Peter Millard, my friend and a longtime contributor to the Jabber community, died last night. Peter fought a tough battle with cancer last year and seemed to have won. Suddenly, in the last few weeks, he faced a new battle with complications from his cancer therapy; he fought long and hard but the damage caused by interstitial lung disease was too much.
Peter was one of the first people I met in the Jabber community in late 1999. He was unfailingly generous, dedicated, hard-working, and honest. His software (first Winjab and then Exodus) was used by hundreds of thousands of people across the world and introduced Jabber to Windows. He was an expert on Jabber technologies and often helped me understand obscure aspects of the protocols, especially in the early days when I was a clueless newbie. Over many years he led our efforts to keep the jabber.org infrastructure stable and reliable. In short, Peter is a big reason why Jabber technologies are where they are today.
Peter will be sorely missed in the Jabber community, but our loss is as nothing compared to the loss experienced by his wife Christina and young daughter Zoe. I plan to soon create a way for Exodus users and others in the Jabber community to help them in their time of need.
Rest in peace, my friend.