Re: Henry Story

On 9/8/23 8:51 AM, Sarven Capadisli wrote:
> It is with great sadness that I must inform everyone that we have lost 
> our dear friend and colleague Henry Story ( 
> https://bblfish.net/people/henry/card#me ) earlier this week.
>
> This is incredibly hard for me to write. I am deeply saddened by his 
> friends' and family's loss, as well as personally, and for several 
> communities he has been part of for so many years. My deepest 
> condolences, and those of members of the community who knew him and 
> admired him, go out to his family.
>
> If memory serves me well, Henry and I were acquainted in 2008, but met 
> online in 2010, when we discussed FOAF+SSL / WebID, social web, 
> decentralisation, and everything in between. And, of course, with 
> Henry, if one is willing, there is always a healthy dose of discussion 
> on philosophical and mathematical underpinnings of a lot of such 
> topics, and how it all came together.
>
> Over the years, Henry provided me with all the context to undoubtedly 
> interconnected ideas in technology and philosophy I ever needed.
>
> I had the privilege of having him visit my place in Bern. He was kind 
> enough to eat my overly spicy food and drink wine to compensate the 
> taste. It was a joy to talk about life stuff and tech in my balcony.
>
> Henry has impacted and influenced me in different ways over the years. 
> His perseverance to get to the bottom of a problem is unmatched.
>
> Whenever I felt frustrated in open standards development, Henry 
> reminded that standards are like wine: some will age well, and others 
> spoil. He encouraged me to be patient, assuring me that things will 
> work out in due time.
>
> He took the time to research and develop, and meet open challenges by 
> approaching from multiple disciplines to solidify the ideas is 
> inspiring, and has been instrumental, to say the least, for the 
> communities he has been part of. One doesn't have to look far to come 
> across Henry's footprints. Quite literally the father of many works 
> and projects.
>
> From my perspective, he generally came across like the underdog in 
> whatever he was doing. Humble and aiming for the stars. He took time 
> to carefully listen what others had to say and was generous with his 
> knowledge and time, and kind.
>
> Henry, I admire you immensely. Words will never suffice.
>
> I'd like to invite everyone to reflect and honour his memory. Carry on 
> with his work. A moment of silence will be observed at W3C TPAC to 
> remember Henry and his impact on our community.
>
> -Sarven
> https://csarven.ca/#i
>

Yes, that sums up Henry nicely.

Henry and I go way back to the very notion of what became WebID. If it 
wasn't for Henry, I wouldn't have become fully engaged in the long 
running pursuit of self-sovereign identity for every Web and Internet user.

Here's a memorable quote from Henry:

"In order to be able to have a mental theory one needs to be able 
to*understand that other people may have a different view of the world*. 
On a narrow three dimensional understanding of 'view', this reveals 
itself in that people at different locations in a room will see 
different things. One person may be able to see a cat behind a tree that 
will be hidden to another. In some sense though these two views can 
easily be merged into a coherent description." [1].

Henry will be missed, but memorialized via his contribution to the 
pursuit of use-controlled self-sovereign identity that scales to both 
the Internet and Web.

Links:

[1] 
http://www.openlinksw.com/dataspace/kidehen@openlinksw.com/weblog/kidehen@openlinksw.com%27s%20BLOG%20%5B127%5D/1441 
-- I use this because his Sun/Oracle blog post titled "View Plurality 
Deficiency & Programming Language Autism" has gone the way of everything 
he was tirelessly trying to prevent

-- 
Regards,

Kingsley Idehen 
Founder & CEO
OpenLink Software
Home Page:http://www.openlinksw.com
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Weblogs (Blogs):
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Personal Weblogs (Blogs):
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Legacy Blogs:http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen/
               http://kidehen.blogspot.com

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Web Identities (WebID):
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         :http://id.myopenlink.net/DAV/home/KingsleyUyiIdehen/Public/kingsley.ttl#this