SGML: Memory of Yuri Rubinsky (1952-1996)

Path: msunews!agate!news.mindlink.net!news
From: Tim Bray <tbray@opentext.com>
Newsgroups: comp.text.sgml
Subject: Yuri Rubinsky
Date: Fri, 26 Jan 1996 23:40:49 -0800
Organization: Open Text Corporation
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I don't understand how a person can found a software company,
tough it out through the bad days, lead it through the vale
of Internet Fairy Dust, turn a silly idea into a PC Mag Editors'
Choice, simultaneously be a pusher, mover, and shaker in the
WWW and SGML worlds, get a novel published, wrestle with ISO,
and never, so far as I know, cut a throat, stab a back, or crush
an ego.  That it is possible to be successful and honourable
at the same time is something we should take seriously to heart;
in these days it seems too little respected, or even expected.

That alone would be a monument; maybe the only important one.

But there are lots of others; a substantial part of the community,
the technology, and the business.

Still, though, I think it would be nice if, the next time we
need to name a protocol or an encoding or a language or something,
we think of Yuri.

He and I walked about 40 blocks home across San Fran during the
last Seybold, late at night, talking excitedly about some stuff
we want to do on the Web, that might yet turn into another
monument.  You know those hills, neither of us were exactly
slim nor fit, and we laughed at our own heavy breathing as we
slogged up, over and down.  Tough to think that we won't be
doing that again.

Tim Bray