Remembering and thanking Steve Langasek

Community
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Steve Langasek is one of my heroes in open source and in life. He epitomises everything that is great about the movement - depth of technical insight, generosity of spirit, rigour in design, care for those who put their trust in us, curiosity about the future and a willingness to do hard work in the face of uncertainty to bring that future into being.

Our biggest choices are all about where we spend our time, who we spend it with, and whose lives we hope to improve in the process. Steve shone with a clarity of purpose that motivated many others to build the very best open source platforms they could dream about. He beautifully merged friendships and professional relationships, commercial and community goals, leadership and service. He touched thousands of people’s lives directly, and his work improves the lives of millions.

In recent years he battled illness with stoicism, humour and science. Through it all he remained active and engaged in our community and our exploration of the future. Even in terribly difficult moments I saw grace, precision and care in his actions and his priorities.

Steve passed away at the dawn of 2025. His time was short but remarkable. He will forever remain an inspiration. Judging by the outpouring of feelings this week, he is equally missed and mourned by colleagues and friends across the open source landscape, in particular in Ubuntu and Debian where he was a great mind, mentor and conscience.

It has been a singular honour to share these years and dreams. Thank you Steve. I will not forget, nor waver.

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I’m hitting my 20y in canonical this year … when I started back in the days I was still pretty wet behind the ears and despite being a programmer since I was twelve (I started with a VIC20) I was never really good at it …

Joining the Ubuntu community (even before it was called Ubuntu) changed this significantly, everyone had that special spirit that should later also be the base of the name of the distro “I am what I am because what you contribute to my life (and the other way around)” … Ubuntu …

Steve had a significant part in this, he taught me analytical thinking, staying calm when facing supposedly unsolvable problems and even during release week (which back then still meant the whole distro team did all-nighters for nearly a week to get all tests, fixes and re-spins done in time), he took the time to review and correct my code and teach me how to do it better next time (and I did !)

As our release manager he managed to streamline the release process so well that today the all-nighters are history, as a manager of the foundations team he bridged the gap between the commercial and non-commercial teams in canonical and until his death, despite being in massive pain and suffering, he still took the effort to take people by the hand and give them help (his last post on the internal canonical chat was on Dec. 22, when we started the end-of-year holiday)

He served the Technical Board many times in a row and a lot of the technical direction Ubuntu took over the years was definitely influenced by his calmness and scientific thinking…

Steve, thank you for all you did to the world, you clearly made it a better place for many and I personally wouldn’t be who I am today without the things you taught me over the years, it was a privilege to be able spend some of my lifetime with you …

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Steve was a great mentor to myself and so many in the Ubuntu community and Canonical over the years. He always made sure to emphasise the importance of the community in all his work and his interactions with others, guiding them to solutions that catered to both the commercial and community interests. He really embodied and understood the ethos of Ubuntu and led from the front to empower all those around and behind him.

I will treasure the conversations we had and sorely miss the chance to learn from him in the future but hope we can all learn from his past examples to keep his spirit alive within Ubuntu going forward.

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I remember interviewing with him over a decade ago and I was no where near where I needed to be for the job. He was so nice, supportive and is a huge reason for my growth over the years in both Ubuntu and Debian. He will truly be missed and never forgotten. Thank you Steve, it truly was an honor to know you.

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I’ve always had my own personal mental health struggles, one particularly that I’m always full of self-doubt. Steve knew this, and always provided me the encouragement and reassurance I needed when I needed it most. In my nearly 15 years at Canonical, I’ve built up a lot personal friendships that I value greatly, but I’ve genuinely never had a professional friendship with someone as caring of others as Steve. A few people have seen what I’m about to write in other places and will probably be bored of it by now, but I want to repeat it here so people understand just what type of person Steve was. Just after I finished for the Christmas break, Steve reached out to me because he recognised I was having some issues and doubts about my own future here, and he’d recognised that I was struggling mentally (Steve, like a few other people at Canonical knew about some private issues I have going on at home that I’m not going to share here). At this point, Steve was already very unwell although I didn’t know at this point just how rapidly he was declining. When I said that it felt inappropriate for me to burden him with my own problems, Steve’s reply was:

A burden to me> this is possibly the most important thing left to me is helping the people in the team

Although this wasn’t the last of our conversation, this was the last conversation I had with Steve. I genuinely thought I’d be speaking to him again as we start the first working week of January, and now I’m left with things I wish I’d said to him that I will never get another chance to say. Steve truly was a special person, one of a kind, probably unlike anyone else I’ll get to meet and work with again, and I’m going to miss him so dearly. In everything he did, he was always thinking of other people - even until the last moment.

