“Ian helped pioneer the notion of a truly open project and community, embracing open design and open contribution; in fact the formative document of the open source movement itself (the Open Source Definition) was originally a Debian position statement,” Docker chief executive Ben Golub wrote in the blog post. “It is a testament to Ian’s commitment to openness and community that there are now more than 1,000 people currently involved in Debian development.”
Murdock created Debian in August 1993 — he is the “ian” in the project’s name.