"With great sadness, I regret to inform you that Itojun will not be presenting his great knowledge of IPv6 at PacSec. I have been informed by several sources that he passed away yesterday," Dragos Ruiu announced [1] the unhappy news on the OpenBSD -misc mailing list. He noted, "funeral services will be held on Nov 7th at Rinkai-Saijo in Tokyo. There aren't many details of his passing, so please let his family and relatives mourn in peace for now." Dragos offered the following words about Itojun:
"I knew Itojun as one of the smartest and kindest persons I have ever met. He helped everyone around him. He graciously hosted and assisted many foreigners new to Japan at the PacSec conferences, and was a good friend to all. He would go to extraordinary lengths to help anyone around him. We will all miss him - and his work on IPv6 will continue to help us for a long time.."
"If you knew or respected him, he would have wanted any energy you put towards grief to be spent on speeding the adoption and the robustness of the version 6 internet to which he devoted so much of his extraordinary life to."
Undeadly.org offers [2]:
"Jun-ichiro 'itojun' Itoh Hagino passed away on October 29, 2007 at the age of 37.
"To those in the BSD communities he was simply Itojun, best known in his role as IPv6 KAME project core researcher. Itojun did the vast majority of the work to get IPv6 into the BSD network stacks. He was also instrumental in moving IPv6 forward in all aspects through his participation in IETF protocol design meetings. Itojun was helpful to everyone around him, and dedicated to his work. He believed and worked toward making technology available to everyone. He will be missed, and always remembered."
Several interviews with Itojun can be found on the Internet, including:
- 2001 OnLamp Interview, "IPv6: An Interview with Itojun [3]"
- 2007 BSDTalk Interview, "Interview with KAME project core researcher Jun-ichiro "itojun" Itoh Hagino. [4]
Additional photos can be found here [5].
Itojun also wrote the book "IPv6 Network Programming". Itojun's reply to the KernelTrap review of his book can be found here [6], though the review itself is not currently available.
On his personal webpage [7], Jun-ichiro described himself with the following characteristics, "great at work, suck horrible in personal/love affairs. Workaholic (it is a SERIOUS mental disease). Likes weird things (or do not like popular things). Proud to be a nerd/geek. Indoor guy." He went on to add:
"I have been hacking computers from my junior high school days. My first personal computer (of my own) was NEC's PC-9801F2, and it made me really mad (or too happy). It made me quit from junior high's brass band, only few months after it's arrival to my home:-)"
Related links:
- Archive of above thread [10]