Kris was more than just a prominent figure in our industry; she was a beacon of inspiration in open-source. Her passion wasn't just about writing code, but about bringing people together, breaking barriers, and making technology accessible to all. Kris's vibrant personality and dedication to collaboration will be deeply missed, but her impact on the world of open-source won't be forgotten. She has left a personal imprint on many of us, and her spirit will continue to inspire those who believe in the power of community-driven innovation. I will miss her so much. She was truly one of a kind.
Beautiful tribute! And when those entering the industry explore the open source world, they'll see her front and centre among the other greats at https://www.facesofopensource.com/kris-nova-2/
I only ever directly interacted with Kris once, and that's all I needed. She was so kind to me when I reached out for advice and support during an extremely difficult time in my life.
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Gutted to hear this. We had the privilege to speak with her late last year on the work she had done on Hachyderm -- and to get her perspective on the Mastodon and the Fediverse more generally.[0] She was a great presence and technologist, and inspiring to many people. It is tragic to have lost someone so young; RIP.
Awful, scary. My son loves climbing things. I enjoy a bit of indoor bouldering, I'd love to get him into it, but I'm terrified of him deciding to do silly shit like free soloing.
I've been climbing on and off for 30 years. Most people are not "free" soloing as it's called in the US (just soloing in the UK). If he's the sort of person that's attracted to those kinds of things he'll find other dangerous stuff to do anyway like sky diving, riding motorbikes. Most climbing is relatively safe although accidents do happen from time to time often due to complacency.
I'm sorry to hear this much loved person has died. RIP
I know this terror as a parent now, and recognize just how scary it must have been for mine. I was one of these kids growing up; I didn't free solo but I found plenty of cliffs to jump, steep hills to bomb, and difficult dangerous things to do in the ocean beyond the watchful eyes of my parents. I don't believe there was anything they could have done to prevent this. I also think that they recognized this, because while they always cautioned me to be careful, instead of trying to prevent my adventuring they consistently prepared me with training, information and opportunities to (semi-)safely test my limits.
I recognize myself in my son now, and while I also am sometimes terrified of what that might mean, I think my parents took the right tack and I'm trying my best to do the same. I'd rather he's a strong swimmer, a trained climber, a confident adventurer, than an adolescent just taking risks in defiance.
I used to climb up in the roof of my parents terraced house and walk along the steep roof towards my neighbours. The drop was 3 floors on both sides and I would do this in the middle of the night as a teenager (I was "inspired" by Daredevil comic books).
Looking back on those moments now as an adult, the hair on my skin stands up just at how incredibly stupid and dangerous it was.
I sometimes think of my parallel selves in other worlds, and wonder how many of them are dead and how my family progressed through the grief, from this action alone
I was lucky enough to work with Kris Nova. I was gutted when I heard this and I'm still in shock. She was in the middle of doing the hachyderm thing and I was struggling with some other stuff and we ended up just happening to meet at a restaurant. "Fuck what people say and think, do you what you want, that's what I'm going to do."
Here's a segment from one of her recent streams. This is how I will remember her:
I was supposed to climb a mountain with her. There really aren't that many people in this world to whom you can say, "let's do a (slightly out there) thing", to which they say "yes" without hesitation and with 100% certainty.
Last Wednesday evening Kris Nova had a climbing accident and died.
All of us that loved her are heart broken and stunned. She was an amazing person that lived out loud and built connection and community wherever she went. She will be horribly missed.
None of you here know me, and Kris did not know me before we did this very personal podcast with Rich. This is about both our times as homeless tech people. She was the reason I am who I am, and we didn't know that until we did this. https://kubecuddle.transistor.fm/episodes/dave-fogle-and-kri...
Kris and I worked together only briefly on a small hack project, but everything about them was exactly what you'd imagine in a forward-thinking community leader and technologist.
I'm deeply saddened for those who knew Kris well, and hope some solace is found in knowing that their contributions left the world a brighter place.
I first came across her words in the book Cloud Native Infrastructure, and she had a way to say things concisely, things I had always wanted to express, but never had the words. I was an instant fan. I ran into once at Salesforce Park in SF, and told her about how I followed her and loved her works. It so happened she was talking to a VP at the time, explaining the importance of social media in tech, to that worked perfectly for her. I'll never forget her, and cherish her forever.