Steve’s family and close friends are in my thoughts.

And please, to anyone reading this - don’t delay saying those important things to people who are special to you - I’ve learnt this the very hard way.

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Below is a modified version of my reply to debian-private. It has been several days, yet somehow I get the feeling that it’s missing quite a bit. That being said, it is nearly impossible to describe and distill these feelings down to words. If you, like me, are struggling to find those words, do your best. You’re not alone, both in shock at the events and in not being able to fully summarize your experiences.

This is extremely unfortunate news. Thank you for letting us know.

I’m a fairly new member of the Debian project, relatively speaking. At 16 years old (in 2018), thanks to the support of a sponsor, I flew to Portland for a few days for some key signing. These were the final signatures I needed in order to become a Debian Developer.

That was my first time meeting Steve in person. I vividly remember him picking me up, the apologies about the muffler that he needed to get fixed in his car, and the drive to a spot in Portland where we dined on Ethiopian food [I have not dined on it since, but just might in honor] and chatted about Ubuntu, Debian, Portland, the midwest US, and more.

Prior to meeting in person, we had many online interactions. As one of many examples, I studied Spanish in high school, so there was a day where we had an entire technical conversation in #ubuntu-release in Spanish. (I never admitted to using a little bit of Google Translate there.)

Steve was someone I looked up to throughout my entire time in Debian and Ubuntu. His deep commitment to technical excellency helped me become the developer (and by extension, person) I am today.

“The world is a dumber place without him.”

With deep sadness,
Simon

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I certainly have not worked a lot with Steve, but he really cared about Ubuntu and pushed for common sense.

He voted +1 for Ubuntu Cinnamon becoming a flavor, so he will always be special to me. Thank you, Steve.

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I remember my first time meeting Steve in IRC, and I could tell from IRC alone that he had an incredible amount of passion for this community.

I looked up to Steve and viewed him as a role model. He will be missed by many.

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Steve’s immense skill and work ethic was obvious from my start in Ubuntu, he truly gave everything to the project and open software. Despite his illness he accomplished the impossible, and always treated everyone with respect and kindness. May he rest in peace.

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It’s obviously hard to avoid being sad in times like this but we should all – especially the foundations team I guess – be grateful we lived in a world that had Steve in it, even if not for as long as we liked. His work lives on!

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Many know that Steve and I butted heads often, but it wasn’t out of lack of respect. In fact, we both had a high amount of mutual respect.

When I joined the Ubuntu Studio team in March of 2018 and shortly thereafter found myself in the role of Flavor Lead, I knew one thing had to be done: I had to learn how to package. Those packages had to go under review by an Archive Admin, and the Archive Admin in my closest time zone (not only in my time zone but 2.5 hours away!) was Steve.

I often got to be the victim subject of Steve’s grilling with my package submissions. Rarely did any of my submissions go by without a rejection or at least a comment by Steve for one reason or another. Over time it became, “Just fix with your next upload,” but that only happened as my skills increased, and I have Steve (and a few others, but mostly Steve) to thank for that. With every new upload, I ask myself, “Would this make it past Steve?” If the answer is “no”, I clean it and submit.

When my wife (@amypenguin) told me about her idea to revive Edubuntu after Ubuntu Summit 2022, Steve became my primary Release Team contact to get it going. After we released 23.04 and got the social media accounts going, it became clear that he was proud of it. He would retoot on Mastodon every release announcement we made.

