Dear colleagues, It was with great sadness that we found out about the passing of Bill Manning this weekend. Bill has played a hugely important role in the development of the Internet since the 1970s, and he has had a great impact on the work of the operator community globally. Since he started his work at Texas Instruments and from his time working with Jon Postel at ISI, Bill has been an innovative and charismatic figure in our community. His record of making a positive impact on various groups and communities such as the IETF, RSSAC, ICANN, NANOG, APRICOT and ARIN is a testament to his energy and enthusiasm for the Internet and the people who work in this sphere. He was instrumental in the set-up of AfNOG in Africa when this was a part of our own RIPE community. Bill was a major contributor to work in the DNS field and especially the Internet's root zones, and he operated the B-root server for many years. Daniel Karrenberg, Chief Scientist at the RIPE NCC, notes: "Bill has been a great asset to the operators of the DNS root name servers. He would often contribute original points-of-view and interesting ideas."

From the tributes to Bill that we've seen throughout our community, it is clear that this originality and constant ability to bring interesting ideas and good humour to his work will be remembered.

We hope you will join us in offering our condolences to Bill's family, friends and colleagues at this time. Regards, Christian Kaufmann RIPE NCC Executive Board Chairman