My sincere apologies to those who knew her: this is a question from someone who didn't, and in fact had not seen her name until stumbling on this thread. What is she so well-known for? Which communities was she a part of? I read this whole thread, followed some of the links, and still am mystified.
I was in the same boat. Lots of people expressing grief but nobody explaining who she was. It seems to be one of those instances of "well if you know you know" which I personally find very irritating indeed.
I tried Googling her but it just results in a lot of people expressing sadness over her passing. I do not want to intrude on anyone's grief here, but I'd never heard of her before and I've not been able to find any solid info about her life or work.
In another place, someone said she did the best talk of FOSDEM 2023. I was at that event, but I'd never heard of her, nobody mentioned this talk, and he did not link it so I don't know for sure what talk it was.
I've googled that too -- this is way more work than I should have to do, frankly -- and I think it might be [this one](https://fosdem.org/2023/schedule/event/hachyderm/), but the blurb is fairly content-free and tells me nothing useful.
Apparently she ran Hachyderm. I hadn't heard of that, either. Apparently it is a Mastodon instance -- I see little to distinguish these, TBH, and while I'm on Mastodon/Fediverse, I find it little to no use. But the second blogger there, David Calvert, said:
> mostly known for hosting the tech industry at hachyderm.io since Musk bought the bird site.
That's more info than anywhere else in this thread.
Hachyderm is apparently
> a safe space, LGBTQIA+ and BLM, primarily comprised of tech industry professionals world wide powered by Mastodon and ActivityPub.
Running Hachyderm wasn't what gave her all the recognition.
It was years of work (writing books, coding, talks) around go, k8s, and system software in general while being a kind person.
I knew her mostly from Twitch; and I didn't know her well, but she made a strong impression on me with her evident humanitarian concern for people -- all people, but marginalized persons is who she championed. (Non-marginalized persons don't need it as much, I guess.)
> I guess Mastodon is bigger than I thought since running an instance gives you so much recognition.
That part threw me off too. It almost sounded like people were damning her with faint praise: talking about her Mastodon instance as one of her big accomplishments sounded to me about as insulting as saying that one's big achievement was running a really cool Minecraft server. But I guess the modern world is a weird place.
Truly stunned and saddened to learn of her death. By happy accident I discovered Hachyderm soon after I started really using Mastodon. I was very impressed with the space Kris created and the community she fostered there.
My heart breaks for those who knew her personally, and for her family and loved ones.
Kris and I got to know each other a bit over the years. I still remember our first meeting vividly. We met for dinner at a Mexican restaurant in Capitol Hill and spent the evening talking containers, Linux, Kubernetes, and Open Source. This is a tough loss. I will take small in the fact that it happened doing the thing she loved.
She looks like a cool fucking person. I just watched 10 minutes of her Twitch stream and can tell she is smart and interesting just from that alone. I’ll have to take some time to learn more about her.
I always figured I'd bump into her again and reconnect. Kris was unlike anyone I've met before. "infectious energy" exemplified. Big ideas and the determination to chase them. I still remember some words of encouragement she gave me, seemingly so easily. :( RIP Kris
Kris was a talented engineer and an amazing person. She was doing something that she loved.
Kris recently said how she was feeling the healthiest and happiest she had ever been.
The loss is gutting to those that know her, or only know of her.
For those that don't know, Kris created Hachyderm[1], which had incredible growth[2] after Elon Musk's Twitter takeover. She also created the Aurae runtime[3], and went on to create the Nivenly Foundation[4].
In Kris' own words,
"Fuck the internet, I'm gonna go climb mountains. If you can - if you're lucky enough - please also get outside, if you can."
If you can, take a break. Get outside, and just... take a moment to just /be/ outside.
Kris was a friend, Inspirer and all around great human being. She taught me so much and was loved by everyone in the community. Her contributions will not be forgotten or missed.
I worked with Kris on a project at GitHub this past year. She was always a pleasure to work with, this is such shocking and sad news. Will be praying for those closest.
Oh no! I never used their server, but I followed them and was very impressed about the work they did and the community they created. All the best to their family.