When I finally met him in person at Ubuntu Summit 2023 just after the Ubuntu Flavor Sync, which he attended, I shook his hand and told him, “I don’t get star-struck, but I do get thankful. So thank you for everything you’ve done for Ubuntu, Ubuntu Studio, and Edubuntu, and for me personally. We do butt heads and have our disagreements, but I think everything comes out wonderfully in the end.”

I have found that, when two people work together and have opposing points of view (him more technical, me more community), a better product always seems to come out than what either could have imagined (right, @mike-mikowski ?). I use this to say that Ubuntu Studio and Edubuntu are both better because of Steve, and with each release since I have been lead for Ubuntu Studio and since Amy has been lead for Edubuntu, Steve was given special thanks.

This April, Edubuntu 25.04 and Ubuntu Studio 25.04’s releases will be dedicated to Steve’s memory, for all he’s done, and for the inspiration to the project(s) that his legacy will continue to inspire.

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I have looked over his shoulder so often and in so many respects - now there is a big hole!

-The world is the worse for that hole-

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I’ve spent a lot of time today thinking about this. I struggled to come up with a message that conveys what I feel about losing Steve. There are no words for the depth of sadness I have for the loss.

I have not worked with Steve directly much over the years, but he has been a helpful, passionate fixture of the Ubuntu community for as long as I have been here (and some of you out there know how long that has been!). Some of my earliest contributions to Ubuntu were possible with Steve’s assistance and tutelage.

He’s been a shining light in the community, and the world is a darker and sadder place without him. Regardless, I am happy that I was able to work with him, and know of him through his wonderful work in Ubuntu and Debian.

Rest in power. Rest in peace.

Thank you for everything.

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What a loss to the world… Steve was always a wonderful thought partner, collaborator, sponsor, educator, leader, developer, colleague, tour guide, and friend. There’s no one else I’ve ever known, to be as graceful in being precisely correct, so much of the time. He always fought hard, yet fairly, for what he knew to be right. And the Debian/Ubuntu world consistently benefited from better results and technology and solutions because of it. Steve had a beautiful mind, full of curiosity, packed with science, and overflowing with facts. We also shared a mutual love of Latin and the classics. You’ll be sorely missed and never forgotten, Steve.

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“Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS to set it on, and I can move the world.”

Rest in Peace Steve.

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I never had a chance to work with Steve very closely. The few times we did interact were usually because I was making a royal mess of things. Despite that, his level of respect, his level of care, and his virtually unsurpassed level of expertise made it so that I had respect for him that no one else in Ubuntu held in my view. I’m certain we will never be able to quantify how much of an impact he has had on both Ubuntu and Debian, both in the lives of those involved and in the projects themselves. I hope his legacy continues to make an impact for years to come.

May this be a reminder to us all to never take anything or anyone in life for granted.

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Back in 2005 when I first approached Debian and Ubuntu, Steve was one of the people who
always helped giving hints, solutions, sponsoring, and a lot of work, without even bothering once or any bad word for my errors.
A big part of my knowledge/contributions is thanks to him, with and few others.
I would like to think that part of him will be in the code we’ll write in the future on this project
Thanks Steve for being part of our lives and the Open Source world.
The world is a more sad place now.

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During our lifetimes we are rarely lucky enough to encounter more than a few people that will shape our lives. I am lucky enough to be able to say Steve was one such person for me.

I saw everything he did in his work and it greatly influenced how I now work, as a result changing my career path and my life. One example is the observation that Steve took complete responsibility and ownership of tasks and had an immense work ethic to ensure that task was completed.

He was pragmatic and had empathy. If I had a problem, I knew that if I went to Steve he would quickly understand and provide or confirm a solution.

“Would this make it past Steve?” was mentioned above, this is deciding factor in most of the work I do now. I never wanted to waste Steve’s time because I knew if I did it was likely taking time away from something else awesome he was working on.

I miss him a lot. RIP Steve.

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So sad… We’ll all lose a lot.

But it’s also so much that Steve gave to the whole community, both as engineer and - especially - as Human, that we can only be grateful to him.

This question of him to Linus Torvalds became viral on the social networks for some time, but it’s a nice way to remember his spirit:
https://youtu.be/7SofmXIYvGM?t=84

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