As previously announced last week, Rob Levin aka lilo, the father of freenode, passed away on the 16th of September. He had been in a coma after being hit by a car while riding his bicycle.

Many of our users and sponsors have asked how they can help Debbie and Benjamin, Rob's wife and son, during this difficult time. We can now inform you that financial aid may be sent to his family using their personal paypal account, status@spinhome.org.

Condolences can still be sent to condolences@freenode.net and will appear both online in our book of memories as well as being professionally bound and passed on to Rob's family.

Although for many people Rob personified freenode, we would like to assure you all that the network will continue to run. Over the years lilo built up a large body of staff members, including a wide variety of people from all backgrounds, countries and ages. We have ex-NASA employees, psychology students, ham radio enthusiasts and Debian, Gentoo and Ubuntu developers to name but some, all with their own unique qualities and skills. Combined with a passion for the FOSS community, this made them Rob's number one choice to run the network with him, and we believe that they are also the people he would want to continue to run the network in his absence. Together we will ensure that freenode keeps running, and in a way which would ultimately have made Rob proud. We are currently working closely with the PDPC board and Rob's family to make sure that all loose ends are tied up and that the great service you have come to know and expect will continue as normal.

Questions can as always be directed to staff@freenode.net, or feel free to /msg christel or LoRez on IRC.

Christel Dahlskjaer and Mike Mattice
Senior Staff, freenode

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Network date and time: Thursday, 24-Jul-2008 23:37:10 GMT.
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