“渐冻症”病人去世前用脚贡献了最后一个补丁

早晨看到这样一则消息：http://linux.solidot.org/linux/11/04/11/038257.shtml。

肌肉萎缩性侧索硬化症（ALS）是一种渐进和致命的神经退行性疾病，病人的肌肉会逐渐衰弱、萎缩，丧失运动能力。Adrian Hands是一位ALS病人，在去世前三天他贡献了最后一个补丁，修正了Gnome中一个有9年历史的bug。虽然，当时他已经失去了运动能力，双手残废无法使用键盘。他是用脚在一个莫尔斯码键盘模拟器上输入代码的。

根据网友的评论，看到了他的儿子在他去世后替他做的一段说明（https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=78514#c19 ）：

I would like to extend my thanks to the gnome team/community for a great last
moment with my dad.

Adrian Hands (my father) wrote the patch above to improve the usability of
gnome for himself and others. You see my dad was suffering from ALS and his
hands were so crippled he could no longer use a keyboard. Thus we used a Darci
usb morse code keyboard emulator to help him type. Even the morse code device
was a struggle as the sensitivity adjustment and positioning of the nice two
paddled key would fall out of whack. I rigged up a pvc cage that wrapped around
his knee and fixed remote switches to the cage so that he could use the
remaining strength in his legs to operate the Darci morse code device. He used
this last bit of body movement to write this patch.

Here is a photo of him using it:
https://picasaweb.google.com/HandsAdrian/ShotwellConnect#5549467460761802914

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 would
like to share the email with you.
<email>
On Sun, Jan 30, 2011 at 12:16 PM, Adrian Hands <[email protected]> wrote:
> ACCEPTed
> COMMITed
> RESOLVEd
> BOO-YAH!
>
> commit 0b209b1ff16e863e60a1d86413aa57c5fbde76b0
> Author: Adrian Hands <[email protected]>
> Date:   Fri Dec 31 14:34:58 2010 +0100
>
>    Add Copy Image and Copy Path to clipboard functionality
>
>    Fixes bug 78514.
>
>  data/eog-ui.xml  |    9 +++++++
>  src/eog-window.c |   63 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>  2 files changed, 72 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)

I have the coolest Dad in the world!
</email>

I am so glad that my last comment to my Dad was something like this.

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

Adrian Hands，用自己的生命诠释了自己对程序的热爱。向他致敬！