Robert Kaye
Robert Kaye, the founder of MusicBrainz, has died. Far too early. I'm sitting here, looking at the stickers he gave me. So many questions come up.
Robert was a personality. He was loud, fun, thoughtful, determined, principled, noticeable. He lived. Uncompromising, yet deeply caring. Towering, and not merely physically. His hairstyles were legion and legend. He was a creator and a coordinator of mayhem and of chaos. He had all the skills of an engineer, and all the sensibilities of an artist.
Robert was an ally. He pursued the double goal of free knowledge and structured knowledge, and the systems he has built and the knowledge these systems gathered will live on into the future. Structuring the world of music so that anyone can benefit from that knowledge. Considering and worrying about the sustainability of the work he and his colleagues worked on.
Robert always was full of ideas, and he was always working on making them real. Be it new systems of software or new organizations, he seemed like a tireless powerhouse. He shared his experiences and what he has learned generously with the world, and even more generously with his friends.
Robert, I hope you can look back at your work and see how much you have accomplished, and I hope you are proud about what you achieved. I know I am happy to have known you, even just this little bit, through a common cause, through some values shared. And I am very sad to see you go. Far too early.
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