Eric Ostrom, R.I.P.

I've just heard that Eric Ostrom passed away last week. I never met him, but he worked at Xerox PARC sometime before I did. People would walk past my office, double-take at the nameplate, then look inside and comment that I didn't look much like the Eric they knew. Later, when I lived in Boston, I would run into people who knew Eric from M.I.T. I used to joke that I was following him around the country, at a discreet distance of several years.

Anyway, although I never knew Eric, I always felt a certain bond to him, for obvious reasons. I used to think someday I'd catch up with him, and, although I'd already pretty much permanently diverged from that path, it's sad to realize I never will.

Update: Friends of Eric seem to be finding this post with Google, but he was only a tangential figure in my life. You'd get more out of Doug Alan's post.