On Wed, Nov 4, 2020 at 6:29 PM Steve Singer <steve@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > > It is with much sadness that I am letting the community know that Chris > Browne passed away recently. > > Chris had been a long time community member and was active on various > Postgresql mailing lists. He was a member of the funds committee, the PgCon > program committee and served on the board of the PostgreSQL Community > Association of Canada. Chris was a maintainer of the Slony > replication system and worked on various PG related tools. > > I worked with Chris for over 10 years and anytime someone had a problem he > would jump at the chance to help and propose solutions. He > always had time to listen to your problem and offer ideas or explain how > something worked. > > I will miss Chris > Chris is one of the folks whom I got to meet online very early in my time with the project, who was there in Toronto at the first developer's conference [1], and was one of the folks I always looked forward to seeing in Ottawa, even if it was just to quickly catch-up. I suspect his contributions to the project are understated, but a lot of time, troubleshooting, and tutoring came from Chris to many others of us around Slony (back when Slony was the main game in town) and around plpgsql. Of course, he knew his way around an OS just as well as he knew Postgres. I think my fondest memory of Chris was one, many years back, when I just happened to be in Toronto for non-postgres related business, and we coordinated to meet up for a quick drink and to catch-up. He was kind enough to offer me an invitation to a private "computer users" dinner that he often frequented at a hole-in-the-wall Hungarian place. I'm always game for a bit of adventure and I'm so glad I was because ended up being a truly special night, learning much more about Chris away from the database stuff, with a bunch of great food (still don't know half of what it was), and the realization that this small group of friends included several luminaries in the computer science field, (as one example Henry Spencer, who wrote the "regex" software library for regular expressions), who I can't imagine ever having the opportunity to meet otherwise. Most of us are not nearly as open and as kind as he was, and he will indeed be missed. [1] https://ic.pics.livejournal.com/obartunov/24248903/36575/36575_original.jpg, he is the one in the back, holding up the sign. Robert Treat https://xzilla.net
