Hans Bakker a prominent member of the Dutch OpenSource community has died in a carcrash earlier today..


My condolances go out to the family and friends of Hans Bakker.

And a heartfelt get well to Edwin and Sebastian.

All mentioned times are in CEST (UTC +0200).
  • There has been a car accident returning from a trip to bring Richard Stallman (RMS) from SANE 2004 to Paris. (confirmed by several sources)
  • they collided with a truck which merged onto their lane while driving in fog at 06:48. Also see the traffic report below.
  • Exact time of the accident is unknown. It was on the morning of September 30th before 09:00.
  • Richard Stallman was dropped off in Paris and no longer in the car (confirmed by Rop and Richard).
  • At the time of the accident Hans Bakker (mclightje), Edwin Hermans (madeddie), and Sebastian S. (webmind) were in the car. (confirmed).
  • The car belongs to Rop Gonggrijp, who lent it to the travelers. RMS was staying with Rop during SANE. (confirmed by Rop)
  • Hans Bakker (photo, homepage) did not survive the crash. (confirmed by girlfriend)
  • Edwin Hermans has a broken hip and has been transfered to a different hospital for surgery. Sebastian is (or was by now) in surgery for broken bones but is not in critical condition.
  • This appears to be the traffic report for the accident, as taken infotraffic.
    Code:
    30-09-2004 13:50 ACCIDENT MORTEL * ASSEVILLERS (80) sur A1 (sens SUD-NORD)
ENTRE PERONNE ET ROYE
Début : 30-09-2004 06:48
VICTIMES : 1 TUE(S)
VEHICULES EN CAUSE : 2 POIDS LOURD(S), 3 VEHICULE(S) LEGER(S)
OBSERVATIONS :SENS PARIS LILLE, SORTIE CONSEILLÉE A29 SAINT QUENTIN
.BOUCHON DE 4 KM.
Evénement terminé depuis 30-09-2004 13:50
http://www.wiggy.net/tmp/accident/

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=0...tid=99&tid=117

http://lwn.net/Articles/104539/

http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?.../09/30/1335200

(dutch and quite a crappy article) http://www.webwereld.nl/nieuws/19639.phtml (!! dutch !!)

(!! dutch !!) http://www.nedlinux.nl/modules/news/index.php (!! dutch !!)

Hans was the former coordinator of NetworkEvent 2000 (a dutch hackers convention / lanparty) and Klaphek (hackers club), they adjusted their site accordingly (!! dutch !!) http://www.ne2000.nl/ (!! dutch !!) http://www.klaphek.net (!! dutch !!)


I was at SANE2004 yesterday for RMS's speech and personaly know (irl and irc) the others involved...

Thread will be updated as soon as more info is available..