LWN: Comments on "Mourning Doug Niehaus"

Mourning Doug Niehaus

amit.kucheria — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 18:27:10 +0000

As a Research Assistant who worked for Doug[1], I smiled when I read this: "not letting his students or anyone else slip through with a sloppy statement either, native speakers or not". So true. You learnt to become a succinct English speaker with Doug if you didn't want your head bitten off.

I used, patched and enhanced several cool Linux tools at ITTC that Doug had an influence on. e.g. DSKI (tracing) and NetSpec[2] (network protocol testing and reporting) still have features I haven't seen in other tools.

More than anything else, working with Doug reinforced in me the possibility of working on Linux as a full-time, paid job. For that, I'm ever grateful.

[1] 2000-2002
[2] Netspec: http://www.ittc.ku.edu/~evans/talks/dren_users/dren-enhan...

Mourning Doug Niehaus

tejasvi — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 18:26:18 +0000

Prof Niehaus was underrated both as a teacher and professor. As his research student for 2+ years, I am indebted to him for the knowledge he shared. His passing away is a big loss to KU and the linux community. May his soul RIP!

Mourning Doug Niehaus

regehr — Sun, 02 Sep 2012 04:20:16 +0000

Thomas, thanks for writing this up.

I think my favorite memory of Doug was spending an afternoon walking around DC, poking into museums and such, after an NSF panel ended early.

RIP.

Mourning Doug Niehaus

filteredperception — Fri, 31 Aug 2012 03:17:27 +0000

Doug Niehaus was my first boss in an engineering capacity, as I worked a few months for him at TISL/ITTC at KU way back in 1996. I'll venture to say that back then he had a mildly abrasive personality, though for the realm of us linux geeks, it was definitely par for the course, and mostly bothered me as a reflection of my own equivalently annoying personality traits. But he was without a doubt a solidly smart and able engineer/(ing prof) and overall decent guy (AFAIK). He made my SWE and OS classes (EECS448 and 680?) 'fun' and humorous, but never dumbed down, in a way that I suspect very few professors across the world can and do. R.I.P., and sorry you didn't live to see me hand you a linux livecd that included all the source and a single command to run from within itself to rebuild/recompile itself entirely from source.

Mourning Doug Niehaus

seanvk — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 21:49:16 +0000

I am saddened to learn of his passing away. I took an OS course with him nearly 20 years ago at KU. His enthusiasm was a great motivator for me in RTOS development in general and Linux in particular. It's unfortunate that we learn of someone's passing before we celebrate his contributions - especially in areas of education and research.

Sean Kelley

Mourning Doug Niehaus

PaulMcKenney — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 15:29:28 +0000

I only had the privilege of meeting with Doug Niehaus a few times, but each time I came away very much impressed with his deep understanding of both the academic and practitioner fields. His untimely passing is a great loss; he will be very much missed.

Mourning Doug Niehaus

rworkman — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 02:44:19 +0000

I'm sorry to hear this; condolences to all who knew him.

I'd be remiss if I didn't also point out that we don't do too well at recognizing people while they're still around to appreciate it... :/

Mourning Doug Niehaus

nwatkins — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 00:54:11 +0000

Doug advised me at Kansas for many years while an undergrad, and during my time as a master's student. I arrived immediately after RT_PREEMPT came out, and helped with the migration of KURT to 2.6. I cannot imagine anyone one else with the patience, dedication, knowledge, and teaching skills as Doug.

Link fixed

corbet — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 23:38:02 +0000

My fault, sorry for the confusion.

Mourning Doug Niehaus

xxiao — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 23:31:05 +0000

R.I.P

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