Peter Eckersley RIP

Peter Eckersley RIP

Posted Sep 6, 2022 18:42 UTC (Tue) by dkg (subscriber, #55359)
Parent article: Peter Eckersley RIP

Peter was a great person. As i wrote to a friend earlier, he was clever and open and contrary and friendly and kind and weird. He had a boldness to try to do things differently than anyone expected, and a knack at working through a problem that made you look at it in a way you hadn't seen it before.

The prospects for the Internet and tech in general are less hopeful with him gone. But we can honor him by trying to imagine what we actually want to see in this space, and to think concretely about what steps we might take to make it happen. If you see a problem, don't just sigh at it and accept. Ask "what do we need to do to fix it?" If you're an expert in your field, as many LWN readers are, and as Peter was, you have a responsibility to think about and work on its broader impact, like he did.

And if you're not yet an expert, you have incredibly valuable outside perspective that might let you identify problems that people with more experience have grown accustomed to and started to ignore. Don't squander that perspective just to fit in or claim "expertise"!

And don't be afraid to be a little bit strange.

I'll miss you, Peter.

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