HN Reader

It goes deep into his fq_codel work and why it was such a game-changer. It's an informal setting so his personality shines through - seems like we didn't just lose a great technologist, but also a heck of a human.

16 days agoby sophacles

I'm so sorry to hear of his death, and sending my prayers and wishes for peace and healing to his loved ones.

I interacted with him directly only once, while working on a [buffering-related issue in Open connect](https://gitlab.com/openconnect/openconnect/-/issues/582#note...).

Like many others, I was inspired by his great attention to detail, his diligence, and his curiosity, which served as a fantastic example for many people working on tricky and important issues in networking and other technologies.

Those will be some big shoes to fill.

16 days agoby dlenski

What sad news. Dave was an incredible human and very dedicated to making the Internet better and faster. What a loss.

Edit: copying over Vint Cerf's message that was posted on the bufferbloat mail list. I believe that's a public mail list so hopefully Vint doesn't mind:

OMG - that is truly terrible news! I could not say better than Frank already has how much Dave's work has helped to improve our experience of the Internet. I can't think of anyone more dedicated to the proposition that performance counts and should be pursued with determination and vigor. I've known Dave for many years and greatly valued his counsel and technical skills - to say nothing of his healthy sense of humor. I will miss him but will be always grateful to have known him.

dang, could we get a black bar?

16 days agoby sinak

His last name means "star" in Estonian. I was curious if his roots were from Estonia, but could not find any info. In any case, rest in peace Dave.

16 days agoby askonomm

Dave Täht was my initial motivation to get serious about getting into low level networking more than 8 years ago. Ever since then I’ve had the honor to co-develop various systems on multi terabit ISP routers. I’m really thankful for the insights he provided as I was trying to figure out how to configure WRED hardware blocks in our network ASICs. Men like Dave was one in hundred million if that. May he be forever remembered and his work live on forever.

16 days agoby i_am_a_peasant

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_T%C3%A4ht

https://blog.cerowrt.org/

https://lists.bufferbloat.net/pipermail/bloat/2025-April/018...

16 days agoby toomuchtodo

Argh, he was the immediately previous person before me to work on the Unicast Extension Project and still a coauthor on all of our reserved address drafts!

Now our lowest-address draft is at 50% deceased coauthors.

16 days agoby schoen

Never realised that Dave had so much impact on the networking world until now - he had contacted me out of the blue on linkedin years ago after a blog post about my cable/DSL connection woes - wish I talked to him a little more about it. I can see what people mean about him being present everywhere.

Seeing his name on HN, especially in this context, threw me off a little. RIP Dave.

15 days agoby avh02

Hosted one of his measurement boxes for a while. Nice guy, very committed to researching the problem space.

16 days agoby ggm

Dave was ever-present in the areas he had passion for and that presence and unwavering advocacy had many positive outcomes. I'll miss his friendly challenges during future work in this space, they were always enjoyable and valuable even when we had differing approaches.

16 days agoby raggi

met him in prague. had his guitar. played a song for me and this other dude hanging out in the smoking area.

have a video of it if there is a good place to send it to.

RIP to a real one.

16 days agoby yusyusyus

I worked with him in the 90's at SCO and we became friends based more upon music than tech.

He was an early adopter of a kludgy midi bass which he insisted I play but we had lots of laughs at how ridiculous it was.

He visited us in NM about ten years ago and voraciously consumed my wife's pumpkin waffles like he had not eaten for days. Which, knowing him, he likely had not.

I called him MTaht since that was his email handle at SCO.

Many other tales to tell but I will stop.

I am shocked at his passing too soon.

Happy travels, amigo!

14 days agoby ironcloudz

I wonder how many people will never be able to use his work because their router/other firmware is proprietary, GPL violating or otherwise non-upgradable.

16 days agoby pabs3

I ran into him at a store in El Granada in 2022. He was wearing a USENIX t-shirt and I commented on it. I think he was living on a boat in the harbor at the time, it was a little sad. How did he pass?

14 days agoby samuel_curry

It looks like he was also a ham radio enthusiast. One of his pictures shows a ham radio transceiver in the background. Does anyone know what his call sign was?

13 days agoby sen4ik

I don't know him, or what happened to him. I do wonder, if there are members of the old guard who are feeling like the world is shutting off their options, if there is a way to know that and to help.