Denise Finger, wife of the deceased, wrote to the Linux Wireless list on Friday evening:
This is to notify you that Larry Finger, one of your developers, passed away on June 21st.
Broadcom provided no code for its gear, so Finger helped reverse-engineer the necessary specs by manually dumping and reading hardware registers. Along with Broadcom drivers, Finger also provided Realtek drivers. Many commenters across blogs and message boards are noting that their systems are still using pieces of Finger’s code today.
Thank heavens for this man. Working WiFi helped me take my first steps into Linux and FOSS.
The king has laid himself down and will not rise again, The Lord of [WiFi] will not rise again; He overcame [Broadcom], he will not come again; Though he was strong of arm he will not rise again; He had wisdom and a comely face, he will not come again; He is gone into the mountain, he will not come again; On the bed of fate he lies, he will not rise again, From the couch of many colours he will not come again…
I am truly grateful for this man. Rest in Power, noble sir.
Wonderful story and what an impact his efforts have made.
Great example of the IT mantra “When you do your job right the user’s won’t know you’ve done anything at all”.
