I came across Adrian Hands’ story through a blog post. I don’t remember which one. The details stayed.
Adrian was a developer with ALS. By the time he wrote his last patch, his hands were gone. He built a Morse code input rig – a Darci USB emulator wrapped in PVC pipe strapped to his knee, paddles attached, tapping out dots and dashes with the last muscles that still worked. That was his keyboard.
With that setup, he wrote a patch for GNOME’s Eye of GNOME image viewer. Bug #78514 – “Copy Image” and “Copy Image Path” in the context menu. A small feature. Millions of users would use it without knowing how it was written.
Each git add meant timing Morse dots and dashes with knee movements. A mistimed twitch meant starting over.
His commit message:
ACCEPTed. COMMITed. RESOLVEd. BOO-YAH!
commit 0b209b1ff16e863e60a1d86413aa57c5fbde76b0 Fixes bug 78514.
data/eog-ui.xml | 9 +++++++ src/eog-window.c | 63 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 2 files changed, 72 insertions(+)
Three days later, Adrian passed away.
His son Ian wrote to the GNOME community:
My father passed away yesterday. I went back through my email to find our last correspondence – he was in India for treatment, and I live in Raleigh. I have the coolest Dad in the world. Adrian Hands loved free software / open source. I do as well. Thanks so much for the great software, and a new great memory. – Ian Page Hands
What stays with me is the commit message. Every developer has written hundreds. Most are forgotten the moment they’re pushed. Adrian’s last one said more about why we write code than anything I could put into words.
The Free Software Song feels right here.
Join us now and share the software; You’ll be free, hackers, you’ll be free.