I didn't know Kris, but we had bumped into each-other at various times through open source work. I recall her being a very kind and also deeply technical. Once she was supposed to give a talk in Phoenix, and I was stoked to get to meet her in person finally, unfortunately it got cancelled due to COVID and so I never had the chance.
Rest in peace. I hope her loved ones are able to take the time to grieve and find solice
I don't think anyone has mentioned her self-published book, Hacking Capitalism. I haven't even finished it because I keep having to set it down and think. It's not only insightful about how tech workers fit into big companies, but specifically gives advice about how to get ahead in the system without losing yourself.
I didn't know Kris, but I'm so sorry for a loss that has impacted a lot of people I do know.
Reading her last blog post is hauntingly ironic. She describes making a major change in how she directs get her energy, with climbing cited as more representative of her values. And then she died climbing only weeks later.
I wish that she had more time to live in her new outlook. I also hope that her impact continues to resonate. RIP.
Flip. I am actually gutted, at the moment. We have never crossed paths but I remember watching her ECHO episode with Liz Rice a few days ago. Listened to her on Hanslemann's podcast too. Seemed like such a great soul
She was an incredible engineer and a very empathetic autistic person. She and I had many conversations about inclusion, accommodations, excelling in this field as an autistic engineer in some of the most challenging workplaces. She had a positive outlook to life. This news is too devastating to me. I am only glad that I had a chance to meet her and work with her in this lifetime.
Oh man, shocked. Sadly, never met her in personally, but have always admired her work in the field and for just generally being an inspiring person. Huge loss. My sincerest condolences to her family and friends :(
She was one of my favourite people to follow on Twitter, and for understandable reasons she left there to start the mastodon instance but I didn't really use it much.
Really shocked to hear the news, she was very influential.
I don't know, but she did enjoy mountain climbing, and she's seemed to be in good spirits lately (https://krisnova.net/posts/ego-death/) so I'm guessing a climbing accident until we hear more.
Simply put: They enjoyed doing it. I wouldn't do it. But I would say I definitely see why someone would rather leave this world doing something that brought them joy over something like cancer.
Raw numbers don't mean much unless you normalize to the number of participants in some way and, really, to the level of the activity. Not a lot of people are killed flying in wing suits but that's not because it's such a safe activity.
To be clear, I think mountaineering is a perfectly rational activity for people to pursue so long as they're going into it with their eyes wide open. I've certainly done activities in that vein that some reasonable percentage of people would probably consider excessively dangerous for various reasons.
I wouldn't personally do many of them but I'd hesitate to criticize people in general for pursuing activities that have greater than typical day-to-day danger associated with them.
I clicked through the link and looked at what data was available--looked like a lot of broken links. But, depending on your definition of mountaineering, as someone with a fair bit of experience in the area, I simply don't believe that mountaineering at any significant level is safer than driving whatever sort of normalization you settle on. The latest fatality stats for US roads is something like one per 100 million miles.
However, as both you and the link suggest, it's essentially impossible to normalize. I don't know how I'd even draw a hard line between a "walk in the woods" and "mountaineering." But do whatever works for you.
I think "mountaineering" is probably more dangerous, especially once you get into the alpine.
I do (and love) outdoor climbing and even a bit of mountaineering, but it seems like most accomplished climbers die in the alpine. Some of what people do makes Honnold's famous free solo of El Cap look tame by comparison
There's risk in all manner of things. Some I would personally consider as high risk for relatively low personal reward--or I'm not physically capable of doing them anyway (which alas covers more things than used to be the case).
But people like challenges, experiences, etc. some of which are never going to be wholly risk free. I'm not going to pressure someone to get out of their comfort zone in a way that puts them in potential physical danger but I fully understand people who pressure themselves. I've certainly gotten into some dicey situations now and then. Nothing serious happened--I was generally prepared--but it wouldn't have taken a lot for things to go sideways.
Or maybe you get distracted and forget to look both ways before crossing the street.
Sitting in front of a computer will claim a lot of lives through inactivity but manny people still do it because it brings meaning / relaxation / connection to other people to their lives.
To steelman your point, I believe you're saying that an Autistic person may have difficulty not "being an asshole" due to lack of understanding or awareness of how you're interactions with others may be perceived. Therefore, while the rules try to be inclusive of autistic people, they are simultaneously exclusive by requiring a level of social awareness that may be impossible.
