a lot for that.
I already miss him and will do so for a long time I guess.Jul 27, 2014
WHAT! Oh no. :-( I dearly loved working with Frangois for decades. We only met in person once, in Japan around 1999 or so.
Argh. :'(Aug 9, 2014
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