I'm glad. I appreciate and understand (viscerally) your point, and I don't believe it is deserving of the backlash that you have received. Hopefully my restating will support a more intelligent conversation, or at least earn you a fake internet point or two back.
I'm on the spectrum, and my son even more so. It's painful when my heart is in the right place, but neuro-typicals mistake my intent and refuse to believe me.
It's taken a lot of effort for me to adjust my communication style to avoid those situations. Happily it's mostly paid off, but I'm sad that my son will likely need to walk the same path somewhat.
> neuro-typicals mistake my intent and refuse to believe me
This is an idea I had to unlearn. We struggle as much understanding ourselves as understanding other people. When people react negatively to our behavior often times we immediately jump to extending unlimited benefit of the doubt to our own intentions. In reality, our perception of our own intentions are often post-hoc fabrications to preserve our self-image as a nice person. Letting go of this assumption was helpful to a better understanding of interpersonal interaction.
Sounds like your message implied that being autistic meant being an asshole, which categorically isn't true.
You can be accused of being an asshole, it doesn't mean it's because of your autism though - and going "autistic = asshole" is absolutely worthy of a ban.
Maybe don't be so quick to portray your own experiences onto autistic people as whole. If you wanted more specifics about what Kris meant by "don't be an asshole," you could've asked her (or any Hachyderm staffer).
You are not every autistic person, and not every autistic person is an asshole.
Portraying all autistic people as assholes - or implying that by virtue of being autistic, they can't not be an asshole - is incredibly ignorant and ableist.
While I sympathise with your struggle with intent or clarity, it does seem that you were an asshole, and your projected assumptions about autistic people because of your own experiences are harmful, not helpful.
I understood it fine, but thanks for the assumption.
It was put across in an asshole way, and bringing it up when it has no relevance to commiserating the loss of a great person and engineer, is an asshole move - autistic or not.
Apologies, that's not what I intended to say, and not what I said to her either.
It's unfortunately true that my behaviour (and the behaviour of many autistic people) can be easily characterised as being an asshole, and vague rules do not help us function.
The condition is very much characterised by being unable to understand social cues.
I really was trying only to be helpful and got quite hurt in the interaction.
Dijjt, I do have some empathy for you. I'm on the spectrum but only mildly.
You're right that social cues are complex and inconsistent.
But it's not helpful to the autistic community to suggest that they are unable to learn how not to be an asshole - in online, or irl communities. I know many that started with struggles, but learned how to handle it.
The trick was wanting to try. To decide that the empty annoying irritating things that allstics do are not malicious either. And that social interaction is like the rules of a very complex game.
It takes time, it takes effort, it takes humility.
I don't know you so I would never presume what your situation is. But I know of several people in my life who are on the spectrum that I got close to before I realized that they genuinely have no interest in self improvement, and they use their autistic diagnostic as a cover to see themselves as above petty human social squabbles, and that their assholishness is a mark of pride that they use to refuse to better themselves. I hope that's not where you are at.
The fundamental issue is that Autism itself is at least partially characterised by being unable to read social cues, this is harder in text form.
Its very easy to say something in perhaps not the best way. To welcome autists you have to do what the hackernews guidelines do: State that “Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.”
This is not essential to operating your site, but if you are trying to be inclusive to neurodivergency then its extremely helpful to them to have a guideline like this which allows them to feel a bit at ease.
A rule like “don’t be an asshole” requires a emotional intelligence that may be lacking, it will feel like a guillotine around the neck waiting to strike if you comment something which is interpreted in way other than it was intended.
A fantastic example of this, ironically, is this thread and the original thread with Kris. Mal-intent was assumed but was not intended; people in this thread have genuinely called me an asshole- with no sense of irony.
That's not what was said. What was said was implying that autistic folks need the ability to have their actions judged from the perspective of their trouble rather than just blindly judged 'asshole' when they make a social miss-step.
Regardless, this isn't the time or place for moderation chat; one of our own had suffered a tragically early demise, and I mourn. My condolences to everyone affected.
Off-topic, but why this story is so low on the front page?
A ton of upvoted, not many comments (so no indication of flamewar), still is below position 25 for several hours (with much better upvote-to-hours ratio than most of stories above it).
